Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

Care to comment on this Peter? Did you write the words contained in that link, the words written under email address "[email protected]".

I have a hunch that it may be you, can you confirm?

Edited December 1, 2011 by Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

Can you see the irony Peter that your entire existence is funded by the British Government?

Edited December 1, 2011 by Peter Dow

[kaosmark2]

Bloody hell, cant remember a killjoy like this since Love Not Riots were at there peak and tried to stop people dancing at festivals.

[abdoujaparov]

It's alright, some people are happy turning up, acting like a pretentious arsehole, then once anyone confronts them on it, using that sense of superiority to justify not standing by their initial insistence.

[Uncle Liam]

Peter, I am highly educated. I am recognised by students, parents, and colleagues as being very good at my job. So i can say that I contribute to society.

How do I prove this? Well, I'm University educated at postgraduate level. My students won a national competition on their first attempt. I've been commended by the school I work at for my contribution to students development and progress.

What exactly do you contribute? And how do you prove it?

[feral chile]

It's alright, some people are happy turning up, acting like a pretentious arsehole, then once anyone confronts them on it, using that sense of superiority to justify not standing by their initial insistence.

[Ed209]

A former Aberdeen University postgraduate has escaped a potential prison sentence after ending a defamatory campaign against the university.

Court of Session judge Lord Kirkwood last year deferred sentence on Peter Dow until December after finding him guilty of contempt of court and in breach of interdict by continuing the three-year campaign despite a court ban.

Lord Kirkwood, who had warned Mr Dow that he could face imprisonment, has now admonished him after hearing that the campaign had ended.

Mr Dow began disrupting university meetings and widely distributing leaflets which accused senior staff of being "criminals and gangsters" after the university failed his MSc dissertation on magnetic resonance imaging.

He also condemned them as "potential killers" for interrupting his "life-saving work".

But the court heard that his dissertation was only about 20 pages long and was of extremely poor quality. It had been failed by both internal and external assessors and had gone through all of the university's appeals procedures.

Lord Kirkwood said Mr Dow's allegations were completely without foundation, and that the university had acted throughout with consummate fairness and a great deal of restraint.

A university spokesman said this week: "In 1995, Peter Dow gave the Court of Session an oath of undertaking to desist in his unjustified campaign against the University of Aberdeen, and over the past 12 months he has honoured that undertaking.

"Now that he has put this matter behind him, we hope he is looking to the future and rebuilding his career."

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=102616

[Ed209]

his MSc coursework was utter shite, so they failed him

simple

EDIT: and Peter, if you had written your dissertation in a republic, it still would have sucked.

Edited December 1, 2011 by Ed209

[kaosmark2]

I'll stand by every word I say you obnoxious little shit

See, I can be offensive too - it's easy

I'm not sure what's pretentious about pointing out that Peter exhibits a number of obvious symptoms of mental health problems. In the light of this, I personally think that takign the piss out of him in the way some people are is unlikely to be helpful (if, indeed, he does suffer from mental health problems).

It all smacks too much to me of poking fun at the wierd kid in the playground

but if you think I'm wrong, then by all means crack on. I'll continue to find it an unedifying spectacle, but if you get off on it the that's your look out

[kaosmark2]

Not like a pretentious arsehole - just someone who cares. That's my impression anyway.

[feral chile]

Peter, can I just ask if you're OK with the direction this discussion's taking?

For myself, I get uncomfortable when we start talking about you, and not with you.

[abdoujaparov]

OK, direct insults aside, I've referred to you as pretentious and with a sense of superiority because that's what you've displayed. Your comments have been inconsistent, and you've ignored a lot of the challenges to your initial claims, but you've portrayed yourself as better for not having been involved in 'poking fun at the weird kid in the playground'. Furthermore, you've not seemed to show an interest in discussing whether it is bullying, just that your initial assessment of the situation is fact, and we're all bullies for continuing despite that being pointed out. I'm happy to defend my actions and comments in this thread, and intend to do so, but there isn't going to be any point if you have no interest in people disagreeing with your assertion.

I'll get onto the mental health side, but regarding the bullying claim:

This thread was started as a request to ban him because of his posts regarding a political standpoint being potential spam. It's evolved into a debate about the merit of his views - albeit with most people criticising them - a few jokes suggesting that he's 'crazy', and light-hearted banter about how his admiration/love for Condoleeza Rice, which Peter has taken well and joined in with. Dismissing his viewpoints in reasoned debate and engaging in banter which he joins in with and seems to encourage is not bullying. He's rejected comments that he's 'crazy' with his videos dismissing psychiatry and saying that to insist he is is 'unfair', and such comments have largely stopped. I don't think anyone's interested in tormenting Peter, but people have an opinion regarding his political viewpoints, and find his target for unreciprocated love amusing. People are challenging his claims about what he is (eg. scientist), and he's defending them. Some comments are taking the piss, and many aren't. It's not a gang of people 'getting off' on making him miserable or insulting him, it's a number of seperate people, with seperate viewpoints, seperately arguing the merits/flaws of his viewpoints and making occassional jokes. I asked Peter about a page back if he feels we're bullying him, and when he gets round to replying, I imagine most people will assess their comments and whether they need to change some aspects of them.

On the mental health side and claims, here's some of the inconsistency and arrogance I've referred to:

contrast with:

Then, when it's pointed out that Peter himself rejects any such diagnosis and that it's not necessarily ridiculous to do so, you respond with the comments:

That 'yawn' and reference to your experience comes with further arrogance, as does the precise phrasing of your second comment. Personally, I think mental illness is a very real thing, but also something that's too widely used as an excuse - either for the mentally ill to behave inappropriately, or for people to dismiss people who are mentally ill. If you hadn't decided 'he clearly has mental health issues' would you think it ridiculous that people are criticising his political viewpoints? Would you be treating him and the others in this thread differently? It's an important question.

[abdoujaparov]

Peter, can I just ask if you're OK with the direction this discussion's taking?

For myself, I get uncomfortable when we start talking about you, and not with you.

[feral chile]

me too and I regret starting the thread in this direction, but I found it equally uncomfortable to stand by and watch behaviour which I was not comfortable with

[kaosmark2]

get a grip

all I've said is that, in my opinion, Peter exhibits many of the signs I'd associate with mental health problems...there are signs of him being delusional and paranoid. In my opinion, therefore, taking the piss out of him amounts to bullying. It's pretty simple, consistent and straight forward. It wasnt aimed at you personally and you've no reason to get quite so arsey about it.

It's not arrogant to have views based on the evidence in front of me and years of experience working with people with mental health problems. Nor is it inconsistant to point both to the evidence available and its limitations...it is possible that this could be a long running and effective internet wind up. Personally, I doubt it, but it's not impossible

Are Peter's political views bizaree? Yes, of course they are. The notion that the monarchy is directly responsible for thousands of deaths is clearly nonsense (I say that as a republican) and his lionisation of Condi is clearly odd, to say the least

I'm just offering an opinion - one based on some relevant experience - but just an opinion. Why it warrants the kind of abusive response you've offered I'll never know

[Peter Dow]

So subject yourself to those tests, and have yourself ruled as a cretin unfit for office, and then amend your ideas in light of. that.

Edited December 1, 2011 by Peter Dow

[feral chile]

Surely whether taking the piss out of someone amounts to bullying depends on whether they're OK with it, rather than whether they've got any mental health problems?

It's arrogant to dismiss someone's views as boring, as that 'yawn' suggested you were doing. You've stated 'he clearly has mental health issues', surely that's diagnosing him?

I'd be more inclined to believe he has mental health issues than that this is a long-running internet windup, but I don't believe it's my place or that of anyone else on this forum or another, to dismiss everything he's saying as down to mental health issues. I'd prefer to treat him as I would anyone else, and treat his views with the same merit as that of anyone else on this forum.

I'll accept arsey, I wouldn't say that last one was particularly 'abusive', I'm trying to make a point, and with text's inability to express tone, or putting smileys in (none of which seemed appropriate to any point), it's quite easy to come across as forceful to the point of abusive. Anyway, my being arsey is because I think that bullying is a really serious thing. If I can't justify my comments and my not criticising those of other people earlier, then I've either engaged in bullying or happily watched others bully someone without interfering. I'd hate for that to be the case, so I'm defending my stance quite vehemently, and if I have been guilty of either of those things, then I need to apologise to Peter and start defending him from anyone else. Hence why I'm confronting your general accusation of bullying happening.

[kaosmark2]

The OP started a thread discussing another forum member in the third person, calling him a mentalist, and invited others to join in a discussion of him. That's social exclusion, surely?

What happens in a school, when kids single out a student and start encouraging others to bitch about them?

Would you intervene, Uncle Liam, or would you think it was OK?

[Uncle Liam]

I finished the computer games "Far Cry", "Act of War (demo)", "Republic the Revolution", and "XIII" and a number of others. OK those are games against computer opponents but anyway I got through them OK.

[Peter Dow]

The concept that a healthy person can't find work in a 20 year period is laughable. My brother in law is going out with a polish girl. Her mother moved over here last week and starts a job today, folding and packing bed covers for a major retailer. It pays NMW and the hours are your typical working week. Most people working their seem to be people not from this country. I guess its just beneath most british people or something.... Considering the number complaining they can't find work.

Dow... Get a job...

[Peter Dow]

Nash, he can't .... he has important work to do putting forwards his wacky ideas of what republicanism is, where in his democracy the people's wishes about anything don't count for anything unless they agree with him.

After all, we can't have the people deciding what their constitution might be as it's been done in Ireland, because that only results in fascist clauses put forwards by and approved by the people, against Dow's ideas of what the people should be asking for.

And we certainly can't have a president that acts on the basis of what the people who elected him want. That would be too undemocratic for the likes of Dow.

So let's just put Dow in charge without a vote ....

Edited December 1, 2011 by Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

[Peter Dow]

I think you don't understand the difference between a benevolent ruler and a democratic ruler.

Edited December 2, 2011 by Peter Dow

[Peter Dow]

Yeah. You've already posted those. Doesnt change anything.

[Peter Dow]

You've said that you believe in democracy, right?

Edited December 2, 2011 by Peter Dow