Hey, Yecats, let me see if I can clear up a few things.
What I did with the best blade thing was a practical joke. I was using it to lead up to the apology. Basically, I was saying, hey, now I remember.
As far as your thread. I made the comments I made because I wanted to participate in the thread and I participated in the way I felt was my perspective in the thread. I was not dismissive. I did not simply say, "this thread is dumb." I explained why I felt it was valuable to consider that there was no such thing as a greatest of all time.
However, I will go back and read the whole thread to make sure, but I don't think what you took issue with was my questioning the premise of the thread. I think where you felt offended was in my astonishment that you did not realize how good and how deep the Swedish team from the 80s-90s was.
My memory is, and I have not gone back to read it, so this is, truly from memory, that you asked if they were as deep as the China is today.
My first answer was some statistics on how many years they were in the finals of the WTTC and WTTTC and how many gold and silver medals they won.
Then you asked something that to me implied that you were questioning whether they had as many players not on the A team as China has in all their Provincial teams combined.
And my answer was that the population of Sweden in 2013 was roughly the same as the population of New York City. And that it was not really fair to expect for such a small country to haven that kind of depth since each of those Chinese provinces have at least as large a population as Sweden. But that Sweden's table tennis resources were as deep as a country that small could possibly be, or they would not have been able to dominate the world of table tennis the way they did.
Anyway, regardless of the details of the discussion, I can see how, my being surprised that you didn't realize how good Sweden was and my being further surprised when the first information about what a long period it was when they dominated the table tennis world, didn't help you understand just how good they were.
REGARDLESS of the details of the debate, my style of discussing and making my points is sometimes aggressive and pointed. I did not mean it to be personal. I was not meaning to make you feel bad or unintelligent. I was making a point strongly about what an amazing achievement I felt Sweden's total domination was.
Which year was it when they beat China in the WTTTC Finals 5-0?!!!!!! I have to say, I love that team. [edit: I looked, it was 1989, to me that is amazing.]
But I am sorry if I offended you in the process of DEFENDING MY TEAM. [emoji2]
Again, Yecats, it is good to have you on the forum. And while I may know how to read and write and I may know a bit of history, you may know Table Tennis, the actual thing that is done on the table better than me or most of us. So thanks for being here.
One aside, what NextLevel is trying to say to you, if you actually get past the personal stuff and try to understand the perspective he is presenting, it could make a lot of things in your life go better. Even in game strategy on the table. See if you can understand his actual point with out internalizing what you feel is the personal content. Trust me, he is not against you either.
Oh, and in the future, since you were recommending that I PM you, and I thought I was advocating for my team, so I did not realize that I really had offended you, it is okay with me if you PM me when you feel I am out of line as well. I think there is some usefulness to things that are public, if you wish to contact me privately for any reason, I will do my best to be there for you.
Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy
