Oh man you've searched my post history to discover my secret agenda, which I flat out stated in my first post when I said on most forums zero content threads like this are closed instantly. My 'agenda' is that I think it would be nice if General Discussion was a place you could come and actually find some actual discussion on interesting topics, rather than a thousand plus page thread of people just mind dumping in the hope that someone will ask them about it.
1. I never used the word agenda, so quoting it at me only makes you look silly.
2. Your antagonistic attitude is unnecessary. I was wondering if you had seen the thread go downhill, or had been getting really irritated about recent changes. It would give you a reason to act irritable.
3. If you want to read interesting topics, then start interesting topics. Alternatively, there's a great number of other forums that are much more active about thread-pruning, as you said. You might try looking for interesting discussion there.
4. Communities are built by people relating to each other. This thread serves a purpose.
I agree with you that I dislike its devolution into a cat roleplaying thread, or an innuendo thread, or whatever. That irritates me. For its actual goal/purpose, however, it is quite valuable.
And then when someone who is a 'popular' member of the forum expresses an opinion everyone else leaps to agree, whether they actually agree or not, just to feel like they're part of the COOL CROWD.
Given the number of angry arguments I get into and my apparent popularity, I'm going to disagree with you on a factual basis.
Forgive me if I'd prefer not to hold meaningful discussion in the internet equivalent of high school
The nice thing about high school is that at the end, you can graduate.