The problem with your whole argument there is the unstated assumption underlying it - Apple is undeserving of the level of criticism that I give it.
I never said this, nor did I imply it. All I said was that you have made up your mind about Apple way before it did all those things, and even if it corrected course tomorrow, your unconscious would still be looking for chinks and flaws and ulterior motives.
This is just like how most people have already made up their minds about most issues out there, and are unconsciously applying a variety of cognitive biases in order to continue holding those opinions.
To put it another way, it's really bad form to try to paint your opponent's opposition as irrationality when the actual problem is that you don't understand their position. Yes, I have a stance on Apple. But that stance is neither uninformed nor irrational.
Ah, the irony of blaming someone of not understanding you. I didn't call your stance irrational. I just said it biased at a fundamental level. Everyone is like this, so you're not a special snowflake either. You were simply the example that popped in my mind as I was typing that post.
Apologies to Apothe0sis for having a long post, but I hope to stay on one topic.
When I first joined the PA Forum I posted in a thread about Religion*. I enjoy good philosophical discussions, and being Catholic at the time felt a strong need to respond. My post was decent enough, but the first to respond was Qingu, who's encyclopedic knowledge of Religion tore my argument to shreds. It didn't stop me from posting, however, and continuing to argue about religion and science together in that thread.
Not much longer after I was posting nonsense in Political threads about Obama and other terrible liberal things**. I soon thought that I was missing something. "What did they know that I didn't?" So, I stopped being silly and started asking questions. I think the first real question I asked was "What is the place of Moderate Republicans?" enlightenedbum and OptimusZed responded, Zed saying that at some point "moderate would become the extreme". I considered his point, and I did not agree with that stance. But I never insisted he was wrong. This was because I had gotten what I wanted; the more I understood about the political spectrum, the better I would be at discussing it.
From that time and in Healthcare threads and Political threads I had been given help in understanding the subject matter. I had also learned of others political views, but I did not apply them to what they posted***. Likewise, I did not feel straw-manning or pigeon-holing to be productive in an argument and thus to be reserved for sarcasm. An example of this would be Police threads, or "How I discovered Thanatos knows a lot about cops." I figured out pretty quick Thanatos doesn't like the system, but it did not dilute from his point on the subject. After all, even though he may often side against a cop(s) he makes a good reason why.
From what I have learned from D&D is that in order to maintain a good discussion one must:
1. Stay on topic; no matter the bias, the argument should remain constructive, even if its the 5th time the same information has been posted.
2. Arguing about grammer/bias/ego doesn't help unless that is somehow the subject of discussion. Hopefully, we can all understand what someone says even if they misspell a word or two. Arguing bias on an openly liberal forum is like telling someone that the sky is blue; it's redundant and pointless. Ego on the internet is to be expected, especially when you have explained for the twelfth time that Barack Obama's real name is indeed Barack Obama.
3. Never, EVER discuss religion with Qingu. He will systematically destroy you.
*Specifically, the thread was about a woman who killed her son, age 1-3, because he did not say Grace at dinner. At her trial, she claimed that her son would come back in 3 days.
**I had been a avid listener to conservative pundits at the time, thus making it much more difficult to actually have a decent discussion about politics in America.
***Dismissal of a point based solely on their political/religious stance became a fallacy to me by this time.
Especially for the emotional topics. If you haven't found something someone has said on this forum pretty offensive, you probably either haven't been here long enough, or should probably check your chest for circuitry, rather than organs. But you can express even your offense without derailing a topic; by discussing it, rather than lashing out. If you wanted to get really extreme, you could maybe even explain why something is offensive. I know this may be surprising, but while I have been convinced to change may point of view many times on this forum, it has never been by someone calling me an idiot.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
It may simply be an issue of personal aesthetics, but I have found the "fisking" style--breaking up a post into quoted chunks and placing responses between the chunks--renders larger points almost completely unreadable, and often forces people into a debate mode where they are attacking and defending small bits at a time rather than broader points that might be conveyed over the course of a couple of paragraphs or more.
This much I do agree with.
Line-by-line back and forth almost always obscures the actual point of the discussion, while at the same time making it entirely impenetrable for anyone new who wants to join in. At its extreme, it can single-handedly turn a thread from healthy discourse into a point-scoring competition between two posters.
The dogpiling effect is at its worst when there are multiple dissenters arguing different things. They tend to get lumped in to one imagined poster "up there" who is making all the dissenting posts.
Line-by-line back and forth almost always obscures the actual point of the discussion, while at the same time making it entirely impenetrable for anyone new who wants to join in. At its extreme, it can single-handedly turn a thread from healthy discourse into a point-scoring competition between two posters.
So is there anybody who disagrees with this? If not, this thread may have produced its first result. Something along the lines of: "We, the underposted, vow to try avoiding that line-by-line shit." Is that something everybody could get behind?
The celibate pedophile babysitter is going to look after your kids tonight. The celibate pedophile babysitter can't choose who he is attracted to - he was born that way - but he has made a vow to never molest children and is attending therapy sessions for good measure. The celibate pedophile babysitter wants to know whether or not he should give your kids a bath before they put on their pajamas and are tucked in bed. A 'normal' babysitter would give the kids a bath so you can't think of any reason to tell the celibate pedophile babysitter to skip the bath.
With the babysitter's vow of celibacy in mind, are you going to worry about your kids' safety while you're away from home? If you say yes, how can you not sympathize on some level with the homophobic serviceman who is uncomfortable with showering with gay men?
and, let us keep in mind, that this is part of an extensive, persistent pattern:
Line-by-line back and forth almost always obscures the actual point of the discussion, while at the same time making it entirely impenetrable for anyone new who wants to join in. At its extreme, it can single-handedly turn a thread from healthy discourse into a point-scoring competition between two posters.
So is there anybody who disagrees with this? If not, this thread may have produced its first result. Something along the lines of: "We, the underposted, vow to try avoiding that line-by-line shit." Is that something everybody could get behind?
Sure, within reason. I think that breaking up a post in this manner can be useful, so long as you're breaking it up such that the snippets are complete ideas/arguments. It becomes necessary as lack of structure in our posts increases over the life of the thread. But we should definitely avoid attacking individual sentences/grammar and focus instead on the complete ideas that are presented.
The thing that always gets me, regardless of the "sides" in any given debate, is when one poster latches on to a mistyping by someone they disagree with and proceeds to form an argument around it. A missing word or a failure of Firefox spellchecker shouldn't "win" your debate for you. Just be a reasonable goddamn person and assume the person you're replying to knows how to spell "litigation" or meant to put a "not" in the place that keeps their argument consistent.
I feel pretty confident that we've mostly stamped out that sort of thing around here. I can't remember the last time I saw someone trying to shut down a debate by pointing out spelling or grammar mistakes.
I feel pretty confident that we've mostly stamped out that sort of thing around here. I can't remember the last time I saw someone trying to shut down a debate by pointing out spelling or grammar mistakes.
The spelling is less of an issue, I agree. But missed negatives have sent issue threads spiraling into completely unreasonable territory more than a few times in my experience.
I think we're pretty good about it overall, but I see it more than I'd like. I don't see any current examples, though, so maybe this is the D&D polio.
It probably has something to do with the fact that D&D's members have aged somewhat since its inception. Grammar/spelling nazism can seem like a fine debate tactic when you're barely out of high school.
It probably has something to do with the fact that D&D's members have aged somewhat since its inception. Grammar/spelling nazism can seem like a fine debate tactic when you're barely out of high school.
I'd be curious to see a demographic breakdown of D&D, by age, location and such.
I'd be curious to see a demographic breakdown of D&D, by age, location and such.
Didn't somebody do this at one point?
Thanks for volunteering Zed! Go think up a good poll and OP, contact a mod to make it happen, and get back to us. I think a demographic breakdown would be very interesting in itself, and informative for this thread. Seriously, it's a good idea. Go make it happen.
Except in very particular circumstances* a post of more than 3 or 4 paragraphs causes problems - mainly because it involves such a diverse number of issues. This causes a rapid ballooning effect on two levels - firstly, responses must be proportionately longer. As everyone has different interests and focuses everyone takes different things as being important points upon which to focus in a given wall of prose**. As such, it's rare that a poster is satisfied with the preceding responses and thus for each poster you have a unique and long post. This becomes unmanageable to respond to and everyone's cherished and salient points are ignored and then tempers flare and things go downhill and the people who make the arguments fun (the dissenters) run away.
It may simply be an issue of personal aesthetics, but I have found the "fisking" style--breaking up a post into quoted chunks and placing responses between the chunks--renders larger points almost completely unreadable, and often forces people into a debate mode where they are attacking and defending small bits at a time rather than broader points that might be conveyed over the course of a couple of paragraphs or more. I think it does one's counterpart justice, does the argument justice, to restate what the other person has said in one's own words, so as to be certain common ideas are what is being discussed.
I grew up with this style of debate—enclosing points in "quote" tags and responding bit by bit. I agree that it definitely has its limits, and actually on another forum you can't use quote tags (or any tags), which forces you to respond almost like a chat—and that style is definitely growing on me. It feels much more conversational.
Ironically, I'm responding to you with quote tags.
@Drez, would you be inclined to change the thread title to something more obvious about the nature of discourse on here, so that more people might weigh in? Maybe something like "D&D Code of Conduct meta-thread" or something? The current title is a wee bit obscure.
I'd be curious to see a demographic breakdown of D&D, by age, location and such.
Didn't somebody do this at one point?
Thanks for volunteering Zed! Go think up a good poll and OP, contact a mod to make it happen, and get back to us. I think a demographic breakdown would be very interesting in itself, and informative for this thread. Seriously, it's a good idea. Go make it happen.
I'd be willing to take this on, but aren't poll threads verbotten? I'm also headed for vacation at the end of the week, so updates would be spotty after that.
We should all talk about what kind of information we want to see. I've got an idea for how much we might want to know (without it becoming overly intrusive), but I might be looking for different things than others.
I'd be curious to see a demographic breakdown of D&D, by age, location and such.
Didn't somebody do this at one point?
Thanks for volunteering Zed! Go think up a good poll and OP, contact a mod to make it happen, and get back to us. I think a demographic breakdown would be very interesting in itself, and informative for this thread. Seriously, it's a good idea. Go make it happen.
I'd be willing to take this on, but aren't poll threads verbotten? I'm also headed for vacation at the end of the week, so updates would be spotty after that.
We should all talk about what kind of information we want to see. I've got an idea for how much we might want to know (without it becoming overly intrusive), but I might be looking for different things than others.
You can get a poll thread if you make a good case for one to a mod.
I'd be curious to see a demographic breakdown of D&D, by age, location and such.
Didn't somebody do this at one point?
Thanks for volunteering Zed! Go think up a good poll and OP, contact a mod to make it happen, and get back to us. I think a demographic breakdown would be very interesting in itself, and informative for this thread. Seriously, it's a good idea. Go make it happen.
I'd be willing to take this on, but aren't poll threads verbotten? I'm also headed for vacation at the end of the week, so updates would be spotty after that.
We should all talk about what kind of information we want to see. I've got an idea for how much we might want to know (without it becoming overly intrusive), but I might be looking for different things than others.
You can get a poll thread if you make a good case for one to a mod.
The problem with your whole argument there is the unstated assumption underlying it - Apple is undeserving of the level of criticism that I give it.
I never said this, nor did I imply it. All I said was that you have made up your mind about Apple way before it did all those things, and even if it corrected course tomorrow, your unconscious would still be looking for chinks and flaws and ulterior motives.
This is just like how most people have already made up their minds about most issues out there, and are unconsciously applying a variety of cognitive biases in order to continue holding those opinions.
To put it another way, it's really bad form to try to paint your opponent's opposition as irrationality when the actual problem is that you don't understand their position. Yes, I have a stance on Apple. But that stance is neither uninformed nor irrational.
Ah, the irony of blaming someone of not understanding you. I didn't call your stance irrational. I just said it biased at a fundamental level. Everyone is like this, so you're not a special snowflake either. You were simply the example that popped in my mind as I was typing that post.
You keep falling into the Broderian fallacy that bias is intrinsically "bad" and to some degree irrational. Bias is not, in of itself, wrong - it is not wrong to take a stance and defend it, providing, of course, that you can defend it. In fact, I have little respect for what can be termed the "mushy middle", as it is occupied by those who either aren't paying attention, have turned cynicism into an artform, or those who don't want to admit their bias for fear of societal repercussions.
And I am capable of changing my position - however, since I don't reach my stances lightly, changing them is not done lightly either. To take your example, if Apple "changed course", I would note that as a positive development. But I'm not going to accept that they have changed their ways until I see concrete proof of their doing so.
And your argument does actually insinuate that there is an irrationality to people that are "biased". You insinuate that people who take strong stances have made up their minds and then try to fit the facts around that, without any consideration of why someone would hold a specific stance. In short, you want a way to dismiss critics without needing to understand their stance.
@Drez, would you be inclined to change the thread title to something more obvious about the nature of discourse on here, so that more people might weigh in? Maybe something like "D&D Code of Conduct meta-thread" or something? The current title is a wee bit obscure.
The problem with your whole argument there is the unstated assumption underlying it - Apple is undeserving of the level of criticism that I give it.
I never said this, nor did I imply it. All I said was that you have made up your mind about Apple way before it did all those things, and even if it corrected course tomorrow, your unconscious would still be looking for chinks and flaws and ulterior motives.
This is just like how most people have already made up their minds about most issues out there, and are unconsciously applying a variety of cognitive biases in order to continue holding those opinions.
To put it another way, it's really bad form to try to paint your opponent's opposition as irrationality when the actual problem is that you don't understand their position. Yes, I have a stance on Apple. But that stance is neither uninformed nor irrational.
Ah, the irony of blaming someone of not understanding you. I didn't call your stance irrational. I just said it biased at a fundamental level. Everyone is like this, so you're not a special snowflake either. You were simply the example that popped in my mind as I was typing that post.
You keep falling into the Broderian fallacy that bias is intrinsically "bad" and to some degree irrational. Bias is not, in of itself, wrong - it is not wrong to take a stance and defend it, providing, of course, that you can defend it. In fact, I have little respect for what can be termed the "mushy middle", as it is occupied by those who either aren't paying attention, have turned cynicism into an artform, or those who don't want to admit their bias for fear of societal repercussions.
And I am capable of changing my position - however, since I don't reach my stances lightly, changing them is not done lightly either. To take your example, if Apple "changed course", I would note that as a positive development. But I'm not going to accept that they have changed their ways until I see concrete proof of their doing so.
And your argument does actually insinuate that there is an irrationality to people that are "biased". You insinuate that people who take strong stances have made up their minds and then try to fit the facts around that, without any consideration of why someone would hold a specific stance. In short, you want a way to dismiss critics without needing to understand their stance.
You'll pardon me if I find that rather insulting.
So here's a question... is this off topic because it's not about the OP, or is it perfectly on topic since it's a fairly good example of an argument that is attempting actual communication?
I think this is actually a good example where assuming the best intentions of the opposition is the way to go. AngelHedgie may very well have made a quick judgment about Apple that he sees fulfilled every place his eyes can find, but so long as he is making a reasoned case, it is more appropriate to stick with the case itself, rather than the possible motivation. (Not that I have any opinion in the particular case of AngelHedgie vs Jobs: Battle Royale.)
One thing I'd like to see a lot more of is people understanding that someone may be offended at something you post and apologizing for it, and the offended person accepting the apology. I see the following exchange far too often:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Suck my dick because I wasn't trying to offend you! You are just too thin-skinned!
B: Your mom is a classy lady!
etc.
It could really elevate things around here if instead the following occurred:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Sorry! I was arguing something in good faith and I apologize that I offended you.
B: It's cool, guy. I know you didn't mean to offend me.
One thing I'd like to see a lot more of is people understanding that someone may be offended at something you post and apologizing for it, and the offended person accepting the apology. I see the following exchange far too often:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Suck my dick because I wasn't trying to offend you! You are just too thin-skinned!
B: Your mom is a classy lady!
etc.
It could really elevate things around here if instead the following occurred:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Sorry! I was arguing something in good faith and I apologize that I offended you.
B: It's cool, guy. I know you didn't mean to offend me.
Intent is pretty irrelevant though. If I were to say "gamers are ugly and also stupid!" (or, uh, "it is valid to compare gay people to pedophiles!") and then someone else said "I am genuinely offended at what you just said!" a better response than "I apologize that I offended you" is "I apologize; that was indeed offensive and I shouldn't have said it."
One thing I'd like to see a lot more of is people understanding that someone may be offended at something you post and apologizing for it, and the offended person accepting the apology. I see the following exchange far too often:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Suck my dick because I wasn't trying to offend you! You are just too thin-skinned!
B: Your mom is a classy lady!
etc.
It could really elevate things around here if instead the following occurred:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Sorry! I was arguing something in good faith and I apologize that I offended you.
B: It's cool, guy. I know you didn't mean to offend me.
Intent is pretty irrelevant though. If I were to say "gamers are ugly and also stupid!" (or, uh, "it is valid to compare gay people to pedophiles!") and then someone else said "I am genuinely offended at what you just said!" a better response than "I apologize that I offended you" is "I apologize; that was indeed offensive and I shouldn't have said it."
Well obviously. That's not really what I meant though. I was really talking about careless wording or a controversial viewpoint that might not necessarily be mean-spirited.
We should probably have this discussion in the [Economy] thread, but what you are describing is not what I'm talking about. You are talking about how the supply side effect of unemployment benefits (i.e. fewer job seekers) is not a problem during persistent and high unemployment. Agreed, no question about it.
What I'm talking about is that on the demand side (i.e. number of workers firms want) the real wage needs to fall to eliminate the labor surplus.
In other words, we have three related problems. 1. Unemployment too high. 2. Imports too high. 3. Exports too low. Lowering wages across the board eliminates all three problems. 1. Firms find it more profitable to suck up the extra labor. 2. Imports become too expensive for workers here. 3. Our exports become more competitive globally.
Keynesians would argue that the reason wages don't fall "by themselves" to eliminate those problems is their "stickiness" due to asymmetric information in the labor market.
Usually what (developing) countries do in this situation is devalue their currency. That lowers real wages without the actual currency wage falling. We don't want to due that since we would loose reserve currency status if we did. And sitting on the reserve currency is totally awesome in the long run. Basically, we face a similar situation to Greece, although much less grim. It too cannot devalue to rebalance its economy. Since we don't want to devalue, we need lower wages in the country instead.
You know, I find the whole "we need to lower real wages" talk to be rather offensive. Then again, I'm tired of our societal propensity to privatize profit and socialize losses.
I'd be curious to see a demographic breakdown of D&D, by age, location and such.
Didn't somebody do this at one point?
Thanks for volunteering Zed! Go think up a good poll and OP, contact a mod to make it happen, and get back to us. I think a demographic breakdown would be very interesting in itself, and informative for this thread. Seriously, it's a good idea. Go make it happen.
I'd be willing to take this on, but aren't poll threads verbotten? I'm also headed for vacation at the end of the week, so updates would be spotty after that.
We should all talk about what kind of information we want to see. I've got an idea for how much we might want to know (without it becoming overly intrusive), but I might be looking for different things than others.
I think G/T/Khoo did this awhile back via a poll on the main page. There was a large number of people in the 20s/30s and the average person was like somewhere in the 30k-50k range for income iirc
One thing I'd like to see a lot more of is people understanding that someone may be offended at something you post and apologizing for it, and the offended person accepting the apology. I see the following exchange far too often:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Suck my dick because I wasn't trying to offend you! You are just too thin-skinned!
B: Your mom is a classy lady!
etc.
It could really elevate things around here if instead the following occurred:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Sorry! I was arguing something in good faith and I apologize that I offended you.
B: It's cool, guy. I know you didn't mean to offend me.
Intent is pretty irrelevant though. If I were to say "gamers are ugly and also stupid!" (or, uh, "it is valid to compare gay people to pedophiles!") and then someone else said "I am genuinely offended at what you just said!" a better response than "I apologize that I offended you" is "I apologize; that was indeed offensive and I shouldn't have said it."
I disagree. This means that the most easily offended person on any given subject gets to determine by fiat what is and is not acceptable for that topic.
As long as something does not rise to the level of infraction-worthy behavior there should be no requirement of a fake apology if the original poster does not feel it is warranted.
People are just as apt to be offended for stupid reasons as they are to make stupid statements in the first place.
edit: I would add that taking offense, often in an incincere way, is one of the get-out-of-argument-free trump cards that are misused around here.
I think we should all be able to agree here that the correct thing to do if someone says something offensive is to report them (assuming they broke the rules, I guess you could be offensive without breaking the rules). Getting angry and asking if they are retarded, not so much the correct response, and should equally be reported.
There should be no place for flame wars here.
JebusUD on
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
I disagree. This means that the most easily offended person on any given subject gets to determine by fiat what is and is not acceptable for that topic.
As long as something does not rise to the level of infraction-worthy behavior there should be no requirement of a fake apology if the original poster does not feel it is warranted.
People are just as apt to be offended for stupid reasons as they are to make stupid statements in the first place.
edit: I would add that taking offense, often in an incincere way, is one of the get-out-of-argument-free trump cards that are misused around here.
Has this ever actually been a problem on this forum, though?
It's been a huge problem on some other forum's I've hung out at (religious ones) but I don't think the culture here would really fall for this tactic; the feign-offended person would get called out pretty quick.
I'd be curious to see a demographic breakdown of D&D, by age, location and such.
Didn't somebody do this at one point?
Thanks for volunteering Zed! Go think up a good poll and OP, contact a mod to make it happen, and get back to us. I think a demographic breakdown would be very interesting in itself, and informative for this thread. Seriously, it's a good idea. Go make it happen.
I'd be willing to take this on, but aren't poll threads verbotten? I'm also headed for vacation at the end of the week, so updates would be spotty after that.
We should all talk about what kind of information we want to see. I've got an idea for how much we might want to know (without it becoming overly intrusive), but I might be looking for different things than others.
I think G/T/Khoo did this awhile back via a poll on the main page. There was a large number of people in the 20s/30s and the average person was like somewhere in the 30k-50k range for income iirc
But the readership of the front page and the membership of a specific subforum are going to be very different. I think it's worth looking into.
Let's add "you need to see a psychiatrist" to the list of terrible pieces of rhetoric to sling around in a debate.
God knows I've done it. I think and hope I've outgrown it, because it's really very obnoxious. Even if the person is arguing in favor of testing for homosexuality in the womb and feeding gay fetuses to the volcano god to appease his anger, it's still not appropriate. He or she may very well need to see a psychiatrist, but it's not for any of us to say.
I disagree. This means that the most easily offended person on any given subject gets to determine by fiat what is and is not acceptable for that topic.
As long as something does not rise to the level of infraction-worthy behavior there should be no requirement of a fake apology if the original poster does not feel it is warranted.
People are just as apt to be offended for stupid reasons as they are to make stupid statements in the first place.
edit: I would add that taking offense, often in an incincere way, is one of the get-out-of-argument-free trump cards that are misused around here.
Has this ever actually been a problem on this forum, though?
It's been a huge problem on some other forum's I've hung out at (religious ones) but I don't think the culture here would really fall for this tactic; the feign-offended person would get called out pretty quick.
And anyway, "I'm sorry that you were offended" is a fake apology in itself. I don't think that has ever made anyone feel better, and it usually has the effect of pissing them off more.
"People with brown hair are inferior."
"That's very offensive."
The options here I think would be "yes, that is offensive, i apologize and i shouldn't have said it," radio silence, or "I don't understand your objection, would you mind explaining it?" (although in that case the objection is pretty obvious). "I'm sorry that you were offended" would not help matters.
Let's add "you need to see a psychiatrist" to the list of terrible pieces of rhetoric to sling around in a debate.
God knows I've done it. I think and hope I've outgrown it, because it's really very obnoxious. Even if the person is arguing in favor of testing for homosexuality in the womb and feeding gay fetuses to the volcano god to appease his anger, it's still not appropriate. He or she may very well need to see a psychiatrist, but it's not for any of us to say.
This goes hand in hand with pop psychology, too. How often do we see one poster declaring that another poster is obviously suffering from a specific mental or psychological issue and all the opinions generated thereby are thus rendered invalid?
Sociopathy is a common one around here, it seems. I've seen aspergers a few times, as well.
Let's add "you need to see a psychiatrist" to the list of terrible pieces of rhetoric to sling around in a debate.
God knows I've done it. I think and hope I've outgrown it, because it's really very obnoxious. Even if the person is arguing in favor of testing for homosexuality in the womb and feeding gay fetuses to the volcano god to appease his anger, it's still not appropriate. He or she may very well need to see a psychiatrist, but it's not for any of us to say.
This goes hand in hand with pop psychology, too. How often do we see one poster declaring that another poster is obviously suffering from a specific mental or psychological issue and all the opinions generated thereby are thus rendered invalid?
Sociopathy is a common one around here, it seems. I've seen aspergers a few times, as well.
Yep. Happens a lot. Won't lie, I've engaged in it too. I think it's a common knee-jerk when someone espouses a point of view so radically different from or directly opposed to your own - and you consider yourself "sane" - that the only "logical" conclusion at that point is that the other person literally isn't sane.
Posts
It usually happens because people type long ass, multi-point posts.
I hear you, it happens to me too, going both ways.
What's a good way to deal with those kinds of multi-point posts though? How do they originally come about?
I never said this, nor did I imply it. All I said was that you have made up your mind about Apple way before it did all those things, and even if it corrected course tomorrow, your unconscious would still be looking for chinks and flaws and ulterior motives.
This is just like how most people have already made up their minds about most issues out there, and are unconsciously applying a variety of cognitive biases in order to continue holding those opinions.
Ah, the irony of blaming someone of not understanding you. I didn't call your stance irrational. I just said it biased at a fundamental level. Everyone is like this, so you're not a special snowflake either. You were simply the example that popped in my mind as I was typing that post.
When I first joined the PA Forum I posted in a thread about Religion*. I enjoy good philosophical discussions, and being Catholic at the time felt a strong need to respond. My post was decent enough, but the first to respond was Qingu, who's encyclopedic knowledge of Religion tore my argument to shreds. It didn't stop me from posting, however, and continuing to argue about religion and science together in that thread.
Not much longer after I was posting nonsense in Political threads about Obama and other terrible liberal things**. I soon thought that I was missing something. "What did they know that I didn't?" So, I stopped being silly and started asking questions. I think the first real question I asked was "What is the place of Moderate Republicans?" enlightenedbum and OptimusZed responded, Zed saying that at some point "moderate would become the extreme". I considered his point, and I did not agree with that stance. But I never insisted he was wrong. This was because I had gotten what I wanted; the more I understood about the political spectrum, the better I would be at discussing it.
From that time and in Healthcare threads and Political threads I had been given help in understanding the subject matter. I had also learned of others political views, but I did not apply them to what they posted***. Likewise, I did not feel straw-manning or pigeon-holing to be productive in an argument and thus to be reserved for sarcasm. An example of this would be Police threads, or "How I discovered Thanatos knows a lot about cops." I figured out pretty quick Thanatos doesn't like the system, but it did not dilute from his point on the subject. After all, even though he may often side against a cop(s) he makes a good reason why.
From what I have learned from D&D is that in order to maintain a good discussion one must:
1. Stay on topic; no matter the bias, the argument should remain constructive, even if its the 5th time the same information has been posted.
2. Arguing about grammer/bias/ego doesn't help unless that is somehow the subject of discussion. Hopefully, we can all understand what someone says even if they misspell a word or two. Arguing bias on an openly liberal forum is like telling someone that the sky is blue; it's redundant and pointless. Ego on the internet is to be expected, especially when you have explained for the twelfth time that Barack Obama's real name is indeed Barack Obama.
3. Never, EVER discuss religion with Qingu. He will systematically destroy you.
**I had been a avid listener to conservative pundits at the time, thus making it much more difficult to actually have a decent discussion about politics in America.
***Dismissal of a point based solely on their political/religious stance became a fallacy to me by this time.
Especially for the emotional topics. If you haven't found something someone has said on this forum pretty offensive, you probably either haven't been here long enough, or should probably check your chest for circuitry, rather than organs. But you can express even your offense without derailing a topic; by discussing it, rather than lashing out. If you wanted to get really extreme, you could maybe even explain why something is offensive. I know this may be surprising, but while I have been convinced to change may point of view many times on this forum, it has never been by someone calling me an idiot.
--LeVar Burton
This much I do agree with.
Line-by-line back and forth almost always obscures the actual point of the discussion, while at the same time making it entirely impenetrable for anyone new who wants to join in. At its extreme, it can single-handedly turn a thread from healthy discourse into a point-scoring competition between two posters.
So is there anybody who disagrees with this? If not, this thread may have produced its first result. Something along the lines of: "We, the underposted, vow to try avoiding that line-by-line shit." Is that something everybody could get behind?
Wow. That's a ridicuterribad analogy. Although I have to be honest; I expected something much more offensive. This was comparatively tame. Usually, yeah. But sometimes a punch in the face is exactly what a conversation needs.
Sure, within reason. I think that breaking up a post in this manner can be useful, so long as you're breaking it up such that the snippets are complete ideas/arguments. It becomes necessary as lack of structure in our posts increases over the life of the thread. But we should definitely avoid attacking individual sentences/grammar and focus instead on the complete ideas that are presented.
In short, don't be a pedantic douchebag.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I think we're pretty good about it overall, but I see it more than I'd like. I don't see any current examples, though, so maybe this is the D&D polio.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Didn't somebody do this at one point?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Thanks for volunteering Zed! Go think up a good poll and OP, contact a mod to make it happen, and get back to us. I think a demographic breakdown would be very interesting in itself, and informative for this thread. Seriously, it's a good idea. Go make it happen.
PERSON A makes a point.
PERSON B makes a counter point to A.
PERSON C makes a counter point to A.
PERSON D makes a counter point to A.
PERSON A makes counter points to B C and D. He or she does so by quoting each post and replying directly.
PERSON B makes a counter point to A on all 3 points, continuing the split.
Now you have a split post, line by line debate between A and B, with C and D joining in every once in a while.
Ironically, I'm responding to you with quote tags.
We should all talk about what kind of information we want to see. I've got an idea for how much we might want to know (without it becoming overly intrusive), but I might be looking for different things than others.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You can get a poll thread if you make a good case for one to a mod.
I'll grab Elki or Echo when I see them in [chat].
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You keep falling into the Broderian fallacy that bias is intrinsically "bad" and to some degree irrational. Bias is not, in of itself, wrong - it is not wrong to take a stance and defend it, providing, of course, that you can defend it. In fact, I have little respect for what can be termed the "mushy middle", as it is occupied by those who either aren't paying attention, have turned cynicism into an artform, or those who don't want to admit their bias for fear of societal repercussions.
And I am capable of changing my position - however, since I don't reach my stances lightly, changing them is not done lightly either. To take your example, if Apple "changed course", I would note that as a positive development. But I'm not going to accept that they have changed their ways until I see concrete proof of their doing so.
And your argument does actually insinuate that there is an irrationality to people that are "biased". You insinuate that people who take strong stances have made up their minds and then try to fit the facts around that, without any consideration of why someone would hold a specific stance. In short, you want a way to dismiss critics without needing to understand their stance.
You'll pardon me if I find that rather insulting.
How's my revision?
So here's a question... is this off topic because it's not about the OP, or is it perfectly on topic since it's a fairly good example of an argument that is attempting actual communication?
I think this is actually a good example where assuming the best intentions of the opposition is the way to go. AngelHedgie may very well have made a quick judgment about Apple that he sees fulfilled every place his eyes can find, but so long as he is making a reasoned case, it is more appropriate to stick with the case itself, rather than the possible motivation. (Not that I have any opinion in the particular case of AngelHedgie vs Jobs: Battle Royale.)
--LeVar Burton
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Suck my dick because I wasn't trying to offend you! You are just too thin-skinned!
B: Your mom is a classy lady!
etc.
It could really elevate things around here if instead the following occurred:
A: Honest viewpoint with no intent to offend!
B: I am genuinely offended at what you just said!
A: Sorry! I was arguing something in good faith and I apologize that I offended you.
B: It's cool, guy. I know you didn't mean to offend me.
Intent is pretty irrelevant though. If I were to say "gamers are ugly and also stupid!" (or, uh, "it is valid to compare gay people to pedophiles!") and then someone else said "I am genuinely offended at what you just said!" a better response than "I apologize that I offended you" is "I apologize; that was indeed offensive and I shouldn't have said it."
Well obviously. That's not really what I meant though. I was really talking about careless wording or a controversial viewpoint that might not necessarily be mean-spirited.
I think G/T/Khoo did this awhile back via a poll on the main page. There was a large number of people in the 20s/30s and the average person was like somewhere in the 30k-50k range for income iirc
I disagree. This means that the most easily offended person on any given subject gets to determine by fiat what is and is not acceptable for that topic.
As long as something does not rise to the level of infraction-worthy behavior there should be no requirement of a fake apology if the original poster does not feel it is warranted.
People are just as apt to be offended for stupid reasons as they are to make stupid statements in the first place.
edit: I would add that taking offense, often in an incincere way, is one of the get-out-of-argument-free trump cards that are misused around here.
There should be no place for flame wars here.
but they're listening to every word I say
It's been a huge problem on some other forum's I've hung out at (religious ones) but I don't think the culture here would really fall for this tactic; the feign-offended person would get called out pretty quick.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
God knows I've done it. I think and hope I've outgrown it, because it's really very obnoxious. Even if the person is arguing in favor of testing for homosexuality in the womb and feeding gay fetuses to the volcano god to appease his anger, it's still not appropriate. He or she may very well need to see a psychiatrist, but it's not for any of us to say.
And anyway, "I'm sorry that you were offended" is a fake apology in itself. I don't think that has ever made anyone feel better, and it usually has the effect of pissing them off more.
"People with brown hair are inferior."
"That's very offensive."
The options here I think would be "yes, that is offensive, i apologize and i shouldn't have said it," radio silence, or "I don't understand your objection, would you mind explaining it?" (although in that case the objection is pretty obvious). "I'm sorry that you were offended" would not help matters.
Sociopathy is a common one around here, it seems. I've seen aspergers a few times, as well.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yep. Happens a lot. Won't lie, I've engaged in it too. I think it's a common knee-jerk when someone espouses a point of view so radically different from or directly opposed to your own - and you consider yourself "sane" - that the only "logical" conclusion at that point is that the other person literally isn't sane.