Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

liamrosen.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–109 of 109 posts

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#101

Post by da39a3ee »

croon wrote: post #99
da39a3ee wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, have you read the RationalWiki entry for Quillette? Just that entry is a good example of how the intolerance of the identity politics movement is spreading into domains that a rational society should be protecting. Read the articles in Quillette that I linked to by Colin Wright -- he was (before his career was ended by identity politics people) very obviously just an evolutionary biologist, not some sort of righ…

Maybe consider the entry for Quillette being in line with their stated purpose.

I don't understand, can you expand? Here is what's on their website. It seems very much in line with the purpose of RationalWiki doesn't it?

> Quillette is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#102

Post by croon »

da39a3ee wrote: post #101
croon wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe consider the entry for Quillette being in line with their stated purpose.

I don't understand, can you expand? Here is what's on their website. It seems very much in line with the purpose of RationalWiki doesn't it? > Quillette is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange.

I'm suggesting that RationalWiki is portraying Quillette accurately, and that Quillette is not.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#103

Post by croon »

da39a3ee wrote: post #100
croon wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I remember when he did that with Christianity. I'm agnostic and I have his old books in my bookcase. He wasn't "criticizing" Islam, he was fearmongering. Then he started cozying up with evangelists as long as they hated "post-modernists" enough. He has (previously) had a lot of good things to say, and at some point he abandoned his ideals in favor of politics, and just became another Jordan Peterson crank.

Yes, I'm a biologist, and I also read all his old books when I was younger. I can see why you might think that he's only interested in politics based on media coverage, but it actually isn't true: I went to listen to him speak in Berkeley 3 years ago, and it was nearly all about the old stuff: gene-level selection, kin selection, etc. Two years later he was due to come again at the invitation of the same radio statio…

https://web.archive.org/web/20190929045043/https:/twitter.co...

https://web.archive.org/web/20190929094120if_/https://twitte...

But I don't really care about his views on biological genders, but what relevant point did he have when writing this message down in the blog post?:

https://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/

He's become a political agitator, and increasingly rarely a scientist.

This is not meant to say "stick to science", but if he wants to be political, I'm going to criticize is politics, because they suck and he does deserve scorn for them.

Maybe as an old guy don't tell a woman that her experience is wrong.

I don't think that this is a radical "post-modernist" idea.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#104

Post by da39a3ee »

croon wrote: post #103
da39a3ee wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm a biologist, and I also read all his old books when I was younger. I can see why you might think that he's only interested in politics based on media coverage, but it actually isn't true: I went to listen to him speak in Berkeley 3 years ago, and it was nearly all about the old stuff: gene-level selection, kin selection, etc. Two years later he was due to come again at the invitation of the same radio statio…

https://web.archive.org/web/20190929045043/https:/twitter.co... https://web.archive.org/web/20190929094120if_/https://twitte... But I don't really care about his views on biological genders, but what relevant point did he have when writing this message down in the blog post?: https://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/ He's become a political agitator, and increasingly rarely a scientist. This is not meant…

Thanks for digging out those links.

> Pretentious postmodern nonsense is a serious menace in universities...

I'm not sure what you expect me to object to there. If you don't think postmodernism has caused serious damage and is a terrible influence on peoples minds in the humanities then we'll have to agree to disagree.

> Some event with christians and anti-postmodernists speaking

Again, I'm not sure what you think the problem is. Dawkins isn't saying Christians should be deplatformed. His tweet was doubtless intended to promote the anti-postmodernists; you can't scour every retweet for transitive ideological inconsistencies. Well, maybe people do, but I don't think that's a good use of time.

> The letter to an imaginary muslim girl

Yeah, it's a bit cringe-inducing, but it's clear what his point was: that women in muslim cultures are subjected to terrible things which don't really compare to the problems of sexual inequality in western culture.

> Maybe as an old guy don't tell a woman that her experience is wrong.

Yes, that's one way in which we differ. You're a supporter of identity politics, one consequence of which is that you believe that the truth of statements depends on who utters them. I am a traditional liberal, who simply continues to follow the tenets of rationalism that were in place before the postmodernist and identity-politics movements took over the minds of most of my generation.

I'm sorry, I guess we don't have any common ground here. I agree with pretty much everything Dawkins has ever said. I have no respect for any religious belief in the minds of anyone who has had access to a modern education, and I have no trouble saying Islam is a terrible religion -- you don't have to look further than the treatment of women. There's no need for nuance here -- all religions are childish.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#105

Post by da39a3ee »

croon wrote: post #102
da39a3ee wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, can you expand? Here is what's on their website. It seems very much in line with the purpose of RationalWiki doesn't it? > Quillette is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange.

I'm suggesting that RationalWiki is portraying Quillette accurately, and that Quillette is not.

May I quite sincerely suggest that you take another look at RationalWiki? In the last few days I have done that. I used to have a favorable impression of it (perhaps based on ignorance?). But I think that, at least nowadays, it's not a terribly serious source -- a lot of polemicism and ideological edits, and its statement of purpose is explicit that it wants to have "snark" to make the articles "less boring". I think we might be debating something which is more the domain of teenagers when I suspect we're both at least in our 30s.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#106

Post by croon »

da39a3ee wrote: post #104
croon wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190929045043/https:/twitter.co... https://web.archive.org/web/20190929094120if_/https://twitte... But I don't really care about his views on biological genders, but what relevant point did he have when writing this message down in the blog post?: https://skepchick.org/2011/07/the-privilege-delusion/ He's become a political agitator, and increasingly rarely a scientist. This is not meant…

Thanks for digging out those links. > Pretentious postmodern nonsense is a serious menace in universities... I'm not sure what you expect me to object to there. If you don't think postmodernism has caused serious damage and is a terrible influence on peoples minds in the humanities then we'll have to agree to disagree. > Some event with christians and anti-postmodernists speaking Again, I'm not sure what you think th…

And what I'm saying is that someone who has no experience being a woman, or a person of color, can at most try to imagine what it's like depending on their level of empathy, but it's anything but rational to suggest you know better what that experience is.

And suggesting me to "look no further than how [they/"islam"] treats women is exactly the problem I was pointing out.

Again, I'm also non-religious, but I don't conflate westboro baptist church/mormons/amish with "Christianity".

Once again hugely ironic while criticizing identity politics.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#107

Post by croon »

da39a3ee wrote: post #105
croon wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm suggesting that RationalWiki is portraying Quillette accurately, and that Quillette is not.

May I quite sincerely suggest that you take another look at RationalWiki? In the last few days I have done that. I used to have a favorable impression of it (perhaps based on ignorance?). But I think that, at least nowadays, it's not a terribly serious source -- a lot of polemicism and ideological edits, and its statement of purpose is explicit that it wants to have "snark" to make the articles "less boring". I think…

The upside is that snark doesn't change anything as long as the remarks are sourced and verifiable. Neither does the volunteers age.

They might be snarky about someone eating babies, but as long as you can verify whether the person ate a baby, you can just either agree or not agree that baby-eating is bad.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#108

Post by da39a3ee »

croon wrote: post #106
da39a3ee wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for digging out those links. > Pretentious postmodern nonsense is a serious menace in universities... I'm not sure what you expect me to object to there. If you don't think postmodernism has caused serious damage and is a terrible influence on peoples minds in the humanities then we'll have to agree to disagree. > Some event with christians and anti-postmodernists speaking Again, I'm not sure what you think th…

And what I'm saying is that someone who has no experience being a woman, or a person of color, can at most try to imagine what it's like depending on their level of empathy, but it's anything but rational to suggest you know better what that experience is. And suggesting me to "look no further than how [they/"islam"] treats women is exactly the problem I was pointing out. Again, I'm also non-religious, but I don't co…

By identity, I mean things one cannot change, like ones skin colour, or race, or sexual orientation. I don't consider being Christian to be an identity; I consider it to be simply an indication of not being a good student, i.e. that they completely failed to understand the education they received in the 20th or 21st-century classrooms that they were lucky to have occupied. Christianity, and any religion, amounts to encouraging people to not understand the world. That is a stupid intellectual choice, not an immutable identity.

> Jordan Peterson crank

What makes you think that I think poorly of Jordan Peterson? This is a website where software engineers -- i.e. rational, logical people -- discuss things. You are completely failing to see beyond the confines of your bubble of modern progressive dogma if you think you can just assume that people think poorly of someone like Peterson. I guess you can say stuff like that around your friends and no-one would ever question it. He appears to be someone doing his best to speak out strongly against various highly problematic aspects of modern culture, in particular the way that anti-intellectual attitudes -- the practice of writing literal nonsense and publishing it in so-called academic journals! -- have become de rigeur in many areas of the humanities (and yes, I have experience of that). Why on Earth would I have a problem with him?

I think what I'm trying to say, is that you are massively underestimating how profoundly fractured the left is. Yes of course Trump is terrible. But there is a very large body of educated people on the left who cannot accept that the left be replaced with the anti-intellectualism and intolerance of the identity politics movement. You don't seem to agree that these people exist and that they might have any sort of valid point at all.

Re: Beginner's Guide to Arguing Constructively

#109

Post by ghufran_syed »

cycomanic wrote: post #39
ghufran_syed wrote: post #33

I'm trying to build a community of people who want to argue constructively at conferacity.com - hope you'll take a look and get in touch with feedback on how we can improve, or even better, be willing to join and contribute on the site. I particularly hope you might be willing to help if you disagree with the existing writers on the site, that makes your views more valuable! You can reach me at ghufran@conferacity.co…

Just a heads up conferacity.com does not work (address not found) , I needed to go to discourse.conferacity.com, you should probably point the main domain to the discourse subdomain or create some sort of landing page.

thanks! (I should really come back to look for replies to my comments more often!)
Post reply on HN