u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!
What's the hierarchy level for failed attempts at humor?
rucursion is always funny, u fag!!1
How to Disagree
201–210 of 238 posts
Re: How to Disagree
#202I believe the author, who is self-important, is calling me a dilettante (clearly he would say that, he's a writer). He's wrong. He thinks people shouldn't argue. His main point seems to be that people will be happier if they agree with him, but I'm enjoying this post anyway. And he said, "people are getting angrier". Jerk.
Re: How to Disagree
#203The authors are idiots. Of course they would write something like this, they probably make their living off selling these sorts of pie-in-the-sky ideals to people. The whole tone of this article is pretentious and insulting. Personal attacks are perfectly valid forms of argument and communication. If you look at these things in terms of effectiveness, they are usually more practical approaches that yield results, esp…
Yeah, nice parody.
Your reference to Nazis is apposite. I once heard veteran Labour politician Tony Benn destroy an opponent's point of view in a televised debate by saying "That's a fascist idea - it's exactly what the Nazis did in Germany in the 1930s". Thereby he simultaneously implied that his opponent in the debate was a fool for not knowing this and made the suggested course of action untenable by association.
In politics, but also in many other spheres of human activity, we have to ask ourselves whether an argument is being advanced in pursuit of the truth or simply to silence an opponent who could get in the way of reaching an ulterior objective.
Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe and countless others had a very straightforward way of dealing with opposition. I'm sure that any D6 or D7 disagreement would have been water off a duck's back for them.
Re: How to Disagree
#204As I began to read Paul's essay, I couldn't help but be reminded of a book I read about a year ago, "Crimes Against Logic" by Jamie Whyte. DH1 Ad Hominem almost defines our political system. From the book: "The motive fallacy is so common in politics that serious policy debate is almost nonexistent. The announcement of a new policy is greeted, not with a discussion of its alleged merits, but with a flurry of speculation from journalists and political opponents regarding the politician's motives for announcing it. He wants to appease the right wing of his party, or is trying to win favor in marginal rural states, or is bowing to the racist clamoring of the gutter press, or what-have-you."
Re: How to Disagree
#205Just looking at these comments, Paul should follow up with an article on how to be succinct. People can be such drags when they are trying hard to sound intelligent.
Re: How to Disagree
#206Dear PG,
u r a fag!!!!!!!!!!
There. Somebody had to do it.
Re: How to Disagree
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the Flamebaiting category is a useful addition to PG's hierarchy. The new category brings to mind an interesting property of this hierarchy though, namely that it seems to be difficult to respond to an "argument" with a higher order technique than that which was originally presented. For example, if one were disagreeing with a purely ad hominem rant, one would find it futile and nearly impossible to disagree…
It's possible, you just have to remember that there are many more lurkers than posters in any given discussion and write for the benefit of the lurkers that have not yet chosen a DH level. Actually, I've used this as a fairly effective technique for arresting flamewars. It doesn't always work, but when it does, subsequent posts are usually at the DH level of your own response rather than that of the parent comment. T…
Your comment gave me a crazy idea. What if one was to respond to a flamebait with a counterargument or refutation, and then create another username and add another intelligent comment that contradicted the first one you posted? So then the thread would look like this:
1. Original flamebait
2. Congent response to flamebait (posted by you using username 1)
3. Congent response to post 2 (posted by you using username 2)
This might be slightly unethical, but it means that the original flamer will always be dissuaded from posting again, and you're more likely to get more congent discussion participants.
If using multiple usernames bothers you, you could probably just check yourself with a small counterargument at the end of post 2, and it seems likely that the original flamer would still be dissuaded.
Re: How to Disagree
#208Curiously, I've heard DH1 (ad hominem) invoked in Computer Science circles. More than once, I've heard someone say that it's likely that P != NP, because lots of Very Smart People who've Worked Very Hard on the problem, and haven't able to collapse them. Of course, this isn't really a use of ad hominem argument in disagreement, it's a use in support of a claim.
Re: How to Disagree
#209The word "mean", has contradictory means: "the more mean [a person is], the less means [it provides]". This creates a new type of contradiction: language disagreement; with the easiest solution translation in a second language. English is an awful language; Paul, I would prefer to read you in Latin or Greek.
Sed quare? Latina autem lengua tenet haec difficultates.
Re: How to Disagree
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible, you just have to remember that there are many more lurkers than posters in any given discussion and write for the benefit of the lurkers that have not yet chosen a DH level. Actually, I've used this as a fairly effective technique for arresting flamewars. It doesn't always work, but when it does, subsequent posts are usually at the DH level of your own response rather than that of the parent comment. T…
Your comment gave me a crazy idea. What if one was to respond to a flamebait with a counterargument or refutation, and then create another username and add another intelligent comment that contradicted the first one you posted? So then the thread would look like this: 1. Original flamebait 2. Congent response to flamebait (posted by you using username 1) 3. Congent response to post 2 (posted by you using username 2)…
The problem with this proposal is that it ignores the fundamental problem behind any flamebait: that flamebait qua flamebait is not _intended_ as serious discussion, nor as a prelude to serious discussion.
The proven technique for dealing with flamebait is to tag it immediately for what it is, and not waste any reader's time with a detailed discussion of an idea that is not even worthy of refutation.
And yes, even Aristotle in the Topics agreed that there are propositions/arguments that are so silly or vain, they are not worthy of a serious refutation. Flamebait certainly counts as one of these. (BTW: I see there are Aquinas fans here, so I will point out that Aquinas expressed his agreement with this in, of all places, his commentary on the Ethics: I think it was Lecture I).
The only problem is that there really are people who are too quick to tag someone else's post as 'flamebait', even when it is not. This happens on those very topics that most need to be seriously discussed, simply because they are so important, yet so many people hold strong opinions on them, opinions that are not founded on sound logic, but on passionate attachment of one kind or another. So they are strong opinions, but they are wrong opinions. These are the discussions that are the most difficult. They should not be attempted by amateurs. But there is no enforcing of _this_ principle on the Internet;)