It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
avatar
pearnon: Snipped for length
So it all boils down to you are thinking insults strengthen arguments and brings victory, while I think insults weaken arguments and work against ourselves. You think insults is a impotent component when making an impact while I don't see the need of insults to give an impact. You think fight fire with fire is effective while I see it as counterproductive.

I may be wrong in my assumption because my definition of victory may be different then yours. Please correct me otherwise.

My definition of victory is I convince more people to see the truth. When I am speaking to indoctrinated people, I am not really speaking to them, because these people won't want the truth anyway, I am really speaking to the observers who see our conversation. If I dish out insults the observers are more likely to dismissed my words. It does not matter that the observer walk away from the conversation, it does not matter if the observer does nothing. Because one day the regressive will burn him / her or there is likely one less supporter to a false agenda.

You made a case that dialectic get picked apart by rhetoric, but offer no proof it is true..If you want proof dialectic has overcome rhetoric, see the Earth if not flat, sun does not revolve around the earth, Flying Spaghetti Monster to be taught in school beside intelligent design argument. Granted rhetoric will win a few battles silencing people, dialectic will win the war because it is truth.

I agree with your statement and use caveats, it is because I only agree to part of your statement and disagree with the other part. For example I agree on what you said regarding regressive people screaming and calling names while people slowly give way. I do not agree with your next statement regarding taking the higher road does not work.

The regressive got where to they are now, simply because people give way, not because people taking the higher road. We just need to stop giving way and call out on their falsehoods. Using insults has nothing to do with it. It just make people who we can convince otherwise group us as bad as the regressive.
Post edited August 10, 2016 by Gnostic
avatar
Neuronin: who can't even criticise Islam because you're so perfectly tolerant of "diversity"
(feminist atheist here)

I actually can criticize Islam. There is a difference between:
1. Criticizing Islam, and
2. Criticizing Muslims

The former is a criticism of a belief system, and is not actually an attack on any people.

The latter is an attack on a group of people.

(As a side note, some men in Muslim countries are protesting hijab laws by posting pictures of themselves wearing hijabs, while their wives appear uncovered in the same photographs.)
low rated
avatar
Neuronin: who can't even criticise Islam because you're so perfectly tolerant of "diversity"
avatar
dtgreene: (feminist atheist here)

I actually can criticize Islam. There is a difference between:
1. Criticizing Islam, and
2. Criticizing Muslims

The former is a criticism of a belief system, and is not actually an attack on any people.

The latter is an attack on a group of people.

(As a side note, some men in Muslim countries are protesting hijab laws by posting pictures of themselves wearing hijabs, while their wives appear uncovered in the same photographs.)
Criticism needn't be an ''attack'', and people need to be criticized as much as their ideology. Bad people can turn a good ideology bad and vice versa.
low rated
avatar
Gnostic: So it all boils down to you are thinking insults strengthen arguments and brings victory, while I think insults weaken arguments and work against ourselves. You think insults is a impotent component when making an impact while I don't see the need of insults to give an impact. You think fight fire with fire is effective while I see it as counterproductive.
More like insults are a rhetorical weapon like any other, and you must be ready and wiling to use them. Otherwise, you're just self-inflicting a handicap for the sake of taking a higher road which, as demonstrably proven up until now, only ever takes you to a fall off a dignified cliff.

My definition of victory is I convince more people to see the truth. When I am speaking to indoctrinated people, I am not really speaking to them, because these people won't want the truth anyway, I am really speaking to the observers who see our conversation.
No argument there from me, friend.

If I dish out insults the observers are more likely to dismissed my words.
Not necessarily, if your insults are telling and articulate something the observer might have thought, but was never able to put into words (case in point, "cucks"). Like I said, insults needn't be profanity or fart jokes.

It does not matter that the observer walk away from the conversation, it does not matter if the observer does nothing. Because one day the regressive will burn him / her or there is likely one less supporter to a false agenda.
That's sound strategic thinking, I'll give you that. However, you're counting on far too many variables, and discounting the fact that, because he walks away - as observers are wont to do - it doesn't matter whether he gets burned or is or isn't a supporter. He walked away and gave way, and his support becomes irrelevant unless someone shows up to oppose the viewpoint that became dogmatic as a consequence.

You made a case that dialectic get picked apart by rhetoric, but offer no proof it is true..If you want proof dialectic has overcome rhetoric, see the Earth if not flat, sun does not revolve around the earth, Flying Spaghetti Monster to be taught in school beside intelligent design argument. Granted rhetoric will win a few battles silencing people, dialectic will win the war because it is truth.
Those aren't really good examples, considering that those were dialectical battles. Just because a position is absurd, or regarded as irrational in hindsight, doesn't make it rhetorical.

I agree with your statement and use caveats, it is because I only agree to part of your statement and disagree with the other part. For example I agree on what you said regarding regressive people screaming and calling names while people slowly give way. I do not agree with your next statement regarding taking the higher road does not work.
Fair enough. And I really, really yearn for the day when this statement of mine is no longer tenable.

The regressive got where to they are now, simply because people give way, not because people taking the higher road.
Unfortunately, both are inextricably linked. Conservatives have conserved nothing, people who opposed the virulent strains of the regressive left let themselves be shouted down and silenced, and the West just adopted a laissez-faire attitude of letting the loud, obnoxious degenerates get their way, just so they wouldn't have to rock the boat or get their hands dirty.

That said, there's a very simple way to settle this cordial argument of ours. If you're willing to accept that there's a cultural war going on, wars need more than one type of soldier, as it were. Some are more suited to be grunts in trenches, others have less compunctions about using certain types of weapons, if the enemy is using them, and others are better at winning hearts and minds in the public eye. Let us do this according to the role we feel more comfortable with or feel to be more necessary, instead of stepping on each other's toes because we think our way is the only way.
Post edited August 10, 2016 by pearnon
low rated
avatar
Neuronin: The Gamergate controversy is just a small piece of a much larger puzzle.

The leftist progressivism project has run its course. We have spineless weak leaders in government and conformist establishment lackies in the media running the world; but people are fed up with political correctness and hypocrisy. They realize that the elite is no longer working for them. The migrant crisis in Europe is a great example. The people had no say in the matter when millions of people from the Middle East flooded into Europe. The leftist governments opened the gates wide and allowed anyone to enter; no checks, no control; all in the name of tolerance, rooted in white guilt.

Terrorism, rape epidemics and assaults on free speech has become the norm in Europe. The liberal world order has failed. Cultural Relativism, Postmodernism, Multiculturalism and Feminism.. this toxic cocktail of failed ideas have slowly eroded western democracies. All this bullshit is coming to an end and I can't wait for the day when the truth dawns on these people; when they realize that they were wrong all along.

The people you called racists, Islamophobes and misogynists were in fact the true heroes. They provided you with reasoned arguments, statistics and empirical evidence, but you just continued to label these people as intolerant racists in an attempt to shut down debate on important topics.. and you my dear SJW, who can't even criticise Islam because you're so perfectly tolerant of "diversity"; and you're much more concerned with silencing rational criticism by attacking the character of your opponents and distorting their arguments; you tolerate that millions of women are living in cloth bags all over the world; in your silence you tolerate that little girls are being raped in the streets of Europe, and you tolerate that girls in the Middle East are killed for simply wanting an education.

You can't have it both ways. You're a feminist, right? Stand up for women all over the world. You have to pick feminism or cultural relativism. Which one of these "brilliant" ideas do you choose? You can't have both. My dear SJW.. you dare call me an Islamophobe?

These regressive leftists have blood on their hands. They are morally and intellectually bankrupt. This contemporary leftist-progressive paradigm is unsustainable. The SJWs can't survive for too long; they're like a virus, and a virus will eventually be exterminated.
^This.
low rated
avatar
Brasas: Only easy to do that if you're mature enough (and not having a bad day I suppose).
We often forget we might be "talking" with actual kids online don't we?
And then there are the adults that should know better of course.
avatar
227: Fair point about there being actual kids online. It's easy to forget that in places like this that are (or at least were at one time) devoted to older games. At the same time, the line's become blurred over time; these days it seems that there are lots of kids out there more mature than people several times older, so I suppose age-related distinctions strike me as being kind of meaningless. Most of the time, anyway. It's kind of weird to think about how the internet has enabled all different age groups to converse as equals like it's the most natural thing in the world.

A bad day or lack of maturity doesn't strike me as being quite as defensible, though. We all have bad days. We all come across that one person who we'd like to reach through the computer screen to strangle. You don't even have to be mature to keep your cool (I'm basically two 15 year-olds duct taped together). You just have to recognize that maintaining your poise and not giving them a new avenue to attack you is the most annoying thing in the world to a person who's trying to make you crack or find an excuse to ignore your argument by changing the topic.
Kids use worse language than we do. In fact they enjoy coarse language and profanity. We seem to forget how edgy, cool, and mature we felt by yelling "fuck". And on the internet most children below 12 or 13 should not even be allowed to have accounts in any place where the topic is discussed.
I however still remember what being a child was like. How we competed to learn the largest amount of insulting words when we were 9, how at the age of 10 we would already use terms such as "shit" or "fuck" when no adults were around.
So don't use the think of the children argument. I agree with you on many points, but not on that. The think of the children argument was made by adults who forgot what being a child was like. Who forget that children are not as naive and ignorant as adults use to think. If you are going to think of the children start by not patronizing them and stop giving a flying fuck about coarse language on the internet. I bet they are more concerned with understanding the why and not the how an argument is made.
low rated
avatar
LeonardoCornejo: Kids use worse language than we do. In fact they enjoy coarse language and profanity. We seem to forget how edgy, cool, and mature we felt by yelling "fuck". And on the internet most children below 12 or 13 should not even be allowed to have accounts in any place where the topic is discussed.
I however still remember what being a child was like. How we competed to learn the largest amount of insulting words when we were 9, how at the age of 10 we would already use terms such as "shit" or "fuck" when no adults were around.
So don't use the think of the children argument. I agree with you on many points, but not on that. The think of the children argument was made by adults who forgot what being a child was like. Who forget that children are not as naive and ignorant as adults use to think. If you are going to think of the children start by not patronizing them and stop giving a flying fuck about coarse language on the internet. I bet they are more concerned with understanding the why and not the how an argument is made.
¨"Or un homme qui se fait esclave d'un autre ne se donne pas, il se vend, tout au moins pour sa subsistance: mais un peuple pour quoi se vend-il?"

Just being a bit playful, in thinking, LeonardoConerjo, that it does to take to be foul-mouthed to be provocative.

And if you were a potty-mouthed youth, how does it elevate the logic of your argument, or diminish that of any other?

This is now the tab 394. Which is the tab I should look at to get it? I use FCUK sparingly - now and as a child, so I really need bit of an... well.. adult argument, maybe? :-)

My childhood was not fuck and shit. It does not bother me if yours was, only that is not an argument, or is it?

So what's yer pont, to cut the chase?
low rated
avatar
LeonardoCornejo: Kids use worse language than we do. In fact they enjoy coarse language and profanity. We seem to forget how edgy, cool, and mature we felt by yelling "fuck". And on the internet most children below 12 or 13 should not even be allowed to have accounts in any place where the topic is discussed.
I however still remember what being a child was like. How we competed to learn the largest amount of insulting words when we were 9, how at the age of 10 we would already use terms such as "shit" or "fuck" when no adults were around.
So don't use the think of the children argument. I agree with you on many points, but not on that. The think of the children argument was made by adults who forgot what being a child was like. Who forget that children are not as naive and ignorant as adults use to think. If you are going to think of the children start by not patronizing them and stop giving a flying fuck about coarse language on the internet. I bet they are more concerned with understanding the why and not the how an argument is made.
avatar
TStael: ¨"Or un homme qui se fait esclave d'un autre ne se donne pas, il se vend, tout au moins pour sa subsistance: mais un peuple pour quoi se vend-il?"

Just being a bit playful, in thinking, LeonardoConerjo, that it does to take to be foul-mouthed to be provocative.

And if you were a potty-mouthed youth, how does it elevate the logic of your argument, or diminish that of any other?

This is now the tab 394. Which is the tab I should look at to get it? I use FCUK sparingly - now and as a child, so I really need bit of an... well.. adult argument, maybe? :-)

My childhood was not fuck and shit. It does not bother me if yours was, only that is not an argument, or is it?

So what's yer pont, to cut the chase?
In case I was not clear. My point is that sheltering "children" (I use quotations because some idiots would even include 17 year olds as children) from profanity, obscenity, and all those "mature things" is patronizing and we shall never do that. We know there are children among the audience on the interwebz, but it is therefore our duty to provide them with nothing but the truth, not sheltering them. And in case anyone, at any point, considers the use of insults to be something we should avoid for the sake of "children" then that is just as pulling them out of the conversation.
Lately I have seen children as young as 7 speaking with a lot more common sense and logic than supposed adults. SJWs for instance make so little sense even the [in]famous Lt. Corbis panned them. In fact that is probably one of the causes for her rise to fame. An 11 year old girl basically understood how the BuzzFeed brand of feminism was stupid man hating.
Children are an important element in this situation but not in the sense of protecting them but in the sense of telling them the truth. This is a real culture war in which the PC/SJW/Authoritarian/etc. culture stands against free speech, ethics, and integrity, as displayed over and over again by groups such as Gawker Media, DIGRA, BuzzFeed, and Silverstring Media just to mention a few.
SJWs have shown signs of attempting to brainwash children through education. And so we must tell them nothing but the truth. Right now in my country some lobbyists prepared a preschool and elementary education plan which includes the lies of gender theory and tries to convince children that there are girls with penises and boys with vaginas. Just as the meme says "Aren't girls with penises just boys?". We should not allow such lies to spread. And even worse, they try to educate children on all those made up genders we see on Tumblr.
Children are an essential part of this situation. They must know the truth so that no one could ever spread lies to them. And so we must acknowledge their existence in places such as this thread, often as lurkers, without sheltering them.
low rated
avatar
TStael: ¨"Or un homme qui se fait esclave d'un autre ne se donne pas, il se vend, tout au moins pour sa subsistance: mais un peuple pour quoi se vend-il?"
avatar
LeonardoCornejo: In case I was not clear. My point is that sheltering "children" (I use quotations because some idiots would even include 17 year olds as children) from profanity, obscenity, and all those "mature things" is patronizing and we shall never do that.
Children are an essential part of this situation. They must know the truth so that no one could ever spread lies to them. And so we must acknowledge their existence in places such as this thread, often as lurkers, without sheltering them.
"Bien loin qu'un roi fournisse à ses sujets leur subsistence il ne tire la sienne que d'eux, et selon Rabelais un roi ne vit pas de peu.*

I am sorry, or not, actually: Iran hangs juveniles by short drop - at times before they even reach legal maturity, or just waiting for the juvenile offender to reach maturity, at 18.

I feel very strongly about this - I admit - executing children is wrong in my books. And I rather follow UN than Iran for that definition.

And here - @17 no-hang is UN; @17 hang with suffering is Iran.

I'd plausibly be SWJ by your definition. Not that I mind when hanging children is involved. Saying fuck or shit when slowly strangling to death probably does empower anyone. EU moral stance might meanwhile do a bit better. Or what say you?
low rated
avatar
LeonardoCornejo: In case I was not clear. My point is that sheltering "children" (I use quotations because some idiots would even include 17 year olds as children) from profanity, obscenity, and all those "mature things" is patronizing and we shall never do that.
Children are an essential part of this situation. They must know the truth so that no one could ever spread lies to them. And so we must acknowledge their existence in places such as this thread, often as lurkers, without sheltering them.
avatar
TStael: "Bien loin qu'un roi fournisse à ses sujets leur subsistence il ne tire la sienne que d'eux, et selon Rabelais un roi ne vit pas de peu.*

I am sorry, or not, actually: Iran hangs juveniles by short drop - at times before they even reach legal maturity, or just waiting for the juvenile offender to reach maturity, at 18.

I feel very strongly about this - I admit - executing children is wrong in my books. And I rather follow UN than Iran for that definition.

And here - @17 no-hang is UN; @17 hang with suffering is Iran.

I'd plausibly be SWJ by your definition. Not that I mind when hanging children is involved. Saying fuck or shit when slowly strangling to death probably does empower anyone. EU moral stance might meanwhile do a bit better. Or what say you?
What you are saying has nothing to do with my statement. On the contrary, it proves my point. It is absurd that we judge teenagers and any minor of ages 9 onwards as adults for certain crimes, yet still we think they are too young to understand complex issues. What I said could be shortened in one sentence.. Don't underestimate or shelter minors from truth.
low rated
avatar
Shadowstalker16: Ex-pro COD player comments on diversity : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqtsJIlDQko&feature=youtu.be&t=13m16s
A really good interview. What she says seems very different from the narrative spun by most media.
COD isn't that child version of CS GO?
That has auto aim for handicaps and girls don't cry they can't hit a barn?

avatar
dtgreene: feminist atheist here
That is all I had to read to know any dribble your pink hair 600lb welfare ass typed would not be worth my time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1SrCiGjbtI
Post edited August 11, 2016 by Regals
As someone who doesn't post here much, yet does try to keep up with the thread whenever I have the free time to do so, I'm going to side with 227 here. I heard of gamergate and related stuff here for the first time, and I naturally came to side with the reasonable speaking people, which tended to be gamergate supporters. I can get behind the idea of arguing not to convince the other user, but to convince the third party (such as myself) who later comes to read the discussion.
low rated
<Looks at latest posts>
I for one raise a glass to xarph for your help in giving this thread attention.

I sincerely appreciate it.
avatar
LeonardoCornejo: What you are saying has nothing to do with my statement.
Sounds like every other post from tstael to me.
Post edited August 11, 2016 by WBGhiro
low rated
avatar
Shadowstalker16: Ex-pro COD player comments on diversity : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqtsJIlDQko&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;t=13m16s
A really good interview. What she says seems very different from the narrative spun by most media.
avatar
Regals: COD isn't that child version of CS GO?
That has auto aim for handicaps and girls don't cry they can't hit a barn?

avatar
dtgreene: feminist atheist here
avatar
Regals: That is all I had to read to know any dribble your pink hair 600lb welfare ass typed would not be worth my time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1SrCiGjbtI
CS GO is the child version of CS GO. AFAIK, auto-aim is only for consoles, so it scales down everyone to zero.

Keep in mind the benefit of the doubt or assumption of good faith is very important in a debate even if you think you're right.
avatar
Rusty_Gunn: <Looks at latest posts>
I for one raise a glass to xarph for your help in giving this thread attention.

I sincerely appreciate it.
Like going on loudspeakers and going ''DON'T TALK ABOUT XX TOPIC!''
Post edited August 11, 2016 by Shadowstalker16