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What is your favorite stereotypical response from folk who are losing a P&N debate.

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shira said:
There have been MANY occasions when in response to a poster ("X") that writes "P is true," you write, "Why are you defending Q?"

Once you are into this . . . er . . . "creative-response" mode, it becomes apparent that further discussion is pointless, and there are multiple possibilities as to what is happening:

1) X is simply irrational and doesn't understand that your responses are completely relevant. But X believes you're doing your honest best. So when he writes "Did you forget your medication," he really believes that's the only rational explanation. But you think he's just losing and trying to escape.

2) X is rational and understands that your responses are completely relevant. X is losing and trying to escape.

3) X is rational and understands that your responses are completely irrelevant, but X believes you're doing your honest best. So his meds comment is honest, but either you really did forget your meds OR you're taking something you shouldn't be OR YOU are losing and just trying to escape.

4) Both X and you are deluded (and possibly you forget your meds or on the wrong meds). But both of you are honestly doing your best, even though your interaction is just monkeys on keyboards.

5) Both X and you are deluded (and possibly you forget your meds or on the wrong meds). But each of you erroneously believes the other is winning, so both are trying to escape. Monkeys-squared on keyboards.

And so on. And on.
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I also hate it when fold retreat into mathematics speak to pass as being logical or attempt to appear to be smart, simple conversation would do if the aim were to debate. Here we have, for example, an assertion that I do something all the time and one would presume that an example where I do that would clarify everything. But no, we get a lot of the obvious couched to appear as rigorous thought. What is made to appear lofty in the abstract often boils down to meaningless in the concrete.
 
Atreus21 said:
My problem is this:

You need not be wrong to be defeated. When someone says something unimaginably stupid, sometimes a logical, level-headed rebuttal is too respectful, and a waste of time.

I therefore disagree with the statement that resorting to ridicule is always an admission of defeat. Sometimes, a statement is so ridiculous that there can be no other response.
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I agree. Traditionally, the best answer to a fool has been considered to be scilence, but experience has demonstrated that any answer, in the long term, has about the same non-effect.

Therefore, while it will do the fool no harm or good to ridicule him, it will make one's own digestion function better.
 
Hard question to answer. It's usually easy to tell early on when the proposition is lost, very often in the OP. At that point, anything they might say (if it reinforces a bad position) makes little difference.

Putting the metaphorical equivalent of a teapot on one's head tends to cancel out any attempt at serious debate that may follow.
 
The worst most annoying thing to me, and when I know an argument is over, is when the other person refuses to acknowledge something that is very obvious or ignore certain points. There is no point going on with it at that point.

Obviously, as demonstrated by this very thread, there is too much of a focus on "winning" than there is on actually sharing ideas and dialoguing.
 
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Moonbeam said:
I also hate it when fold retreat into mathematics speak to pass as being logical or attempt to appear to be smart, simple conversation would do if the aim were to debate. Here we have, for example, an assertion that I do something all the time and one would presume that an example where I do that would clarify everything. But no, we get a lot of the obvious couched to appear as rigorous thought. What is made to appear lofty in the abstract often boils down to meaningless in the concrete.
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My dear, dear Moonbeam:

To post examples of our interactions would get everyone lost in a morass of text, and the essential logic of what was going on in those situations would be lost.

Yet I would bet that you now believe that the fact I'm not providing examples is because "I'm trying to escape."

The only thing posting an example would accomplish is that you would claim that your responses were relevant or (in the alternative) that you were "feeling," which (you believe) is superior to merely being "rational" (does that ring a bell?)

But why re-live all that stuff? You believe you're being fair and that I'm being evasive. I basically believe the opposite (the difference is that I don't believe you're being knowingly evasive; I think your ego and your defense mechanisms are so much on auto-pilot that you don't realize what you're doing).

I get very frustrated with you at times, but I forgive you (as I'm sure you forgive me). Why? Because I recognize that you have a good heart (we agree on pretty much everything), that you're almost as smart as I am (wow!), and that you have great creativity and wit.

I (almost always) look forward to reading your posts and I'm glad you participate in these forums.

Now, get ahold of a proper copy of that clown as a custom avatar, and you'll be fully your old self. This Matrix avatar is beneath you and undermines the spirit of your posts.
 
Doc Savage Fan said:
When they resort to name calling and unrelenting streams of angry profanity...and, of course, when they feel compelled to start threads such as this.
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I do that a lot but it's not something that i don't do in real life.

It's the way it is in my branch, you get to fucking do what you're fucking told or i'll beat your arse into a bloody pulp before tea, get it, twat?

If there are such sensitive souls on here who cannot take someone using such words then perhaps www.jesusdoesntswear.com or something would be a better forum?
 
Atreus21 said:
My problem is this:

You need not be wrong to be defeated. When someone says something unimaginably stupid, sometimes a logical, level-headed rebuttal is too respectful, and a waste of time.

I therefore disagree with the statement that resorting to ridicule is always an admission of defeat. Sometimes, a statement is so ridiculous that there can be no other response.
Click to expand...

So what you are saying that IDEOLOGY (Craig or CadSortaGuy) before reason and FAITH (Avocado Confetti or some random idiot) before logic is stupid enough to deserve outright ridicule instead of a serious response?

I agree on that point fully.

Just don't FUCKING think that you are above that, your constant denials of reality when it comes to actual life and how it's measured and which you agree with in the born but not in the unborn who are somehow more alive while having no more brain activity than a born braindead (clinically dead) person or your other idiocy that you use your faith to excuse or perhaps you really do know better but you're held back by it.
 
shira said:
My dear, dear Moonbeam:

To post examples of our interactions would get everyone lost in a morass of text, and the essential logic of what was going on in those situations would be lost.

Yet I would bet that you now believe that the fact I'm not providing examples is because "I'm trying to escape."

The only thing posting an example would accomplish is that you would claim that your responses were relevant or (in the alternative) that you were "feeling," which (you believe) is superior to merely being "rational" (does that ring a bell?)

But why re-live all that stuff? You believe you're being fair and that I'm being evasive. I basically believe the opposite (the difference is that I don't believe you're being knowingly evasive; I think your ego and your defense mechanisms are so much on auto-pilot that you don't realize what you're doing).

I get very frustrated with you at times, but I forgive you (as I'm sure you forgive me). Why? Because I recognize that you have a good heart (we agree on pretty much everything), that you're almost as smart as I am (wow!), and that you have great creativity and wit.

I (almost always) look forward to reading your posts and I'm glad you participate in these forums.

Now, get ahold of a proper copy of that clown as a custom avatar, and you'll be fully your old self. This Matrix avatar is beneath you and undermines the spirit of your posts.
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This isn't your usual posting style. Is your response in this manner somehow related to the stereotypical fishing expedition that moonbeam is on?

BTW, I don't even think it is close. You are extremely smart.
 
Ozoned said:
This isn't your usual posting style. Is your response in this manner somehow related to the stereotypical fishing expedition that moonbeam is on?

BTW, I don't even think it is close. You are extremely smart.
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I would say that Shira is not very bright but very well read and informed.

I've had debates with him where he have had problems with both evolution and abiogenesis while being able to provide the broader facts about them.

Whenever he or any of his ilk, and i can't remember his name, some catholic twat who claims to be a biologist but cannot think for himself? Well, those two are on the same level, filled with information but no intelligent thought.

So it seems to me.
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
I would say that Shira is not very bright but very well read and informed.

I've had debates with him where he have had problems with both evolution and abiogenesis while being able to provide the broader facts about them.

Whenever he or any of his ilk, and i can't remember his name, some catholic twat who claims to be a biologist but cannot think for himself? Well, those two are on the same level, filled with information but no intelligent thought.

So it seems to me.
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This is the most civil post of your I have ever seen. I really enjoyed reading it.

I simply must disagree with you though. Shira has the ability to clearly articulate any point he wants to make, right or wrong. Moonbeam attempts to conceptualize everything. No matter how simplistic the topic. Since there are no other examples to be found, one can only assume why...
 
JohnOfSheffield said:
I would say that Shira is not very bright but very well read and informed.

I've had debates with him where he have had problems with both evolution and abiogenesis while being able to provide the broader facts about them.

Whenever he or any of his ilk, and i can't remember his name, some catholic twat who claims to be a biologist but cannot think for himself? Well, those two are on the same level, filled with information but no intelligent thought.

So it seems to me.
Click to expand...

I think you're confusing me with someone else.
 
shira said:
My dear, dear Moonbeam:

To post examples of our interactions would get everyone lost in a morass of text, and the essential logic of what was going on in those situations would be lost.

Yet I would bet that you now believe that the fact I'm not providing examples is because "I'm trying to escape."

The only thing posting an example would accomplish is that you would claim that your responses were relevant or (in the alternative) that you were "feeling," which (you believe) is superior to merely being "rational" (does that ring a bell?)

But why re-live all that stuff? You believe you're being fair and that I'm being evasive. I basically believe the opposite (the difference is that I don't believe you're being knowingly evasive; I think your ego and your defense mechanisms are so much on auto-pilot that you don't realize what you're doing).

I get very frustrated with you at times, but I forgive you (as I'm sure you forgive me). Why? Because I recognize that you have a good heart (we agree on pretty much everything), that you're almost as smart as I am (wow!), and that you have great creativity and wit.

I (almost always) look forward to reading your posts and I'm glad you participate in these forums.

Now, get ahold of a proper copy of that clown as a custom avatar, and you'll be fully your old self. This Matrix avatar is beneath you and undermines the spirit of your posts.
Click to expand...

Hehe, I only hoped, I guess, that you could provide an example, because I am always, at least in my own deluded opinion, open to a good debate. I agree that any probable examples would doubtless wind up in a wall of warmed over text and I am aware of what kinds of things you mean. I don't think of your comments as an attempt to escape.

I do think too that if I am almost as smart as you think I am vastly smarter than I am.

In fact it is probable that I project on you my own feelings of inferiority and intellectual competitiveness, feeling as I do so stupid.

It may, therefore, be my own lack of confidence in my own thinking that causes me to flee to the superiority of feeling as the real source of knowing. But while I may doubt the superiority of feeling, I don't doubt it much.

I use the example, I think you will recall, of a father explaining to a son, that one day his attitude to girls will change, and his contempt of them will turn into longing and fascination. A father knows this not because he is smart but because it's how his son came to be.

Furthermore, I was just thinking this morning about getting back my clown, but I don't really know how to do it. I don't know how to keep this stupid fuse talk from killing my posts, I don't know how to post pictures, and I don't know how to put a link inside a word or phrase. There's doubtless a bunch I don't know I don't know too.

Thanks for your kind post.
 
shira said:
I think you're confusing me with someone else.
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Might be possible, but i do think it was you, we were on the same side though, it's just that you went overboard with some things and seemed unable to intellectually make your own links between BB-AB-E.

I might be wrong though, i pay very little attention to these things and rarely remember who said what, it just strikes me that you said something strange in that discussion and didn't return after that?

My apologies if i am incorrect.
 
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