My beef, in general, is that when there's complicated and contentious issues afoot, how glorious if people would surface those contentious things, argue about them, and then something would happen in light of that argumentation. People don't have to agree, but there's real information in those divergent perspectives.
What happens in practice is that people already know what they want to believe, they throw ad-hominem attacks, score stupid "points" and make gambits that a 7-year old would recognize (see Adam Back and NVK, in your thread), and that's it. Whoever advocates for something you don't like is a-priori your enemy, who is stupid.
(Not saying you're doing this, just that I'm hypersensitive to it at this point. But it's the revealed truth of human nature, so I should just deal with it.)
Thanks, it makes more sense in this context.
My beef, in general, is that when there's complicated and contentious issues afoot, how glorious if people would surface those contentious things, argue about them, and then something would happen in light of that argumentation. People don't have to agree, but there's real information in those divergent perspectives.
What happens in practice is that people already know what they want to believe, they throw ad-hominem attacks, score stupid "points" and make gambits that a 7-year old would recognize (see Adam Back and NVK, in your thread), and that's it. Whoever advocates for something you don't like is a-priori your enemy, who is stupid.
(Not saying you're doing this, just that I'm hypersensitive to it at this point. But it's the revealed truth of human nature, so I should just deal with it.)