My last post, I swear. So, three or so people have came to me with this, so I'd like to clarify exactly what I was intending - because, frankly, every person that yells at me (and you all really should, please keep doing that) is proving the point I was trying to make. Namely (full mail below): > I wrote: > > As a "Gedankenexperiment", if you were to stop posting insane things, > we'd all be happier. > > You see how even this can be used as an insult or to draw comparisons? Basically, I was saying, look, if you're going to say something that's over the line in a hypthetical, you *need* to be able to defend the content, *not*, say "Do you know meaning of the word "Gedankenexperiment"?" and "why do you attack me?" when confronted. This is clearly not correct, and the content, even inside such ideas, *can* be used in a hurtful way. It's a classic mode of argument. I see it in Politics *all* the time. When people do mass calls, sometimes sleezy politicians will do a "poll" where they suggest insane ideas and see how it affects their numbers, such as: "Do you support Joe for office" "Oh yes, he's great" "What if we told you that Joe did crack, would your opinion change?" "Oh of course, I don't want a congressman that does crack" "So you'd vote for Bob?" "Well yeah, of course." (Now Joe has to go off and try to dismiss the crack claims, which makes him look like a lier or accept something he didn't do and "get help".) No where does anyone claim he does, but it's used to "trick" and influence people. Dismissing such claims as: 'silly everyone, this is just a "Gedankenexperiment"' isn't a correct defense, so I won't do it either. I was giving an example of this, and not well. I should have likely not said "you" to make it clear that I was suggesting this is not a sound argument pattern, rather then me personally telling Norbert to not post more emails. I don't mind. I don't stand by the content of that mail, and I'm sorry, but I stand by it's point, and the following line: > Please don't continue to defend such poor behavior. Much love, Paul -- .''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org> : :' : Proud Debian Developer `. `'` 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352 D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87 `- http://people.debian.org/~paultag My last post, I swear. So, three or so people have came to me with this, so I'd like to clarify exactly what I was intending - because, frankly, every person that yells at me (and you all really should) is proving the point I was trying to make. Namely (full mail below): > I wrote: > As a "Gedankenexperiment", if you were to stop posting insane things, > we'd all be happier. > > You see how even this can be used as an insult or to draw comparisons? Basically, I was saying, look, if you're going to say something that's over the line, you *need* to be able to defend the content, *not*, say "Do you know meaning of the word "Gedankenexperiment"?" and "why do you attack me?" when confronted. This is clearly not correct, and the content, even inside such ideas, *can* be used in a hurtful way. Dismissing such claims as: 'silly everyone, this is just a "Gedankenexperiment"' isn't correct, so I won't do it either. I was giving an example of this, and not well. I should have likely not said "you" to make it clear that I was suggesting this is not a sound argument pattern, rather then me personally telling Norbert to not post more emails. I don't mind. I don't stand by the content of that mail, and I'm sorry, but I stand by it's point, and the following line: > Please don't continue to defend such poor behavior. Much love, Paul -- .''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org> : :' : Proud Debian Developer `. `'` 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352 D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87 `- http://people.debian.org/~paultag
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