I have to wonder, do you seriously think the post I responded to put forth its arguments in a reasonable, balanced and appropriate fashion ?
No, rather unreasonable for all the points you mentioned. However, setting the unreasonable portions aside, I do find some logic to the argument.
I disagree with one of your statements: If someone has a rational point, then they should be able to make it *with a rational argument*.
To me, the problem lies in the definition of rationality. Every human being has their own personal definition of rationality. As it turns out, many societies hold common definitions of rationality. However, that does not require that all individuals of a given community agree on all aspects of rationality. Some Americans believe in Christianity, some believe in Islam. In the current Iranian nuclear crisis, the Iranian president insists that Iran must be treated fairly before it treats the rest of the world fairly. America insists that Iran must act fairly while simultaneously being subjected to threats of economical and "under consideration" threats of invasion. The only way I see out of such a delimma is for one party to yield insistence of the other party's "fairness." Most Westerners will agree that Iran should yield first. Most Islamic fundamentalists will agree that America should yield first. Bombs will continue to explode until someone yields. Surely there is a way of "yielding" while simultaneously protecting one's own interests? In this case, I suspect the definition of "protection" or "national interests" is likely to change before any "yielding" happens.
Back to the realm of rational argument making: verbal bombs will continue to explode until one party "yields" by either finding inaccuracies in someone's objective arguments while not responding to stylistic bombs, or the discussion is aborted with no progress (as in this case).
One universal truth I follow: There is no objective "always right" perspective. However, when some poor soul who is incapable of making arguments that respect *my* definition of rationality argues with me, the lease I can do is correct the error of his ways not by faulting him, but rather by faulting myself for not defining my sense of rationality more explicitly.
I stand corrected.
In my experience, responses referring to the argument being responded to as "ridiculous", "over the top", or "irrelevant hyperbole", are highly correlated with the intended response: "I label your view stupid and idiotic, and desire to make no effort to understand it, despite it being potentially rational. I am incapable of seeing past your style of writing and choose instead to attack your style of writing in a personal way while simultaneously leaving all objective points you attempted to make unaddressed." Also from experience, intended responses similar to the above I choose to categorize as "irrational", "unbalanced", and "unreasonable" discussion. This does not mean I can not discuss such responses on important issues, it simply means that I might choose to devote my time to other areas of my life that may yield productive results more rapidly.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to be an appropriate analysis of this potentially useful discussion, as similarly pointed out by the other guy's comment on unknowingly wasting your time.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to wonder, do you seriously think the post I responded to put forth its arguments in a reasonable, balanced and appropriate fashion ? No, rather unreasonable for all the points you mentioned. However, setting the unreasonable portions aside, I do find some logic to the argument. I disagree with one of your statements: If someone has a rational point, then they should be able to make it *with a rational argument*. To me, the problem lies in the definition of rationality. Every human being has their own personal definition of rationality. As it turns out, many societies hold common definitions of rationality. However, that does not require that all individuals of a given community agree on all aspects of rationality. Some Americans believe in Christianity, some believe in Islam. In the current Iranian nuclear crisis, the Iranian president insists that Iran must be treated fairly before it treats the rest of the world fairly. America insists that Iran must act fairly while simultaneously being subjected to threats of economical and "under consideration" threats of invasion. The only way I see out of such a delimma is for one party to yield insistence of the other party's "fairness." Most Westerners will agree that Iran should yield first. Most Islamic fundamentalists will agree that America should yield first. Bombs will continue to explode until someone yields. Surely there is a way of "yielding" while simultaneously protecting one's own interests? In this case, I suspect the definition of "protection" or "national interests" is likely to change before any "yielding" happens. Back to the realm of rational argument making: verbal bombs will continue to explode until one party "yields" by either finding inaccuracies in someone's objective arguments while not responding to stylistic bombs, or the discussion is aborted with no progress (as in this case). One universal truth I follow: There is no objective "always right" perspective. However, when some poor soul who is incapable of making arguments that respect *my* definition of rationality argues with me, the lease I can do is correct the error of his ways not by faulting him, but rather by faulting myself for not defining my sense of rationality more explicitly. I stand corrected.
In my experience, responses referring to the argument being responded to as "ridiculous", "over the top", or "irrelevant hyperbole", are highly correlated with the intended response: "I label your view stupid and idiotic, and desire to make no effort to understand it, despite it being potentially rational. I am incapable of seeing past your style of writing and choose instead to attack your style of writing in a personal way while simultaneously leaving all objective points you attempted to make unaddressed." Also from experience, intended responses similar to the above I choose to categorize as "irrational", "unbalanced", and "unreasonable" discussion. This does not mean I can not discuss such responses on important issues, it simply means that I might choose to devote my time to other areas of my life that may yield productive results more rapidly.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to be an appropriate analysis of this potentially useful discussion, as similarly pointed out by the other guy's comment on unknowingly wasting your time.