Skeptic Project

Then, through some amazing inspiration of arrogance, you think you can just declare these other arguments invalid without accessing them.

whoa whoa whoa.

I never meant it like that. Talk about reading into things. I like how you literally wrote something that was obviously talking about a particular thread and Im just meant to guess you suddenly decided to talk about some other completely different one and Im dishonest and childish for not being about to do so. Yet, I write what I did and you read into it THIS??? Don't tell me, its me being stupid again, right? Yea I know, you could never have misunderstood me and its my fault for not being able to read your mind.

I wrote this:

Stick with this argument as its your strongest, please don't bother with the other points.

... not because I think all "your arguments invalid without assessing them", but because I felt this was a better point to focus on rather than getting bogged down on what I considered irrelevant. Ie. we could go on for pages on those other arguments but felt it was easier to stick to one I felt was the most relevant at the time.

The fact that I was ignorant enough to have not read up enough on the Norwegian Drug policy is a valid point. Thats why I now feel its more complicated than I thought, without getting into it all again.

If you pay attention you may notice I have different temperament in response depending on who it is. Just because I was aggressive against Matt doesn't mean that is how I was talking to you.

If you pay attention you may notice I have different temperament in response depending on who it is. Just because I was aggressive against Matt doesn't mean that is how I was talking to you.

Look, you just said that I shouldn't bother with the other points because you claimed they weren't as strong. I maintain they were equally strong, but you made the normative statement without empathizing with the positions as I was proposing them. I took a direct issue with that because it directed the flow of the discourse without conceding that the anthropological arguments did have validity and did merit a continued discussion.

By the way, your utilizing tautology again. You continue to maintain I was talking about McDonalds thread when I have TWICE corrected my ambiguity. Yes, I am going to maintain that position of your interaction with my posts.

Oh please. I was unclear, yes, but don't you dare pull that omnipotent, esoteric act with me. Its old and rather inane. Or are you telling me that your diction is so completely perfect all of the time that your intentions are never lost? Don't talk to me about hypocrisy when you certainly aren't in possession of immaculate literary skills.

No Im pissed at you, because you called me childish instead of saying, no, you wrote what you did badly and that you were referring to the other thread.

Yes, Empathy, in terms of argumentation, means fully understanding where a position comes from and how its structure operates. Aaron's argument functioned off of a semantical position regarding "nutritious" and "well balanced" and was in the line of reasoning in accordance with those definitions. The question of developing a gradient for the evaluation of food merited more debate and was a point you could have much more efficiently dealt with.

If you're going to defend the argument you really should make sure you remember what actually happened and what was said.

The concepts of "nutritious" and "well balanced" were DIRECTLY addressed several times in various different ways. I "empathised" with the argument completely, not that I knew why he wanted to defend such terrible myths about nutrition but I understood the argument.

The point basically was that Aaron and Matt etc were claiming nutritious was a valid word to describe the McDonalds cheeseburger because it has nutrients in it, ie, protein etc, and that "nutritious" doesn't necessarily mean healthy. Yet I explained that actually nutritious in every relevant context I can find nutritious DOES refer to health and i challenged them to find a legitimate usage of the word used in the way they used it. Similarly I said "well balanced" is only meaningful in terms of nutrition, so I asked what science the claim that the McDonalds cheeseburger was "well balanced" justifies that comment. Guess what science I was presented? Yup, none whatsoever. He then decided to make up his own theory of nutrition because he presumably could find any and create his own definitions of words. Don't believe me? Try and find a place he made an valid argument I didn't address.

As for your Penn and Teller debate-

Im so excited right now...

you compressed memes with adherence to a categorical assertion, which is rather dubious.Essentially you created the category, then because their episode seemed to promote a skepticism of climate science, you compressed the categories together. In terms of dealing with categories of thought, thats rather dubious. That's how I would have handled it differently.

Im sorry Im rather stupid, can you put that in a simpler way? I don't understand what you're saying. What do you mean "compressed memes with adherence to a categorical assertion" and "created the category, then because their episode seemed to promote a skepticism of climate science, you compressed the categories together"

You have watched the episode in question right? Did you follow the links or are you again just assuming Im wrong or unreasonable before you actually looked at what Im actually saying?

No Im pissed at you, because you called me childish instead of saying, no, you wrote what you did badly and that you were referring to the other thread.

I'm sorry you're upset. Doesn't change much. I've clarified twice, and that's sufficient. You're being childish and I stand by that.

If you're going to defend the argument you really should make sure you remember what actually happened and what was said.

Empathizing and defending are not the same thing in discourse. Look the words up.

Im sorry Im rather stupid, can you put that in a simpler way? I don't understand what you're saying. What do you mean "compressed memes with adherence to a categorical assertion" and "created the category, then because their episode seemed to promote a skepticism of climate science, you compressed the categories together"

I saw the episode, and I'm not going to rephrase it. Its not difficult to understand and I shouldn't have to fix it just because you want to be an ass to me now. You made a rather questionable equivalency on your second post, and if youre either not willing or able to recognize it, then that's on you. Get over yourself.

Look, you just said that I shouldn't bother with the other points because you claimed they weren't as strong. I maintain they were equally strong, but you made the normative statement without empathizing with the positions as I was proposing them. I took a direct issue with that because it directed the flow of the discourse without conceding that the anthropological arguments did have validity and did merit a continued discussion.

You can believe they were just as strong, and maybe they were, but in such arguments like these I feel it best to find things you can agree on before you can work on your differences.

In this case I felt that the other points we were discussing could be debated over and over and we wouldn't get anywhere, I had a point that I felt got to the heart of the issue for me. If I remember correctly, one point we were debating was about the history of drinking compared to cannabis in society, but my issue was I dont really care about that if crime doesn't go up because if cannabis is decriminalised. If you can show it does, that's the main point for me.

By the way, your utilizing tautology again. You continue to maintain I was talking about McDonalds thread when I have TWICE corrected my ambiguity. Yes, I am going to maintain that position of your interaction with my posts.

I think you want me to be saying all this stuff because apparently you've made up your mind about me and dont want that challenged.

***IF*** you honestly didn't mean to write it the way you did, that's fine. I am perfectly willing to accept that, I have no problem with accepting that. My beef with you is that instead of seeing that I made a perfectly valid assumption based on your wording that you were referring to the McDonalds thread and immediately apologising and stating what you actually meant to say you call me childish for apparently not understanding you.

^Nutbar retard.

He didn't say that. You're wrong and you're a moron. Now, this "liar" is going to bed.

Its all a vast conspiracy, everyone ignores my constant lying except for Ed the wonder tard.

.

I saw the episode, and I'm not going to rephrase it. Its not difficult to understand and I shouldn't have to fix it just because you want to be an ass to me now. You made a rather questionable equivalency on your second post, and if youre either not willing or able to recognize it, then that's on you. Get over yourself.

For one will one of you just tell me where Im supposed to me wrong!!!

Yes I will say I was wrong in the "can't prove a negative" thread that i was wrong in the "pot" thread. If you claim I was wrong in the McDonalds thread or the P&T thread just tell me where Im wrong! Specifically! It shouldn't be hard with P7T there's been hardly any posts!

Since you think the P&T is an example of how badly I conduct myself and I can see absolutely nothing wrong, please explain it to me. I would expect nothing less if I accused you of that, so please be specific.

No, I called you childish for asserting a level of understanding that was outright rude. You responded like an ass, so similarly I responded in kind. I wasn't clear, you acted on that statement, but then when I clarified you threw a hissy and just kept asserting that I hadn't written ambiguously. And that brings me back to my main problem with your argumentation. Tautology.

OOOOOH! I get it now! You think I SHOULDN'T have assumed you meant that McDonalds thread! Once again, how was I to know? See I have to repeat myself again!

See, its not that you WEREN'T clear, otherwise I would have asked for clarification.

The point was that you WERE clear.

Don't accuse me of being childish just because you cant accept you wrote something so badly. Look here I'll help you... I'll go first, I was wrong for being so emotional and this is where you say you were wrong for calling me childish and that of course I would have assumed that you meant what I thought you meant, but that its all okay now because we've clarified what we all meant.

There would that have been so hard?

And you ignored my other paragraph for some reason. What was wrong with it? Didn't sound as unreasonable as you wanted me to be? Yea. Welcome to Matts world.

No. I called you childish because you were being an ass in response. Had you said it in a more mature and civil manner, I likewise would have clarified my post. Instead, you threw a hissy and I had already lost my patience at that point. If we're in agreement now, maybe in the future you'll exhibit some civility to people who have previously tried having grown up conversations with you. Tone down your rhetoric or learn to deal with the fact that people don't respond calmly to overt antagonism

what other paragraph are you referring to? Maybe it really didn't have anything that needed to be responded to (and I'm meaning that in its plainest possible application).

Sheesh and you call ME stubborn!

No. I called you childish because you were being an ass in response.

You made unfair accusations, so I responded sarcastically. Im so sorry. You still didn't admit you were wrong when you replied, it took another post for me to point it out before you then, begrudgingly, said you may have made a "rather ambiguous syntactical choice". Of course it wasn't "ambiguous" at all, but apparently that's the best you're going to give.

Had you said it in a more mature and civil manner, I likewise would have clarified my post. Instead, you threw a hissy and I had already lost my patience at that point.

Yea, maybe because nothing you said required clarification as it all made sense.

If we're in agreement now, maybe in the future you'll exhibit some civility to people who have previously tried having grown up conversations with you. Tone down your rhetoric or learn to deal with the fact that people don't respond calmly to overt antagonism

And maybe you'll stop accusing me of things you don't understand, like in the McDonalds thread. You still really have no idea what happened there which is why you didn't respond to the issue of Aarons argument and your accusations about how unreasonable and illogical you seem to claim I was being.

what other paragraph are you referring to? Maybe it really didn't have anything that needed to be responded to (and I'm meaning that in its plainest possible application).

Uh, maybe the part where you claimed I was being arrogant and dismissed all your points as invalid without without accessing them?

I'll copy and paste for you:

Look, you just said that I shouldn't bother with the other points because you claimed they weren't as strong. I maintain they were equally strong, but you made the normative statement without empathizing with the positions as I was proposing them. I took a direct issue with that because it directed the flow of the discourse without conceding that the anthropological arguments did have validity and did merit a continued discussion.

You can believe they were just as strong, and maybe they were, but in such arguments like these I feel it best to find things you can agree on before you can work on your differences.

In this case I felt that the other points we were discussing could be debated over and over and we wouldn't get anywhere, I had a point that I felt got to the heart of the issue for me. If I remember correctly, one point we were debating was about the history of drinking compared to cannabis in society, but my issue was I dont really care about that if crime doesn't go up because if cannabis is decriminalised. If you can show it does, that's the main point for me.

In the post right after your response to my ambiguity, I responded to your hostile phrasing by clarifying my statement and then told you to grow up. The very NEXT POST I MADE I AGAIN clarified my statement and saying that I had been ambiguous, but you continued to assert that, rather than making a mistake, I was somehow trying to cover my tracks. I admitted within two posts that I was unclear, and I stated in my next post what I actually meant. Did I snap quickly? Yes, but you werent much of a grown up towards me. Are you going to maintain again that I didn't state I had been ambiguous really soon after my post?

In the post right after your response to my ambiguity, I responded to your hostile phrasing by clarifying my statement and then told you to grow up. The very NEXT POST I MADE I AGAIN clarified my statement and saying that I had been ambiguous, but you continued to assert that, rather than making a mistake, I was somehow trying to cover my tracks. I admitted within two posts that I was unclear, and I stated in my next post what I actually meant. Did I snap quickly? Yes, but you werent much of a grown up towards me. Are you going to maintain again that I didn't state I had been ambiguous really soon after my post?

You most certainly ARE saying it was ambiguous but for some reason you still don't get that I am saying - It was NOT ambiguous. It was clear what you wrote whichis why I didn't think to ask for clarification. It made sense.

The fact that in the first reply you called me childish, didn't say you were sorry that you meant a different thread and then in the second post STILL tried to make out it was my fault because you claimed it was a "rather ambiguous syntactical choice" and then accused me further by saying....

... "But don't you dare assume to have some sort of esoteric power to acertain my true intention in my own diction as you continue to stumble through your own"....

Is that how you admit you miswrote something? Wow. Look just forget about it, its obvious jsut saying you didn't mean to write what you wrote is just too damn difficult.

I cant believe you guys are STILL going

I said you werent demonstrating empathy which would show a mastery of the points at hand in common terms and would have resolved the debate in a much more efficient manner. I've said that multiple times, and I'm done with that

And no, they were just as good but you didn't want to have that discussion. I made the historical point for the abuse of alcohol, explained its correlation with societal factors as part as food custom, and suggested that the illegality of it was part of much deeper and far reaching issues than the ones you wanted to discuss. You didn't like that, said they weren't good points, and in doing so made yourself seem rather arrogant. If you didn't mean it that way, I'm sorry, but I still don't respect that move in the discussion. You wanted to control it in terms familiar to you, I wanted to show that its far more than a simple contemporary issue and there were perspectives you weren't considering but in the substance's materiality as well as their social integration through time.

I'm not here to disagree that the show has errors. I am disagreeing with your blanket compression without acknowledging that even among mainstream scientists there isnt a total understanding of every mechanism involved in climate change.

Then why argue such a ridiculous strawman?

Its like a truther coming back to CS and saying... "but all Loose Change was saying was that you shouldn't trust everything the government says about 911 and we still dont have all the facts".

Well, that would be true, but Loose Change also says a lot of other things as well. It makes specific claims about GW that are false, it uses common denialist myths and FAKE (i cant stress this enough) FAKE FAKE FAKE experts.

You claim you aren't defending the episode, but you are doing just that.

That was the point of my quote about David Archer. It had nothing to do with the episode and everything to do with me trying to convey to you that the science is not as clear cut and thus does absolutely leave places for people to be agnostic (but for a rather limited time once they can access the fundamentals).

It is clear cut, maybe not for the layman but Bullshit is supposed to be debunking myths the layman often believes.

They start first by attacking the sensationalist aspects of climate change, and I have to say that we shouldn't let popular science magazines be our only source of information. Maybe we should do a better job of teaching atmospheric chemistry and climate science. The show isn't scripture, but your statement in that thread left itself with a huge assertion that wasn't inherently secure.

You still keep ignoring what I actually said about it. Its pretty weird seeing you describe my posts in a way that makes it sound completely different to what I actually wrote. The P&T contains LIES. How do I make this any clearer? And its the same lies that deniers repeat over and over again.

I am here to say that I didn't appreciate your attempt to eliminate arguments you didnt want to engage in, in the pot thread, by saying they weren't as good as the argument with which you did want to engage with. You could have said "I don't know about all of that, but maybe we can focus on this since its something we both can discuss it."

See above you still dont understand why I said that, its not that difficult to understand what I meant but apparently you WANT me to be saying something unreasonable despite me having explained what I really meant.