How to lose an argument online
sethgodin.typepad.com
sethgodin.typepad.com
It's also not silly to bring up Hitler, Stalin and Mao when somebody claims that religion is the source of all oppression. They clearly demonstrate that atheistic worldviews can be radical and dangerous, too.
To simply point and yell "Godwin!" at every mention is more childish that bringing up these topics when they're not really relevant to the discussion. Surely there are SOME valid lessons from the worst mass killings in history.
It's also not silly to bring up Hitler, Stalin and Mao when somebody claims that religion is the source of all oppression. They clearly demonstrate that atheistic worldviews can be radical and dangerous, too.
True, but be careful about how you use this. I've had people claim that Nazism, Communism, et al, were forms of religion themselves, which is true, depending on how you use the term.
A forum I hang out on has an "almost troll" that has a favorite argument pastime of thinking up a conspiracy - googling some related idea and posting a long rant about it.
When he butts into the middle of the discussion with one of these you just know it's going to spiral down badly - for example whilst discussing the idea of a back door in W7 (I know, I know :() he sidetracked us onto discussing de-armament codes in missiles :)
Most times it is very useful to determine just what another person is saying. Language is extremely slippery. I agree that going to the edges can be awful if done poorly, but if somebody says something like "I'm a utilitarian" I think it's perfectly honest and respectful to ask something like "Does that mean you would sacrifice a million people to give humanity an additional ten years of lifespan?"
Because sometimes "utilitarian" means that and sometimes it doesn't. Utilitarian is just a label, and labels don't in themselves have a lot of meaning. Words only have context when related to other words -- this is why every honest web discussion usually ends with a discussion in terms. Unless you explore the extremes you really have no idea what the other person is saying.
Godwin's law is awesome, but just like Occam's Razor, it has it's limits. Sometimes people are really talking about something that resembles naziism -- like say, modern nazis. So sure, 99% of the time you're whacked for bringing up nazis, there's also that other time when you're not. And you probably can't tell the difference! (smile)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=909015
and woefully still digging the hole:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=908944
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Funny that another breast mentioning thread devolved into a a homophobic and antisemitic troll
Mentioning breasts is a similar way to instantly lose an argument, and I provided some links to arguments that relied mentioned breasts and died.
Did you follow any of the links?
If that's losing, I want to lose.
That wasn't the one that brought up the breasts though was it? The person that did made reasonable (if direct) points and obviously people agreed with them.... that sounds like "winning".
I didn't say it was the same person. So there were two morons working in tamden (kryo and Zarathu).
You conveniently ignore the poor person[1] who replied to the first breasts comment. She didn't get any upvotes, but the aggressive first post did and the homophobic anti-semite managed to get an upvote.
tianaco was so offended she wrote kryo, that was a really nasty, disparaging, and insensitive thing to write. You cast this nasty/insensitive as reasonable (if direct).
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[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912851 (tianaco)