Yeah, guilty as charged.😅 All I'll say in my defence is that I've literally spent months talking to J and working very hard to do so in good faith (I've been wanting to post one of our conversations for a while but they're usually absurdly long and go on all kinds of twists and tangents).
Yeah, guilty as charged.😅 All I'll say in my defence is that I've literally spent months talking to J and working very hard to do so in good faith (I've been wanting to post one of our conversations for a while but they're usually absurdly long and go on all kinds of twists and tangents).
At first, he just seemed a little lost and confused (I still think he is) and he asked me to help him work through some of his internal conflicts about racism, which I tried to do.
But yeah, after a few months of that, and after seeing him cling to the Kendi-ism and the victimhood ideation, despite him seeing how the logic of his arguments would fall apart, it became hard to take him seriously.
He *knows* what he's saying is silly. Or at least logically incoherent. Note how he doesn't even try to counter the sarcasm or back up his arguments with anything except more word salad. Not a single fact or concrete rationale to be found.
For some people, seeing themselves as the underdog in some existential struggle against "the system," and convincing themselves they're among the anointed few who are smart enough to see it, is too intoxicating to let mere logic or reason or facts get in the way.
There's one set as you mention that think they have mutant level intelligence and insight in understanding that the Democrats are a big letdown. They spend days, weeks, months, years sneering at an imaginary ideology of Democratic loyalists who still believe that the Ds are looking out for working class people, and that only they have the clarity of vision to see this isn't so.
You have more patience than I, Steve, and I have a lot more comfort in drawing lines. If I determine to my satisfaction that my interlocutor is debating in bad faith I walk away. And, yes, sometimes I block.
I have a few thresholds.
* Democrat as adjective
* science denial (vaccines, AGW or flat earth, I don't care)
* Trump support
* "who gets to decide" as an argument
Any one of these, and there are others, means I withdraw from the conversation, with or without explanation. I take it that most of the time you will keep going, Well, despite appearances I am near the end of my seventh decade and much closer to life's end than its beginning and I don't have time to argue with the unreachable nor do I have any illusions about effecting change one recalcitrant person at a time.
In all my decades online I can think of exactly two who have emerged from whatever stage conservatism was in at the time (neocons, tea party, MAGA) into a more reasonable outlook. That is, for all intensive porpoises, none.
The irony of J telling a thoughtful person such as yourself to "wake up."
Would you mind saying more on the "who get's to decide" argument? That's a new phrase to me. (Although perhaps an old experience that I just haven't recognized as a pattern.)
Suppose the topic is inhibiting concentration of wealth. I say there should be a maximum amount of money that one person or family can control, since past that point it's not more luxury or safety, just more power. But we never get to the reasons because sure as taxes someone will burst in with "who gets to decide" how much wealth is too much.
The actual discussion disintegrates because someone showed a potential for —choke—subjectivity.
As if we couldn't come up with some deterministic criteria for the corrosiveness of the megabillionaire.
I usually block people like that, because it's an asinine objection and I am disgusted with the whole "subjectivity" dodge.
"I did think you were a bit snippy and sarcastic"
Yeah, guilty as charged.😅 All I'll say in my defence is that I've literally spent months talking to J and working very hard to do so in good faith (I've been wanting to post one of our conversations for a while but they're usually absurdly long and go on all kinds of twists and tangents).
At first, he just seemed a little lost and confused (I still think he is) and he asked me to help him work through some of his internal conflicts about racism, which I tried to do.
But yeah, after a few months of that, and after seeing him cling to the Kendi-ism and the victimhood ideation, despite him seeing how the logic of his arguments would fall apart, it became hard to take him seriously.
He *knows* what he's saying is silly. Or at least logically incoherent. Note how he doesn't even try to counter the sarcasm or back up his arguments with anything except more word salad. Not a single fact or concrete rationale to be found.
For some people, seeing themselves as the underdog in some existential struggle against "the system," and convincing themselves they're among the anointed few who are smart enough to see it, is too intoxicating to let mere logic or reason or facts get in the way.
There's one set as you mention that think they have mutant level intelligence and insight in understanding that the Democrats are a big letdown. They spend days, weeks, months, years sneering at an imaginary ideology of Democratic loyalists who still believe that the Ds are looking out for working class people, and that only they have the clarity of vision to see this isn't so.
You have more patience than I, Steve, and I have a lot more comfort in drawing lines. If I determine to my satisfaction that my interlocutor is debating in bad faith I walk away. And, yes, sometimes I block.
I have a few thresholds.
* Democrat as adjective
* science denial (vaccines, AGW or flat earth, I don't care)
* Trump support
* "who gets to decide" as an argument
Any one of these, and there are others, means I withdraw from the conversation, with or without explanation. I take it that most of the time you will keep going, Well, despite appearances I am near the end of my seventh decade and much closer to life's end than its beginning and I don't have time to argue with the unreachable nor do I have any illusions about effecting change one recalcitrant person at a time.
In all my decades online I can think of exactly two who have emerged from whatever stage conservatism was in at the time (neocons, tea party, MAGA) into a more reasonable outlook. That is, for all intensive porpoises, none.
The irony of J telling a thoughtful person such as yourself to "wake up."
Would you mind saying more on the "who get's to decide" argument? That's a new phrase to me. (Although perhaps an old experience that I just haven't recognized as a pattern.)
Sure. Easiest illustrated by example.
Suppose the topic is inhibiting concentration of wealth. I say there should be a maximum amount of money that one person or family can control, since past that point it's not more luxury or safety, just more power. But we never get to the reasons because sure as taxes someone will burst in with "who gets to decide" how much wealth is too much.
The actual discussion disintegrates because someone showed a potential for —choke—subjectivity.
As if we couldn't come up with some deterministic criteria for the corrosiveness of the megabillionaire.
I usually block people like that, because it's an asinine objection and I am disgusted with the whole "subjectivity" dodge.