"My mind is closed to anything almost any conservative Republican might have to say because most of them are liars. If you think the exclusion of liars is a violation of "free speech" then our views are irreconcilable."
I have a right-wing friend with the same extreme partisan filter as you except for him, all things coming from Democrats…
"My mind is closed to anything almost any conservative Republican might have to say because most of them are liars. If you think the exclusion of liars is a violation of "free speech" then our views are irreconcilable."
I have a right-wing friend with the same extreme partisan filter as you except for him, all things coming from Democrats and Republicans he deems to be RINOs are liars. When I tell him that there can be no critical thought when tribal membership is what you use to determine truth he usually says, we agree to disagree, and we don't destroy a friendship formed decades before either of us had a clue about each other's political views. Who gets to decide who the liars are, you, him or me? I'm fine with us deciding for ourselves. I'm quite outspoken in my disdain of political partisanship as a Litmus test for truth. That doesn't mean that we will never agree on anything, so I don't automatically dismiss your thoughts.
I assume that your science forum has stated rules about religion presented as science and if so, enforcing them is fine. It doesn't take much time to see that that is where someone's ideas are coming from so it's also fine to stop reading when you see fit. I don't read to the end of many articles or comments. Not necessarily because I disagree with them. Most often it's a what's the point? Does this lead to an actionable path to a solution or understanding (often the same thing) or is it just venting hate?
My disdain for the extremes of tribalism isn't about the views of the tribes, but rather the tribalism preempting logical thought by willfully dismissing all things that threaten an ideology. That is by the way what censorship is most often about. Not truth, but threats to the ideology of the censor. Basically, "I don't want to hear that shit!" That's your decision, but you should be the decider of that.
When are you going to explain why you think who decides is not a real argument?
Well your first response was to bait me by demanding a justification for something I didn't say. I feel disinclined to debate someone who instantly projects dishonesty like that.
In thousands of debates I've read and participated in someone will quip "who gets to decide!" and then primp and preen as if it's an incisive argument. It isn't. It's merely lazy, and lately fashionable given the blurring of fact and opinion. Compounded by the fashionable invocation of "subjectivity" as though it invalidates every clear reasoning.
Who gets to decide? Are we incapable of coming up with criteria? Let's go through a few examples.
Who gets to decide what a medical doctor is? Well there are certification boards. They have developed stringent criteria. Someone who hangs out his shingle as an MD without that certification will go to prison, even if he practices exemplary medicine. The same is true for many professions. Do you want to open this to argument? That would be irresponsible.
And then your Trumpian friend (that would be a friendship-breaker for me; I could have an uncomfortable relationship with a Bush supporter, but Trump? No) . Does your friend say Biden stole the election? Who gets to decide who the president is? Well, sorry, but it's objectively true that Biden won over seven million more votes and a decisive electoral college victory.
Who gets to decide if the earth is flat or round?
Now let me talk about a more current event; there are people spreading wantonly irresponsible misinformation about COVID, among them a once-respected epidemiologist. Social media have drawn lines in sand about this; they'll eject people like Dr. Malone for advocating ivermectin as a treatment.
Back to my original point: a society that reveres pluralism and a variety of viewpoints must take on the responsibility of rejecting and, yes, suppressing illegitimate ones. If I had my way Dr. Malone would be making license plates. The epistemological crisis we are living through right now is the result of a progression that began with a noble idea and has disintegrated into chaos. Postmodernism was like falling down stairs. Now we're going over a cliff. The most absurd ideas (a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement is operating a child sex-traffic operation out of its basement; Trump won the election; a man in a dress is a woman). are set alongside legitimate viewpoints, and the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
If "who gets to decide" is all you have, bow out of the debate because you don't have an argument. And if you find yourself readily thinking in terms of perspective and subjectivity, you've lost your way.
All that you have written in this conversation pertains to what should people be allowed to say. My response opened with "The trouble with limitations on free speech is who shall do the limiting?" Your statement that you did not say anything about censorship is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst. Censorship is implicit in your words. But you didn't use the word censorship, neither did I, but we were both speaking to the idea of limitations on some speech. My question is still valid, you wrote nothing to legitimately challenge that question.
Yes, when people can all speak freely there will be crackpots and the uninformed speaking along with the well informed. It means we make our own choices. Politicians are not what I consider to be informed experts and politics don't influence my thoughts on the non-political.
My friend (your thought process twin from the other side of the isle) has been a friend for decades based in things having nothing to do with the insanity of partisan politics. Difference in political opinions don't make or break friendships. Not only do I see friendships but family relationships being torn apart over differences in political opinion. Life is too short to give that much space in our heads to political foolishness. Our last Presidential election gave us a choice between Trump and Bidin. If that doesn't shine a light on the absurdity of "our democracy" I don't know what will. Base friendships on opinions about a choice between those assclowns? Good grief!
I go to a board-certified cardiologist, rather than to Jasmin the Hoodoo concoction mixer down on Front Street. She is allowed to say that her concoctions "may support heart health" like the vitamin sellers say. "May support" as a requirement for things not rigorously evaluated is a reasonable restriction. Indeed, your rant seems to indicate that the idea of "who decides" is an absolute valid question and argument.
Politics is not a rigorous science in spite of college degrees being granted in Political Science. Intelligent, highly educated people have differing opinions on the political. Control of the political narrative, call it bias or censorship as you wish, is more likely to be about suppressing opposing ideas than about truth, though even a stopped clock can be correct depending upon when you look at it.
Closing you mind to everything from another tribe keeps you in a bubble preventing the possibility of considering the things they have to say that could be better than the things our own tribe thinks. There will be "some" things and partisanship does not decide that. We should not live in fear of an idea that could challenge our cherished ideas. My views have changed a number of times through the years, and I am fortunate to live a longer life, might shift again.
Quoting Muhammad Ali, “If a man looks at the world when he is 50 the same way he looked at it when he was 20 and it hasn’t changed, then he has wasted 30 years of his life.”
I do not belong to any tribe, my writing is not a rant, and I am a lot more open-minded than most people. I am comfortable drawing lines; I dismiss arguments by flat-earthers and libertarians with no regrets.
Your writing is abusive and dismissive, you wantonly misrepresent what I have written, and this exchange is over.
"My mind is closed to anything almost any conservative Republican might have to say because most of them are liars. If you think the exclusion of liars is a violation of "free speech" then our views are irreconcilable."
I have a right-wing friend with the same extreme partisan filter as you except for him, all things coming from Democrats and Republicans he deems to be RINOs are liars. When I tell him that there can be no critical thought when tribal membership is what you use to determine truth he usually says, we agree to disagree, and we don't destroy a friendship formed decades before either of us had a clue about each other's political views. Who gets to decide who the liars are, you, him or me? I'm fine with us deciding for ourselves. I'm quite outspoken in my disdain of political partisanship as a Litmus test for truth. That doesn't mean that we will never agree on anything, so I don't automatically dismiss your thoughts.
I assume that your science forum has stated rules about religion presented as science and if so, enforcing them is fine. It doesn't take much time to see that that is where someone's ideas are coming from so it's also fine to stop reading when you see fit. I don't read to the end of many articles or comments. Not necessarily because I disagree with them. Most often it's a what's the point? Does this lead to an actionable path to a solution or understanding (often the same thing) or is it just venting hate?
My disdain for the extremes of tribalism isn't about the views of the tribes, but rather the tribalism preempting logical thought by willfully dismissing all things that threaten an ideology. That is by the way what censorship is most often about. Not truth, but threats to the ideology of the censor. Basically, "I don't want to hear that shit!" That's your decision, but you should be the decider of that.
When are you going to explain why you think who decides is not a real argument?
Well your first response was to bait me by demanding a justification for something I didn't say. I feel disinclined to debate someone who instantly projects dishonesty like that.
In thousands of debates I've read and participated in someone will quip "who gets to decide!" and then primp and preen as if it's an incisive argument. It isn't. It's merely lazy, and lately fashionable given the blurring of fact and opinion. Compounded by the fashionable invocation of "subjectivity" as though it invalidates every clear reasoning.
Who gets to decide? Are we incapable of coming up with criteria? Let's go through a few examples.
Who gets to decide what a medical doctor is? Well there are certification boards. They have developed stringent criteria. Someone who hangs out his shingle as an MD without that certification will go to prison, even if he practices exemplary medicine. The same is true for many professions. Do you want to open this to argument? That would be irresponsible.
And then your Trumpian friend (that would be a friendship-breaker for me; I could have an uncomfortable relationship with a Bush supporter, but Trump? No) . Does your friend say Biden stole the election? Who gets to decide who the president is? Well, sorry, but it's objectively true that Biden won over seven million more votes and a decisive electoral college victory.
Who gets to decide if the earth is flat or round?
Now let me talk about a more current event; there are people spreading wantonly irresponsible misinformation about COVID, among them a once-respected epidemiologist. Social media have drawn lines in sand about this; they'll eject people like Dr. Malone for advocating ivermectin as a treatment.
Back to my original point: a society that reveres pluralism and a variety of viewpoints must take on the responsibility of rejecting and, yes, suppressing illegitimate ones. If I had my way Dr. Malone would be making license plates. The epistemological crisis we are living through right now is the result of a progression that began with a noble idea and has disintegrated into chaos. Postmodernism was like falling down stairs. Now we're going over a cliff. The most absurd ideas (a pizza parlor that doesn't have a basement is operating a child sex-traffic operation out of its basement; Trump won the election; a man in a dress is a woman). are set alongside legitimate viewpoints, and the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
If "who gets to decide" is all you have, bow out of the debate because you don't have an argument. And if you find yourself readily thinking in terms of perspective and subjectivity, you've lost your way.
All that you have written in this conversation pertains to what should people be allowed to say. My response opened with "The trouble with limitations on free speech is who shall do the limiting?" Your statement that you did not say anything about censorship is disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst. Censorship is implicit in your words. But you didn't use the word censorship, neither did I, but we were both speaking to the idea of limitations on some speech. My question is still valid, you wrote nothing to legitimately challenge that question.
Yes, when people can all speak freely there will be crackpots and the uninformed speaking along with the well informed. It means we make our own choices. Politicians are not what I consider to be informed experts and politics don't influence my thoughts on the non-political.
My friend (your thought process twin from the other side of the isle) has been a friend for decades based in things having nothing to do with the insanity of partisan politics. Difference in political opinions don't make or break friendships. Not only do I see friendships but family relationships being torn apart over differences in political opinion. Life is too short to give that much space in our heads to political foolishness. Our last Presidential election gave us a choice between Trump and Bidin. If that doesn't shine a light on the absurdity of "our democracy" I don't know what will. Base friendships on opinions about a choice between those assclowns? Good grief!
I go to a board-certified cardiologist, rather than to Jasmin the Hoodoo concoction mixer down on Front Street. She is allowed to say that her concoctions "may support heart health" like the vitamin sellers say. "May support" as a requirement for things not rigorously evaluated is a reasonable restriction. Indeed, your rant seems to indicate that the idea of "who decides" is an absolute valid question and argument.
Politics is not a rigorous science in spite of college degrees being granted in Political Science. Intelligent, highly educated people have differing opinions on the political. Control of the political narrative, call it bias or censorship as you wish, is more likely to be about suppressing opposing ideas than about truth, though even a stopped clock can be correct depending upon when you look at it.
Closing you mind to everything from another tribe keeps you in a bubble preventing the possibility of considering the things they have to say that could be better than the things our own tribe thinks. There will be "some" things and partisanship does not decide that. We should not live in fear of an idea that could challenge our cherished ideas. My views have changed a number of times through the years, and I am fortunate to live a longer life, might shift again.
Quoting Muhammad Ali, “If a man looks at the world when he is 50 the same way he looked at it when he was 20 and it hasn’t changed, then he has wasted 30 years of his life.”
I do not belong to any tribe, my writing is not a rant, and I am a lot more open-minded than most people. I am comfortable drawing lines; I dismiss arguments by flat-earthers and libertarians with no regrets.
Your writing is abusive and dismissive, you wantonly misrepresent what I have written, and this exchange is over.