from my experience, these discussion topics are tedious and everyone makes the same arguments over and over again. how about you?

mterek Posted:

My impression is no matter what the context, the people who participate in such debates will at some point state their positions and try to suggest that their positions are superior to all others, supporting their bumertion with misconstrued facts, fastidious implication and thinly veiled opinion.

Not so! Also,how do you go through steps 1-3 then make thinly veiled opinions? Is that even possible to do after steps 1-3.

MC Banhammer Posted:

You can think that if you want, but science PROVES that on the internet, people just like to repeat their arguments over and over because it’s easier to copy-paste than to come up with something new.

Bob Sprankle blogs about this phenomenon here, and that’s just from the FIRST page on Google.

i was talking about real life, not the internet

mterek Posted:

My impression is no matter what the context, the people who participate in such debates will at some point state their positions and try to suggest that their positions are superior to all others, supporting their bumertion with misconstrued facts, fastidious implication and thinly veiled opinion.

If you don’t think your own position is superior, is it really ‘your’ position?

It’s part and parcel of believing one thing to be true, that you think things contradicting that view are false (even if your viewpoint is an inclusive one and you think there are many correct views, you implicitly disagree with people who say there’s only one right answer).

Let people bumert whatever they think is right, and if you think they’re wrong then demonstrate why with some bumertions (hopefully better supported ones) of your own. Or choose not to participate if you really think they’re stupid beyond repair.

Drakodan Posted:

^ I forgot the technical name for it, but that’s the theory that people tend to think positively of their own thoughts and actions, and negatively of the thoughts and actions of others.

pretentious ignorance?

Or is that just Christianity?

AIDS woman's genitals Posted:

Not so! Also,how do you go through steps 1-3 then make thinly veiled opinions? Is that even possible to do after steps 1-3.

Hmm.

1. Illegal aliens are hurting America. (state the position)

2. All other countries benefit from the American example, even Mexico. Illegals are undermining the American message to the world. (suggest it is superior)

3. Studies show 99% of illegals are tomato pickers.(miscostrued fact)

4. If they were really smart, they could go to college. (fastidious implication)

5. The facts just show that illegals are stupid. (veiled opinion)

#5 is nothing more than a fallacious generalization of #3, and it’s worse if ‘illegals’ was substituted for ‘mexicans’. #4 is almost a truism, but sneeringly suggests #5 (and is treated by #5 as a ‘fact’Log in to see images!.

man-man Posted:

If you don’t think your own position is superior, is it really ‘your’ position?

If a decision was made on the person’s part, it’s his/her position. Religion and party affiliation are typically given to kids by their parents, but remaining with those positions is just as much a choice as switching away from them.

man-man Posted:

It’s part and parcel of believing one thing to be true, that you think things contradicting that view are false (even if your viewpoint is an inclusive one and you think there are many correct views, you implicitly disagree with people who say there’s only one right answer).

Let people bumert whatever they think is right, and if you think they’re wrong then demonstrate why with some bumertions (hopefully better supported ones) of your own. Or choose not to participate if you really think they’re stupid beyond repair.

Our brains don’t work like that. Instinctively we’re not looking for truth, we’re looking to be right. That’s why it took several thousand years until Bacon’s scientific method for us to approach fact logically. It’s not intuitive at all.

Applying the scientific method gives some results on why exactly discussions tend to stall; This book deals with a certain thought patterns in authoritarian thinking. Log in to see images!