You’re killing me!
Logic always applies. It applies in conjunction with emotions. You can’t reason without logic. And the time that logic is needed most is when the debate gets the most emotional.
And as far as your statement on hearsay, I would suggest you treat hearsay ‘evidence’ the same way the courts do. It is useless. It is rumor. It is a waste of time.
So to sum up… ad hominem attack, ad hominem attack, ad hominem attack… ad hominem attack… ad hominem attack… ad hominem attack… “tryhard”… “sour grapes”.
Yes, boo on me for not doing your job for you to defend your argument. How “insane” of me - I must be mentally ill! And yes, clearly I’m the one walking away here by analyzing your wikipedia citation and waiting for your response. And how very smug I am, gloating and proclaiming my achievements, again while walking away, which is totally what I’m doing!
And naturally there’s no reasoning with me, because I’m clearly unwilling to have the logical discussion I’ve been clamouring for people to have with me for several hours now! And clearly I’m delusional and disconnected from the real world, because I’m not a True Scotsman like you! And clearly I’m just getting all worked up, and over nothing! How absurd of me to put actual effort and attention into this unimportant topic that you clearly aren’t interested in and that isn’t worth your time because you’ve got better things to do than argue with someone like me anyway!
You’re right, the fact that this entire discussion played out on a blog removes all meaning and significance from it! Wow, how could I have such a poor sense of proportion about all this? Clearly I should follow your example.
/sarcasm
/snark
“Please stop posting” is shorthand for “You are dominating the discussion and contributing little or no new information or insight. I find your continued posts to be socially awkward and embarrassing. If this was a real-world conversation, people would have stopped responding to you long ago and would instead be finding excuses to leave, or would be staring at their shoes.”
Please stop posting.
On this thread. Not in general. I’m not censoring you. I’m not asking you or anyone else to delete your existing posts. To my eyes, you’ve argued yourself into a very awkward position, you’ve posted far more times than any other discussant on this thread, and you seem to be the only person who hasn’t recognized that yet. To be very explicit, I am not at all interested in discussing this with you. I’m simply asking you to stop posting on this particular thread, please.
Will you also stop posting?
I’m fine with people who have nothing worthwhile to say in response to my comments “finding excuses to leave” or “staring at their shoes”. If they don’t have anything to say in relation to my point, the can simply not respond to me.
Oddly, they haven’t done that. They seem to feel compelled to respond to my argumentation with personal attacks and petty demands for my silence. Only one person has tried to actually engage with my argument logically so far, and that was really just a token effort, as at the first rebuttal they fell back on personal insults and vitriol.
I haven’t seen ad hominem attacks against you in the last part of this thread. I think you are confusing what an ad hominem attack is. It is not an insult. It is a method of argument where you discredit the arguer instead of their argument. For example, if I were to say that you are a racist for arguing this way, that would be an ad hominem attack. If I were to complain about your arguing style saying that it is being repetitive and that you aren’t making sense, that would just be insulting (perhaps).
I stab you with my words! 
Indeed logic applies, but it is not the only tool in the box; there’s a saying about hammers and problems that occurs to me.
And hearsay is evidence, and will be allowed or disallowed as the court rules, as is true of any evidence. It is only in TV dramas that calling something ‘hearsay’ disposes of it entirely.
Well, that’s a coldly logical response to disagreement. [/irony]
I’m a Canadian who has lived in the US for about 3 years, and I can honestly say that I was—and continue to be—shocked by the state of race relations here. Regardless of the theoretical meaning a non-American attaches to certain race-related words or ideas that comprise the American vernacular, those tropes carry a hell of a lot more heft when you actually encounter them in the US. So while I was certainly aware of the meaning of the word “urban” while living in Canada, it definitely carries a lot more meaning/baggage here in the US than I could have imagined. So I can definitely understand someone using it innocently in this context without being aware of how it would likely be interpreted in the US (since the full intensity of what it conveys likely isn’t that prominent in his mind). Plus I was probably in shock and awe of the use of the word “whore,” which distracted me from the potential implications of “urban,” when I first read it.
Don’t forget “hysterical” too!
(Where’s my bingo card?)
I already have checked a dictionary. Here’s what wikipedia says about the term.
Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication
which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically
incorrect or inconvenient as determined by a government, media outlet
or other controlling body. It can be done by governments and private
organizations or by individuals who engage in self-censorship.
Coercion to silence is suppression of speech. You and the others attempting to coerce me to silence are not a government, but you are a private informal organization, as well as individuals.
One need not have one’s published words obliterated to be censored. A journalist facing death threats if they choose to publish certain materials is being censored, as they are being coerced into preventing their word from being publishes - in effect, obliterating it before it even exists.
Likewise, social coercion to silence, although less immediately violent and far more easy to resist, is nonetheless a form of censorship. You seek to prevent me from speaking through threats - abstract societal threats, but threats nonetheless.
Let’s be more specific here. The example you provided was anecdotal evidence. The popular statement on that is that “the plural of anecdote is not data”. There is a lot of wisdom in this statement because it takes into account what data is, how it is properly acquired, and how it is evaluated. There is a popular segment on The Tonight Show called Jaywalking (I don’t watch the show, but have seen clips) where a camera crew of the show ambushes citizens on the streets with simple history and current events questions. The people interviewed always give stupid answers–always. This is perhaps the clearest example of why anecdotes can never be data. With a set of anecdotes, you throw out all the ‘invalid’ responses and generally can be as biased as you want. And by doing this, the anecdotes lose all possibility of ever being considered data. This is why I can’t accept the example you gave. This is not to say that ‘urban’ doesn’t have racist connotations. We all know that it does in certain circumstances. I just can’t accept your proof for that.
For more honesty. “Urban” is commonly associated with “black.” What rock have you been living under?
I? Where have I attempted to coerce you in any manner? Neither am I affiliated with anyone on this blog, let alone this thread. To call the posters here members of an organization on the basis of our disagreement with you and our presence in this thread is to bend English into babble.
And, again, your words have not been suppressed. It may be rude to ask you to stop digging when you’re in a hole, it may be unwanted advice, but it is not censorship.
Then where are we in disagreement? Are you not disagreeing with yourself by providing an anecdote about anecdotes, and then saying what I’ve quoted above?
Are you a robot?
If you don’t get how emotionally loaded the connotations of “urban” and “whore” are, and how relevant those connotations are to this situation, you’ve gone way too far over to the “logical” side. Or, you just might be another white guy who discounts the feelings of those who aren’t white and/or guys.
It’s not a question of fault, it’s a question of motivation. Of all the possible reactions to this story, you decided that the important one was to consider the possibility that the guy was merely an entitled misogynist asshole, rather than an entitled racist misogynist asshole. Why was that your reaction? What actual difference does it make one way or the other?
All discussions should start, “what the fuck are you talking about?”
So can I call your sweetheart “Honey”? Or “sweetie”? How about “sweetie pie”?
Start at 0:30 –
This thread, my friends, is some mad, evil-scientist experiment.
We all know not to feed the trolls. Here, today, they’re becoming obese.
