Comments and Questions on The Lounge here

[iron81]

We screwed this one up I guess.

Wookie locked the thread after I got into a debate with a couple Anarcho-Capitalists (AC'ers). It stinks because I told Mason in ATF that this was a good thread that proves that we can handle political discussion. The reasons Wookie gave were:

1. Nitpicking questions

Although I enjoyed answering these questions, I can see how its not what the mods want. I'll try to remind people who aren't discussing thoughtfully because I will ususally see the bad posts before the mods when I'm in these threads. But you have to remember that asking questions in this case isn't avoiding debate, it is simply another way to debate. Believe me, I knew exactly where their positions were. The thing with Anarcho-Capitalism is that it is a relatively simple philosophy and in theory, simple to implement. In addition, there is not a lot of real-world experience with an Anarcho-Capitalst system, so there is not much evidence for the effectiveness of that system. Therefore, AC'ers will not be able to support their opinions as effectively as they could, although AC is certainly a legitimate philosophy.

Also, I should ask about the practice of articulating arguments point by point rather than in a narrative. The discussion became point by point in this thread, but I honestly don't know if this is frowned upon. I would apprieciate clarification.

2. Inflammatory pictures.

Check. Although I would remind the mods that "a picture speaks a thousand words", I can see how those pictures were particularly bad. I was guilty of a similar tactic by linking articles a couple times rather than articulating my arguments myself. Normal debate demands support for your opinions, and linking articles is an easy and accessible way to do this. Is this ok?

3. reduction ad absurdum

I am not sure about this one. I think an example of this is when I claimed that the government has the right to levy taxes and the response was: 1. The government is stealing money by collecting taxes 2. I was ok with this because of my postion so therefore 3. I should be forced to hand over money at his request and 4. Since 3 is obviously immoral, then my pro-government position is wrong. I am not well versed in logical fallacies (I had to read up on this on) so I am not sure if this is correct, but I know em when I see em. Before the thread was locked, I thought I effectively rebutted that argument and I think that is the correct way to handle that particular situation. When engaging in debate, it is sometimes true that one side is objectively wrong. This side is likely to engage in logical fallacies to argue their point. Frankly, there are a lot of political topics and non-political topics that would be off limits if usage of logical fallacies were cause for ending debate and I think that is wrong.

I would also like to allow for the possibility that political threads are being held to a higher standard than the already high standard of non-political TLDR threads. I have been working to get in tune with the mods for the political threads but I have not looked through the music and movie threads. I had actually never visited here until a couple days ago, so I am not certain how strictly the non-political threads are modded. I have no idea if I am off base here, but I just wanted to raise the issue. And if I have misinterpred the modding rules in that thread by making bad posts, I would certainly appreciate constructive criticism. Thank you.