> I [mst] am entirely fine with you [memexy] believing that there are better ways to make those arguments - in fact, given any specific argument is almost certain to be imperfect, one would assume that there are.
> But I [mst] would note that "there are better ways to make those arguments" is quite a distance from your original position.
You [mst] made that conclusion, I did not. So I would appreciate it if you refined the phrasing to properly reflect the understanding that you are reaching the conclusion, not me.
I will also note the sophistic device being used here by mst of jumping up the thread to shortcircuit the evaluation of the actual evidence. This is quite deceptive.
My actual final response (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23786943) is now hidden away behind "more" button and unlikely to be visible so posting it here for visibility.
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Yes, and you [mst] provided an example of such associations with "youth", "stupidity", "anger", "fear", "transphobia", "homophobia", "atrocity", "anger at others", "anger with self", "dislike of others", "opposition to others", etc.
> When I was young and stupid, I used to believe that transgender was really, really dumb. That they were looking for attention or making it up or something along those lines.
> And then I grew older and wiser and learned – hey, transgender isn’t stupid at all, they have very important reasons for what they do and go through and I was atrociously wrong. And I said a mea culpa.
> The point is not "accepting people different than me", it's "having suitable principles to still fight in favour of people I might otherwise rightly or wrongly dislike".
> You completely removed the part where he not only didn't act antagonistically towards them but actively opposed other people doing so as well.
What word other than "sinister" would you use to characterize the cluster of words I quoted which are implicit in the writing I quoted?
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I have explicitly encouraged poeple to read the rest of the thread.
Your choice to characterise my doing so as a "sophistic device" and "deceptive" is your own.
I continue to encourage people who are unsure if my attempted summary is appropriate to read the whole of the original thread and draw their own conclusions.
I was civil throughout this discussion and I don't appreciate how you ended it.
And yet, I explicitly said: this is my (opinionated) summary of the thread that ensued from my sibling comment; if unsure whether I've captured things accurately, please read that whole thread and draw your own conclusions.
You are welcome to claim that my explicit invitation to people - in a situation where, as you say, your last comments are 'hidden away behind "more" button' - is deceptive, but given I was actively encouraging people to read things upstream that would otherwise have been, as you said, 'hidden away', I personally do not consider my actions to have been deceptive in the least.
As for 'civil', it seems to me that this conversation has, in and of itself, made very clear to anybody reading it that you and I have significantly different definitions of that concept, and how to interpret this fact can only be left as an exercise to the reader.
I used to just walk away from such conversation but realized I'm letting the bullies win when I do that. By walking away I'm letting sophistry become a viable strategy. We will continue this as long as you want. I am not backing down and will continue to argue my position and provide reasons for what I believe and why.
You have consistently used bad faith and misleading tactics to derail the entire conversation. Every time I have assumed good faith you have thwarted it. Every time I have extended an explanatory provision you have used it against me by quoting me out of context, and then tried to put words in my mouth and pretended to not have done so. Whereas I have taken no such actions and have always quoted you in context.
My actions have been civilized. Yours have been otherwise.
I encourage people to read as well and reach their own conclusions without me putting words in their mouth or biasing their reasoning as you did in your shortcircuit post. Because rational and reasoned argument requires each individual to weigh the evidence and then respond with compelling arguments for refuting or accepting them.
I continue to stand by my choice to invite people to read the entire thread and draw their own conclusions.
You should just stop because you are no longer making any points.
Not everything is a tactic. Sometimes people just mean what they say.
That's called shifting the blame because you're shifting the responsibility and consequences of your actions onto someone else. That is not how one begins an apology. An apology begins as "I am sorry. I will reflect and consider the feedback given and do better next time. Please feel free to give further feedback if you feel like it and I will consider it and improve my behavior".
I accept that my phrasing was not entirely clear but given having made what I meant explicit and still being attacked I'm unsure that my mistakes were the primary problem in this case.
> Then there are better ways to make those arguments.
which, yes, there quite possibly are. There are always better ways to make any given argument.
But memexy's claim that Scott's work was bad because
> I don't need to argue for freedom of speech and equal rights and justice for all because in my world those are givens.
fails, in my opinion, to understand that there are many people for whom, sadly, those things aren't givens and that arguing that they should be is a lot of Scott's thing.
I would love to live in a world where those things are givens.
I appreciate Scott for making principled arguments for why, ideally, we would live in a world where those things are givens, and I appreciate Scott for, however imperfectly, trying to move us towards such a world as best he can.
(note, this is my (opinionated) summary of the thread that ensued from my sibling comment; if unsure whether I've captured things accurately, please read that whole thread and draw your own conclusions)