Yeah, I don’t find myself often in agreement with Larry, but I think this hits the nail on the head. His comments have lead me to understand why I constantly feel dissapointed in the board. I like to explore ideas, I find it interesting - whether my ideas are right or wrong I don’t really care; the discussion, the exploration itself is enjoyable to me. I don’t know why I keep forgetting that there is more of a mission behind the culture of this board. I should learn to pay better attention.
I agree, even though I have “Googled” them myself. It is the discourse and interaction that makes the SDMB and experience of members worthwhile and entertaining.
Meanwhile Ignorance is fought slowly by mile or kilometer. 
Respecting the person is different from respecting the idea. There are posters who treat the person who holds an idea as being unworthy of respect. There are ideas that range from the silly (Flat Earth*) to the dangerous, (anti-vaccine), but we cross a line when we display disrespect for the person. Between those two ideas are a host of beliefs that are held or disdained by numerous posters who might actually be friends if the topics did not arise. Treating the poster with respect, even if laughing at the idea, is possible, although it takes more work than simply casting aspersions on the person.
- I suspect that there are very few people who genuinely believe in a Flat Earth with the majority of its proponents simply trying to display their individuality by publicly rejecting accepted facts. But whatever.
Well said, tomndebb.
Maybe my post should be in the other thread on things I’d like to see here. I think it would be really nice to have a forum where people can discuss ideas just for the sake of exploring ideas, without the derision. I agree with you that I find it interesting just to explore ideas for their own sake sometimes. It might not be in keeping with the mission, but there might be some surprising understandings that arise from those discussions that might actually fight ignorance in the end.
What you are asking for is extremely tight moderation, which I don’t think is what people really want. I do try to keep excessive snark out of GQ, even for flaky ideas, but people are going to make those comments even if I moderate them after they have been made.
You are asking for a forum where people are free to postulate ideas, while limiting the ability of others to freely comment on them. I don’t really see how that can be done in practical terms.
I agree with this 100%. We can be a light in the world. Like Gobeckli Tepe.
I also see this concept
Things can get muddled.
Just, sayin’.
Of course, this is an important distinction a long-term multi-faceted interaction with someone in real life. It’s especially important with younger people, who may genuinely be coming across ideas for the first time.
But for an online discussion forum like this I think you vastly overestimate the significance of the distinction. If a poster starts a thread advocating something like astrology or homeopathy, is there really a nice way to tell them that these ideas are nonsense? And do you really think that if all responders stuck to the most polite and respectful form of words possible, providing the objective facts that these ideas are just so badly wrong, that the astrologers and homeopaths will then be appreciative and grateful that we are not actually calling them stupid, just their ideas?
ETA: I think if people are genuinely new to (bad) ideas and making genuine open minded enquiries to discuss the evidence, they will generally be much less inclined to taking criticism of the ideas as a personal attack. In other words, I think the conflation of criticism of bad ideas with calling someone stupid is much more a function of the state of mind of the person asking about the ideas than the “tone” of the responses.
Not necessarily. There are at least two different moderation styles that work better than others from what I’ve seen that help to explore ideas from all sides. One is to cut down on all snark, which is probably the tight moderation you’re saying I’m asking for. The other is to allow all snark.
That depends on who you’re asking. If you’re asking the person getting snarked on or someone interested in exploring ideas from a non-traditional viewpoint, they’d probably want the change in moderation style.
Once it’s determined which side is snark, the issue is already decided. The side doing the snarking is the side the issue is getting decided on. Snarking on the other side will be seen as trolling.
For example, atheists in a Christian community will get snarked on by the Christians. Christians in an atheist community will get snarked on by the atheists. Except in limited and exceptional cases, the snarking doesn’t go the other way. That doesn’t mean that either of those positions is right. It just means that the community decides what’s acceptable.
No, others can freely comment. They just wouldn’t be able to freely snark, unless the other side is just as free to snark.
It might not go along with the mission of fighting ignorance necessarily. Exploring all ideas means exploring some bad ones, so it’s an idea meant for a limited space. But it’s possible that there might be moments of understanding in the mix.
You are (inadvertently?) moving the goal posts. There is a difference between mocking a person for holding an idea and a person who holds an idea taking offense at having its shortcomings pointed out.
There is no question that I have seen any number of posters who rose up in high dudgeon for having their particular cherished belief attacked on the grounds of impossibility or improbability. That may be impossible to avoid. However, while it may take some effort, it is not impossible to refute a belief without calling the believer an idiot. Lumping together those who take offense when their beliefs are questioned and those who take offense at being mocked for holding a belief would seem to be a way avoid taking responsibility for giving offense by simply saying “they should not have been so dumb as to believe it.” I would hope that we could do better.
As to your question that I have boldfaced, a simple statement that there is no evidence that astrology or homeopathy works, along with a citation to evidence that they do not work may or may not be “nice,” but such a statement avoids treating the poster in a rude fashion.
You can further test this theory in Morgellons’ disease forums by telling self-perceived victims that there’s strong evidence no such disease exists (as they conceive it) and that instead it’s a mental disorder.* As long as you calmly present the facts and refrain from mockery, it’s a cinch that no one will think you’re attacking them personally. :dubious:
*not that I’ve ever done this in a Morgellons’ forum (where the ban-hammer probably would be near-instaneaneous), but the subject has some up elsewhere. On this and topics where there is similarly a lot of emotional investment in an illogical construct, pointing out facts inevitably results in accusations that one is insensitive, mean, a troll, a paid shill etc. etc.
It’s beneficial in my view to give people the benefit of the doubt (at least at first) when they post nonsense, and to respond calmly without invective. There should be no illusion that someone who’s heavily invested in an idea won’t take offense anyway, egged on by tone trolls who glom onto isolated insults as supposed proof of the perfidity of the pro-evidence side.
I’m not moving any goalposts. I acknowledge the distinction that you are drawing as an ideal to aspire to. I’m disputing its importance on an internet discussion forum.
It relates this aspect of the OP:
I don’t agree with the OP in this respect. To take the OP’s example, googling “are vaccines safe” yields a superb variety of resources on every aspect of the issue. Similarly, if somebody comes on SDMB asking genuine questions about vaccination, in my experience they get helpful informative answers with links to a wide variety of resources. If you were a young parent coming across these questions for the first time, the only way that you could conclude that vaccines are not safe and effective would be if you were predisposed to believe that there is a massive conspiracy (including all the government, virtually all scientists, google…). I just see no basis for claiming that the rise in anti-vax is because there’s a lack of polite and respectful factual answers.
And it relates to these comments:
This just sounds to me like special pleading for a “safe space” for bad ideas. And I don’t think that’s something the SDMB should aspire to. If (like Larry) you have good friends who believe in astrology, I’d hope that your approach is to just avoid the subject, not to enable those beliefs. Perhaps astrology is largely harmless, but things like homeopathy are not. And a forum thread specifically dedicated to one of those topics is surely not the place to enable bad ideas in order to be a nice guy and avoid offending someone.
As I noted (and per Jackmannii’s example of Morgellon’s), the great majority of people who believe in bad ideas are strongly psychologically wedded to them, and will take personal offense however respectfully and politely you try to address the issue rather than the person. Generally the most important audience when responding to bad ideas is not the OP, but lurkers. Lurkers are far more likely to be open-minded and unfamiliar with the issues than the OP, and lurkers are the reason that it’s sometimes worth engaging even with a completely deranged OP.
So we should generally aspire to the ideal of calmly and respectfully addressing the ideas, but not always. For a lurker coming across an idea for the first time, learning about the facts and evidence is obviously important; but the manner in which that idea is treated by the majority of intelligent people is also significant and informative. Mockery is sometimes warranted. Most intelligent people are not so open minded that their brains fall out, and I don’t think it sends a good message to imply that homeopathy or astrology are hypotheses that any intelligent person in the modern world takes seriously.
If the poster chooses to be insulted when no insult is offered, then that is the problem of the offended poster and refraining from genuine insults makes the poster offering calm rebuttal to nonsense look better.
At the same time, if we are seeking to persuade a lurker, we will probably have much greater success if we do not poison the discussion with mockery of the poster, which makes us appear to be unable to refute their assertions, needing insults to make them go away.
I didn’t advocate mocking people, so let’s set aside that straw man.
Mockery of really bad ideas is sometimes an appropriate response. By that I don’t mean throwing insults, I mean using rhetoric or parody to show that the ideas are not just wrong but ridiculous. If you treat everything equally seriously and respectfully, you open yourself up to the “teach the controversy” gambit. I think ideas should be granted respect in accord with their plausibility at genuine hypotheses that anyone in the modern world takes seriously. I don’t think astrology deserves respectful treatment if you’re talking to anyone over the age of twelve. And this is a superb response to homeopathy:
Homeopathic ER
That was not a straw man. That was the specific point I have consistently made in this thread–a point which you have seemed to only now address. Beyond that, mocking the idea works in a hypothetical world, but I would still urge that mocking the idea should generally avoid mocking the poster that puts it forth.
How does the existence of the BBQ pit promote this?