Disputation and The Straight Dope Message Board

[Max_S]

@DSeid

Seriously, why? There are times that despite my best efforts to put myself in any specific “their” place I cannot understand what being in their place is like. I can still appreciate that their lived experience is as they report it to be and do a reasoned best to be respectful of it.

I don’t need to understand someone’s experience or agree with their position to “understand” it. The problem is that I am unconvinced by appeals to consequence. That kind of argument isn’t usually persuasive to me, especially if the consequence itself contradicts some premise that I hold to be true. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago in the concurrent misogyny thread:

@Max_S

I think what you are saying is that women who leave the board come to this point, throw up their hands, and walk away. That’s the particular response that I think, so much worse for the women.

There are two alternatives, in my opinion. One, you can outlaw the sort of posts in question. Two, you can address the post directly.

The former option is the easy way out, but I think it is contrary to the mission of this place. By all accounts the man in question is ignorant if he argues in good faith while still being demonstrably wrong. The stated purpose of this message board is to fight ignorance, so why would we outlaw ignorant posts? To outlaw ignorant posts because they make people so uncomfortable that they leave the board? I mean, we can do that, it’s within the staff’s rights. But I think to do so would be contrary to the purpose of the board. IMO, of course.

The latter option has the benefit of fighting ignorance, or at least attempting to. The drawback is that it is an endless uphill battle. But, again, fighting ignorance is a never-ending uphill battle. It’s taking longer than we thought.

Just my thoughts.

~Max

@Max_S

Let’s assume that under the current set of rules, the board will turn into an echo chamber of misogynists. That it is impossible to entertain unwitting misogynist arguments, made from ignorance but in good faith, without driving out everybody else and removing the capacity to address those arguments.

I also take it as a premise that it is impossible to fight ignorance without addressing it - entertaining the ignorant arguments.

Therefore, it is impossible to fight ignorance that takes the form of misogyny. Would you agree? I don’t.

~Max

So I am thinking here, perhaps there is some other form of argument. Maybe there is a different appeal to consequence that I am persuaded by. I don’t know everything, my opinion isn’t set in stone, after all. Maybe there’s a flaw in my rebuttal and someone can point that out.

But absent something like that, it’s very much “let’s add rule X because some people say we should” or “because of [invalid argument]”. And that’s a no-go for me.

~Max