I disagree. In a public forum a conversation is not a one on conversation. It also involves readers. Reminding readers, and the person(s) being conversed with, of their convenient evolution of maturity of thought has utility.
I honestly have no idea why you are more concerned with one reminds folks of their support for immoral acts when it’s political convenient instead of those who do support political violence. What is a greater problem? A gentle reminder or supporting tactics that are immoral?
And I’ve told you, at least twice, that a conversation on a subject has continuity. For example, my opposition to the minimum wage or affirmative action. If I changed my mind and now supported it, my feelings would not be hurt by a reminder that I did at one time not support such policies and for reasons X,Y,Z. It is of utility to see evolution of thought and what form of evidence or rational argument leads to that evolution of thought.
Now hold on just a second. There’s a difference between complementing me on my newfound commonsense and calling me a hypocrite for agreeing with you. (“convenient evolution of maturity of thought” is… too verbose)
The former at least tries to be a complement. The latter is unnecessarily combative.
octopus, I’m pretty confident when I say most people really don’t like admitting that they were wrong. It’s a virtue to swallow your pride. We’re a great crowd here on the dope, but I think your expectations are a little off base. And you can’t read my mind, so you don’t know for sure that I have been inconsistent in moral reasoning. You could be straw-manning me.
Bottom line: if you call me a hypocrite because I think your argument is reasonable, I’m going to come to the conclusion that you care more about being combative than you do about whatever position you argue. That’s my opinion, I suspect others share it but I speak for myself.
I gave you some pointers to avoid this. You could move the general debate to a new topic so it isn’t a hijack. You could send a private message to avoid the hijack and to demonstrate that you are not simply looking to put me down in public. You could phrase your “reminder” as a complement or a question instead of an accusation.
I don’t know what else there is to say about this, octopus. Would you rather mimic the father, or the brother, from the parable of the prodigal son?
I agree with that as well. A reasonable person not wanting to stir up crap as a troll would be happy to find common ground and would be encouraged that there could be productive discussion.
Huh. Well, you make your a priori determinations about the competence of your interlocutors’ rationality (and their honesty), I guess, and I’ll make mine.
If people actually change their stance sure, that’s great. But if they selectively critique when it’s politically convenient and selectively condone when it’s politically convenient it’s not hard to see the pattern. I’m guilty of this myself to some degree as iiandyiiii points out when he doesn’t see my participation in the Republicans are behaving badly type threads. Truthfully, you folks in a space like this don’t need the weight of my opinion contributing to stuff you feel is inappropriate when so many of the folks here can do that so ably. However, it does make me look partisan.
I do try to avoid the hypocritical and that’s why when I see stuff like the violence of this summer or other forms of mob violence such as vandalizing private or state property for ideological reasons I make it a point to say I disagree with mob violence in general. I do so because the concept is so dangerous and I recognize, being the student of history that I am, that extrajudicial action better be extraordinarily justified in order for it to be worth the reaction and other consequences.
Now with regards to being agreeable? Or not stirring the crap? I find that amusing on a site where the posters openly advocate for the extinction of entire demographics for political gain, where folks advocate for prison rape, where folks wish that political leaders are violently disposed of. I’m not so concerned with fragile feelings in such a rough and tumble environment. Are you seriously suggesting that someone might get their feelings hurt because mean ol’ octopus points out a double standard?
Here I am in the Pit being insulted and called nasty names and I’m having a reasonable conversation with you. Who’s more reasonable me or the posters who can’t control their toddler like rage when a mirror is held up to them?
I’m seriously suggesting that people think your posts are not constructive to conversation. Nobody is going to cry themselves to sleep because you think they are hypocrites. They’ll just get a little annoyed, then write you off as a shit poster. That’s why the thread is titled, “Octopus here’s your own thread to shit all over”. The implication is that you shit on other threads.
I’ve been following this thread for months, because when I started here, I thought you were a fine debater whose politics and philosophy is quite close to my own. Your activity in GD dropped and I noticed. I searched for you and found this thread.
But you seem to have it so… wrong. Much of the pitting is based on attitude, not viewpoint/content. Things like accusing others of a double standard when they agree with you, instead of taking an olive branch to build common ground. Like attributing an argument to someone which isn’t borne out by the text of their post, and disparaging them based on the false attribution. It’s a darn shame.
Oh, they’ll pit anyone who doesn’t toe the party line not just in terms of content but in terms of tone. Don’t let the pitting fool you it’s content and attitude. Mostly the attitude that I am not suitably chastened by my so-called betters.
Furthermore these folks do desire an ideologically homogenous space. Note exactly how many right of center posters are still left unbanned. It’s not many. Most get baited into arguments in the wrong forums and lose their cool, get warned, and banned. Think of the vast number on the left here and how many reports that can generate compared to the number on the right reporting the left. They play a game. That’s part of what this pit thread is. They are playing a game with me. Torment the octopus!
If I truly were seeking to be combative wouldn’t I be the one starting all the Pit threads and joining forces with folks to consistently instigate drama? Dig deeper and you’ll find that the machinations originate from a dedicated group who play a long game of manipulation.
Well, to the extent of upholding the SDMB’s explicitly stated mission of fighting ignorance (while not being a jerk), sure.
Too many conservatives these days have voluntarily painted themselves into the corner of ideological commitment to ignorance, irrationality and bigotry. And then they whine that they’re being unfairly persecuted by “hive mind” “political correctness” when their ignorant, irrational and/or bigoted claims are subjected to criticism and contempt.
The reason that liberals, with all our internal disagreements and diversity of views, can look in any way “ideologically homogenous” to excuse-seeking conservatives these days is simply that conservatives have taken themselves so far out of the mainstream of rational, reality-acknowledging thought that it just looks to them like a single distant blur.
But that’s a problem with conservative thinking, not with liberal thinking. If someone has willingly superglued their ideological identity to reality-denying delusions about, say, election fraud, or COVID conspiracies, or the genuineness of climate change, or promoting blatantly false equivalences between Democratic and Republican misbehaviors, then they are going to get forensically stomped on a whole lot around these parts. That’s not our “ideological homogeneity”, that’s just our unwillingness to put up with overtly ridiculous anti-factual bullshit.
Max S, as he noted, often agrees with you, and often disagrees with me, but I find him to be a reasonable and intelligent poster overall. You? Are an intellectually dishonest shitstain. Or, in other words, a…
Such as selectively choosing to ignore the fact that an assault on the Capitol (weak as it may have been) is fundamentally and philosophically a different sort of event than breaking into a department store or two and stealing stuff, each possibly warranting different degrees of response and understanding, just so you can feed your existing narrative of left-as-hypocrites?
If your position is “any group of people committing violent acts of any type for any reason is always of equal moral weight, and always deserves an identical response,” (which is what it seems like from here), then you are always going to be at odds with people, because an absolute position like that is by design impervious to argument. If you are uninterested or unwilling to allow that that arbitrary axiom might not be the only way to evaluate what’s going on, then the only thing you can possibly accomplish by engaging in discussion with others is litmus-testing whether they agree with you or not, and then just repeat your position ad nauseum in response to any attempt at engagement.
“Explain to me why you think these are different, because they don’t seem different to me” - honest intellectual engagement.
“You are a hypocrite. Why don’t you just admit it?” - weak-minded substitute for an argument that ignores the fact that a person with any other initial assumption about the two events (ie; that their differences are more important than their similarities) might not be a hypocrite at all.
You are and have consistently done the latter, while obstinately avoiding the former as much as possible. And in those rare times when you do engage in the latter, it’s only after leading with the former. You’re not here to debate, or learn, or teach. You’re here to troll.
