Why should there have to be a choice between the two?
And what’s wrong with a little mental hand job?
We become so comfortable with the little picture of the world in our heads that it’s good to have that image jogged for us now and then. It keeps our brains from rotting and falling out our ears. At least it helps me to re-examine my position on various issues from time to time.
I haven’t had this much fun in debating ideas since college. But in those days, it was often hard to tell a truelly novel idea from mere Johnny Walker wisdom.
Ahhh… those were the days my friend…
I don’t know how many people are convinced by Great Debates threads, but I know that General Questions, Cecil’s section, and Mailbag are producing a steady stream of enlightening answers. The number of times I refer someone to a thread I read here in response to a question, is amazing.
I was going to mention the “sparkplug” thread I just saw in GD as a case of killing an ignorant urban legend dead, but the thread probably didn’t belong in Great Debates.
Come to think of it, isn’t that the problem? Isn’t GD for those issues which will always be around?
So the reason things don’t get solved in this forum, is that this forum is (usually) for things that don’t have get solved. Seems fairly tautological…
“Mental Masturbation” is the perfect description of the activity on this message board.
SoxFan59
(1 Corinthians 8:1)
No Scylla! You are wrong and you aren’t changing my mind about it no matter what you say! 
I have to agree with others. You will rarely find debaters changing their minds, although they frequently come to a mutual apreciation of the others views. I frequently have arguments changed and adjusted by looking at others threads though. It’s just like a normal debate. You aren’t trying to win your oponent, you’re trying to win the audience.
I change my mind every ten minutes.
Actually, I can say, I’ve really learned quite a lot here. I just hope the information is reliable. But checking around other sources, I think the information here is quite reliable.
Also, my debating skills have improved. They’re not any good now, but they used to be quite dismal.
Something that occurred to me.
Isn’t masturbation supposed to be a solo activity?
Howzabout mental orgies?
Nah. You’re alone. Looking at your computer. “Getting off” in a debate or discussion that serves no other purpose than to prove “I’m right” or “this is the correct answer.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . .”
I’d like to think that even people who don’t change their minds on the larger issues might change with regard to specific issues or arguments. In other words, even if you don’t change from a conservative to a liberal or from an athiest to a believer, you may come to realize that certain of your arguments are not as sound or conclusive as you might have thought.
I think this is one of the great things about the SDMB, especially the GD board. It is a great place to test one’s ideas and arguments in battle against people who do not necessarily share them. If others become convinced, hey, great. But even if not, you get the chance to assess for yourself how strong the specific arguments that you made actually are. This is not often the case when speaking with people who agree with you anyway. Of course, it is likely that your assessment of your arguments will be a generous one. But nothing’s perfect…
Speaking of not being perfect, one tendency that tends to distract from the positive aspects mentioned above, is the tendency of some posters to see every argument as a part of a “holy war” in the cause of the larger issue that is so dear to them. Thus they cannot concede that any point made by someone who disagrees with with them regarding the larger issue can possibly have any validity. There is usually little point of engaging in a debate with such people. But fortunately, there are other, better, posters who are not like this.
I was thinking about it more from a memetic viewpoint. Ideas being put forth, recombined…
It seems to me that online bulletin boards are to memes what orgies are to genes.
I like that. Like an orgy and the subsequent birth and natural selection. We can breed super-memes and eliminate the weak ones! Of course, we have to be careful to bring in new blood constantly so we get a durable hybrid meme; only exposure to many memes will allow the memes that survive to truly be the strongest and best. 
I know I’ve had my eyes opened a few times here, and come to a much greater understanding of why some people think the way they do.
My stance on religion hasn’t changed, but thanks to the fine posters here at the SDMB, my position on gun control has, and that was a pretty huge change for me.
Gaudere said:
Ah, but you’re arguing for a Darwinian memetics!
And we’ve never seen a new meme evolve!
Lib’s had a few memes evolve, and so have I. If you’ve never had your standard beliefs altered in some way while reading this forum, I suspect you haven’t been paying attention. Or do you think that’s only micro-meme-evolution? But surely, enough micro-evolutions and you get a new meme! After all, we have evidence that there were memes in existence long ago that no longer exist, and we have memes now that once did not exist. For example, the evolution of geocentrists to scientific creationists is fairly well established. ::d&r::
[Edited by Gaudere on 08-11-2000 at 02:34 PM]