The Really Big Questions Don't Matter

No it won’t. First, the anti-abortion side is neither honest or rational; it would and does not acknowledge either facts or logic against its position. Second, your scenario is a false dilemma; if one side can be proven wrong and the other isn’t, then the one that isn’t disproven wins even though it was never objectively proven correct.

And again; we are not speaking of two intellectually and morally equal positions here; we are talking about a baseless, irrational and blatantly cruel anti-choice position against a pro-choice position that is based on reality and has plenty of moral justification. If you want to come up with an example of a debate where one side isn’t obviously right and the other isn’t obviously wrong, this and the Iraq War aren’t one of them. On the contrary, these are some of the more one sided debates you’ll find.

I would submit that the fact that this thread has turned into an abortion debate has advanced the hypothesis of the OP. The debate can rage for 9 pages and minds will not be changed. If it was a smaller issue, then perhaps an agreement could be reached.

I has nothing to do with the size of the issue, and everything to do with the anti-choice side being irrational at best. You cannot convince someone who is simply determined to not be convinced, or who doesn’t even take his or her own position seriously and is just using it as an excuse. This is true whether the issue is abortion or whose turn it is to do the dishes.

I wasn’t talking about abortion – I used it merely as a place-holder because it was used in the OP as well. Substitute the legitimacy of war in Iraq, gun rights, death penalty, or just abstract to ‘issue A’ or something as you see fit – try choosing something, perhaps, that you don’t have strong feelings about, but others may have, in order not to stray from the point.

Right! I win, let’s move on.

Except they’re not any more clear cut than the big issues, as evidenced by the multi-page raging debates here on relatively inconsequential topics, such as the efficacy of reiki or whether Jesus had hemorrhoids.

A great example of the completely cosed minds.

Part of the arguing process is exchanging information and looking at the Big issue from different angles. Complex issues require more of this than simple issues. For example, should we have invaded Iraq? Many reasons for, many reasons against, many different people involved, some of whom will benefit and some who will lose. We should have debated this issue much more than we did, not less.

The OP is aguing for inaction in any situation where easy agreement can’t be reached. My family would never go out to dinner in that case.

There are other issues where there are weighty and valid arguments on either side.

For example, should we build a tidal energy dam across the mouth of the river Severn?

On the on hand, it’s a potentially massive source of green energy, but on the other hand, it could have major environmental and commercial impacts.

I agree with the OP, what is the issue and challenge is not to get caught up in those, which just waste energy.

It’s not so much the size of the issue, as it is the simplicity of the issue. You argue for 9 pages, what do you think the chances are that someone says “Gee, I hadn’t thought of it that way.” It seems like everyone arguing has a closed mind and is unwilling to consider the other guy, but the reality is that they likely have all the necessary information to make a decision, and have decided. All the arguments are is repeating the information they already have, as if they’ve never heard it before.

With a smaller issue, the best you get is one side giving up because it’s not important enough to keep arguing about, they’re not really agreeing.

Aw, I thought the OP was going to suggest something like what IOZ talks about here:

Or:

But instead…

This is only true if you have the privilege to not be affected by the issue at all. Like, if you’re an Iraqi, or a U.S. service member, or a weapons company, then the “expected marginal superiority” of one or the other decision is kinda important.

It’s intellectual masturbation either way though. Let’s say everyone on the internet agreed that Iraq was bad and the U.S. should stop bombing people with robots. OK, and? It doeskin mean anything. There’s no influence. Our betters don’t give a fuck.

Yeah, but fuck those guys. I’m hoping that some curious but undecided observer who’s been reading the argument will realize my position is more sound.

I don’t know that you can say there were really good reason for invading Iraq. But maybe I’m biased because I was dead set against it from the beginning.

So, if I were to accept the premise (hard to do, but let’s pretend), then it’s still a good idea to debate exactly when and how the invasion will take place, and what we will do afterwards. Those are still “big questions”.

Der already did a solid job of this, but just so you know my particular stance:

Yes.

Why is killing a fetus murder? The only reason to call it murder is that you think it has a soul (which is a bald assertion of a supernatural element with no evidence for it) or that it will become a thinking human. Worrying about what something may be, when it is not yet that thing is sentimentality. Looking at an acorn and getting misty-eyed about the majestic oak tree it will someday be is sentimentality.

It’s obvious you didn’t take a moment to understand what I said before composing your response.

Hardly.

I know the argument. Which is why I’m on solid ground pointing out how it’s nonsense.

I’d be interested to know where the OP encountered this viewpoint. Can’t help wondering if the person or group who espoused it perhaps hoped the coin flip would settle half the debates in their favour, and intended not to drop the others.

I suspect this idea is most attractive to someone who knows their position isn’t strong. If you have to stretch and flail around to find an argument that supports your position a coin-flip (and 50% chance of success) must seem like a boon.

No; an example of living n a country where the political right has demonstrably gone off the deep end, and neither means well nor has much of a connection to reality in its political positions. Insisting that the right wing position must be a reasonable one doesn’t make it true.

I couldn’t more strongly disagree with the OP. There are strong arguments on both sides of a lot of issues but it doesn’t mean they’re not worth fighting over. Hell, the very first reply mentions slavery. There are a lot of “strong” arguments in favor of it, like economy and state’s rights, even a lot of abolitionists didn’t think that blacks were equals to whites, they just didn’t think they deserved to be slaves. That doesn’t mean that those arguing in favor of weren’t ultimately about as wrong as one can from a moral perspective.

Or more directly, the reason that people have strong opinions on these matters is because they value different things to different degrees. So, now, we as a society have come to the realization that the moral evil that is slavery far outweighs any of its supposed benefits, but someone who doesn’t agree isn’t wrong in the same sense that one is wrong about a scientific or mathematical hypothesis.

We see the same thing with abortion. People paint the other side as being mysogynist or murderers, but the crux of the issue is the balance of life vs. free-will in rather extreme juxtaposition of those concepts. A person isn’t objectively wrong for valuing one over the other, but they will be perceived that way by someone who holds a particular view about those relative values and once society as a whole comes to settle on the issue, then it will look as ridiculous as some of the past situations that were contentious in their times but obnoxious in hindsight.

But really, I guess the point is that these issues that come up are really just symptoms of a larger disharmony in society. It’s sort of like how, for instance, in a relationship how one forgetting to put the milk away can quickly devolve into accusations like “you always forget” and other silly things, because the real crux of the discussion is on a deeper issue that those involved may not be consciously aware of. And so, similarly, these issues arise and similar accusations come, but if we can actually drill down to the fundamental issue at hand and settle that, things will change.

Two equally defended positions need not be equally true, their proponents equally informed, or consequences equally practical.

Over the 10 years I have been coming here I have gradually changed my position on Capital Punishment, America’s involvement in Vietnam, Agnosticism and Illegal Immigration…just off the top of my head.

You can spend time on another message board comparing the quality of dog food if you want though.