Trolls R Us redux [Now the argument clinic]

[DemonTree]

@susan

I hesitate to wade in, but I don’t know where the idea comes from that every topic must be open to discussion. Why? It seems like an argument for the necessity of an abstract absolutism. In what community setting is every topic acceptable?

The SDMB is a raucous, wildly entertaining house party that has kept users coming back for 22 years – “like caramel-covered crack,” as one user once put it. People participate not out of civic duty, but because it’s fun. Part of what makes it fun is the arguments, which anyone can start on any subject. The SDMB offers a soapbox and an audience that routinely numbers in the thousands and occasionally in the millions. How many minds are changed as a result of these freewheeling symposia I have no idea. But surely there’s value in having to defend your views in open debate, and in having cherished beliefs challenged.

Or go and read @SenorBeef’s posts in the ABTM thread:

@SenorBeef

I may not have spent 20 years on this board if GD was a safe space with an approved list of topics when I got here. Trying to remove anything that might offend in GD kills the spirit of what that forum is about.

@SenorBeef

Trying to ban all potentially offensive or hurtful discussion has a massive chilling effect on open discussion. Being that sort of open discussion is exactly what GD is about and has been about, and the world will lose something if we simply ban all topics, conversations, and thought experiments that involve any subject that could potentially hurt anyone else.