Inspired by the current thread on Godwin’s Law, what “Laws” would you like to see instituted in this forum?
In a spirit of blatant self-aggrandisement, I’d like to propose Case’s Law: The first person to quote “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Then are dreamt of in your philosophy.” in any thread on the paranormal or related subjects is automatically deemed to have forfeited the argument.
I like to see a law requiring the OP to monitor the thread and respond to it. I’d also like to see a law forcing people to actually consider some other viewpoint than their own and actually change their mind if shown a better argument. But that law would be impossible to enforce and futile to wish for anyway.
The Whine Law: If person A accuses person B of whining, then person A forfeits the argument, and it is further agreed that person A himself/herself is a whiner.
The Statute of Limitations: Anybody who tries to prove a point by citing a historical example from more than 500 years ago must hang their head in shame.
The SAB law: Anyone who links to the Skeptics Annotated Bible gets bitch-slapped.
Basic Common Sense: Anybody who acts like they’re an expert on some subject just because they’ve read one blog entry or magazine article on that subject is an idiot.
Any gratuitous, repetitive use of the words ‘epistemology’ or ‘ontological’ for the sole purpose of showing off one’s vocabulary shall be punished by crushing the transgressor’s testicles under an unabridged library edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind equally harsh measures be applied to any and all who bandy such terms in such a way as to justify their epistemic relativism in an attempt to compell us to acknowledge the veracity of their subjective “proofs” in debate.
I’d like to see the GD “no personal insults” rule extended to non-posters. IOW, “Senator Jones is a worthless sack of scum” is out, just as it would be if I was referring to another poster.
That, of course does not prohibit criticism of Senator Jones; but it does, hopefully, keep the discussion a bit more civilized, relevent and proportional. “Senator Jones is dishonest” would be OK, for example, as a claim that could be supported with evidence.
Posts should have a minimum length to stop the stupid ass drive by posts that consist just of a partisan shot tangentially related at best to the OP. I was considering a thread like this specifically for these posts but I haven’t gotten around to it.
When a poster is banned for consistently being a jerk, there should be a two week limit on angry replies to his threads. I think one thread by Roland Deschain of Fools is still going strong.
Any gratuitous, repetitive use of foppish grammatical devices like “one’s vocabulary” or “shall be punished” for the sole purpose of belittling others will be punished by laughing at the sheer hubris of the post.
People who call religion a “fairy tale,” or equate belief in God with belief in gnomes, pixies, Unicorns, or other fantastic beings will be turned into asexual newts by the Lord!