Who else feels stupid in GD?

In My Humble Opinion
61

I don’t think you get it. Ok, I’ll try again–you’ve inverted my words to twist their meaning. It is not the same thing.

She said “never” in regards to changing her mind about something, say something big and serious, oh, abortion.

You called her on it and said that she should never say never; to do so means you’ve closed your mind.

She said, well, I mean never unless something really extreme and bizarre, which is essentially fantasy, so I stick to my never in this case (abortion). Oh, and this kind of thing bugs me.

I reiterated her position and her opinion, attempting to point out that in ordinary conversation, people use terms like never and always casually, not intending for them to be held to that. This isn’t a court of law–it’s general conversation. **Mika **(whom I do not speak for) may well mean never, ever, ever in spades and you couldn’t make her, but we all know she doesn’t mean that, given that we know she is a reasonable, rational person–like most people. Most reasonable, rational people see “never” for what it is–a qualify based on current information and where she is in her life now. IMO, a closed mind does not come from using terms such as never and always; a closed mind occurs when no change is made once faced with new evidence. Since that hasn’t happened, there is no closed mind.
Afterall, if we are going to hold people’s feet to the fire for using never and always, I’m sure there was a time when you said you would never get married because girls were gross and that you would always love [insert some childish habit here]. That was my point.

Gah–and now I’m hip deep in the very shit I try to avoid. I meant well. <sigh>

I think I see the root of our misunderstanding. Let me be clear: when I said,

I didn’t mean Mika’s position was laughable, I meant that any new info or tech coming along would be “so unlikely as to be laughable.”

I hope this helps.

62

I’m really grateful that GD exists, and further, I’m grateful there are intelligent, well-read people who choose to participate in GD. When I first found the SDMB, eight (!) years ago, I was a very religious, pro-life, slightly homophobic, conservative-leaning, naive, ignorant girl.

Due to GD (and it really does deserve all the credit/blame), I’m a (hard) atheist, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, super liberal, still a bit naive, and not-so ignorant adult. Mainly I had a very, very insular childhood, and the SDMB was the first time I was exposed to new thoughts, different types of people, and a reality that wasn’t the Mormon church.

I don’t post there, though. I used to be pretty fearless about it, and jumped right into any discussion that interested me, regardless of how much I actually knew. Probably this did not endear me to people. Now that I’m older and I know that I know nothing, I’m less inclined to post there.

63

I think that’s the rub - GD taught be two important lessons:

  1. I don’t know as much as I think I do, and
  2. I don’t need to show off when I do know things.
64

It’s better for them to think me a fool, than for me to prove them right. One of these days I may venture in there and find a thread that I can intelligently post to, but until then, I can make a fool of myself in Mafia games, MPSIMS, and occasionally the Pit. (I don’t go in there much either.)

65

I think a lot of people will relate to this. In my general environment (work & social) I am generally the go to guy. People consider me knowledgeable and intelligent and often ask for advice. And generally I DO have answers.

It is humbling then to enter a discussion where you think you know a lot about something and get completely blown away by people who know so much more than you.

But I also agree with a lot of posters that a lot of the responses are just so much intellectual puffery and nitpicking.

One thing that’s definitely true, though, of the SDMB is that you mustn’t take things personally. If you are over-sensitive you are likely to be hurt. One reason, I think, is that words only convey part of the message. If you were talking to someone they may be disagreeing with you but they wouldn’t necessarily come across as snarky or rude. With words alone you don’t get the nuances of tone and body language that comes with a conversation. I think that many of the people who seem like dicks on the boards would probable be extremely nice people in person. (But then others I’m sure would be dicks in real life too)

66

I don’t feel dumb in GD; I know how just smart I am, and that’s smart enough not to engage in pointless five page arguments with virtual strangers about the same tired subjects: neither of us is going to convince the other or decide anything, so it’s just an exercise in petty point-scoring and public verbal masturbation. Maybe twenty years ago, when I thought talking too much was big and clever, but now I’m too old and tired.

67

I majored in Government, so when it comes to politics I can tell who is making a decent argument and who is engaging in sophistry.

I stay away from everything else.

To make things easier for myself I usually try to look for a topic on a major news break and post within the first few replies. Since this is an election year I can count on a new topic on every minor election development.

If a thread is over three pages I don’t even bother reading it unless I’m really interested.

68

When arguing in GD, I don’t think it’s healthy to do it to “win” an argument. Even if you do convince someone they’re wrong, chance are they aren’t going to admit it.

What I find useful about the forum is that it will provide a serious challenge to any of my firmly held beliefs. It serves well to challenge my more unpopular beliefs that I can’t test in public.

69

I do all my debating in the Pit. It’s just better that way. Some people seem to be afraid of the Pit, but while there can be some harshness, there also isn’t a lot of suffering fools (sophists) gladly; arguments usually get right to the point, and cites are not required. And you can just ignore people bugging you; it’s the Pit, after all; if they want rigourous debate, head on over to GD. :slight_smile:

70

Rigs speaks for me.

Personally, I don’t like this kind of double-speak that Priceguy thinks I should adhere to. Let’s put it this way:

If I truly feel that as far as I know, nothing is going to change my opinion on abortion save some bizarre happenstance;
then why should I NOT say never?

It’s things like this that make people not want to engage in debate in GD. Now we’ve left the original topic behind and Priceguy and I and Rigs are squabbling over the use of my word “never”.

Yes, I would never, never change my opinion on abortion. Ever. Unless maybe the baby leapt out at 2 months and said “Mommy, don’t abort me!” You see?

First of all, there are things we are “never” about. You too, Priceguy. You just don’t know them. They are ingrained in your persona and they are so automatic you don’t realize them.

There’s very little in this world I am hardline on but abortion happens to be one of them. If I had said, “I will never change my opinion on eating poop*” no one would have challenged me. But because it’s a controversial topic, I should be more flexible? Or really, I should pretend to be flexible? Cause I’m not.

*For RNATB, I’m quite firmly against eating poop. :slight_smile:

71

Well, I think you’re wrong. :slight_smile:

72

I think you might be a little biased.

73

Frankly, I get all intimidated posting in any forum north of IMHO.

I always have the very distinct feeling that there are far too many people lying in wait eagerly anticipating their next opportunity to pounce on a poorly executed turn of phrase or minor inaccuracy and ride it until the gist of whatever it is the poster intended to say is lost in the shuffle.

Not that I’m against requiring people to back up their points with actual verifable data (where applicable), but I get the feeling that there are a number of posters who are essentially disgusing douchebaggery as rigorous debate or fact-checking. If I’m posting and my mad typing skillz fail me in the form of a typo involving the section of the Copyright Act I intended to reference, spending several posts riding me for a typo (after I’ve sighed at my own inability to type properly and mentioned the section I had meant to reference when my error was pointed out) while failing to address the meat of the post is douchebaggery and not either rigorous debate or fact checking. Moreover, it’s the kind of douchebaggery that will a) never get the poster doing it called on their douchebaggery and b) drives posters with things of value to offer away. You don’t even have to have it happen to you for it to drive you away - one can see it happen to others and extrapolate.

I also get the strong feeling that there is a substantial portion of the regular posters in GD who aren’t actually interested in honest debate so much as soapboxing their own personal opinion on the topic. I fail to see the value in engaging in debate with people who are only using the debate as a method of espousing their beliefs. In that case, nobody is actually listening to anything other posters have to say (other than the people who are agreeing with them completely). If all you have are two people using a debate to espouse their own beliefs, you don’t have a debate. You have dual intellectual masturbation. To which I say “Ick”.

Plus, no matter how qualified I am to post about a topic in GD or GQ, I’m basically never the best one to address it. I’m an attorney, but I’m not Bricker. I’m a trained biologist, but I’m not Colibri or Darwin’s Finch. I’m an Alaska native, but not Chefguy.

74

Cite?

75

No.

:wink:

76

The douchebaggery - it burns! I mean, yeah, I agree with you, Aangelica. I think there are actually a lot of posters who would like to participate more in a forum like GD except for the rampant pseudo-intellectual douchebaggery.

77

runs off to GD to open thread on merits of poop-eating

78

I appear to have contradicted myself as I’m appearing more and more frequently in GD at the moment - it’s not so scary as long as you don’t have a thin skin (and I really don’t).

79

I peruse GD daily, but only click open those threads with which I have some kind of knowledge, and they are damn few. Police work, journalism and English language/literature are pretty much it. Frankly, any discussion thread on global warming does more to confuse and obfuscate than it does to enlighten – I think it’s one area where ignorance is winning the fight.

80

In my world, those two propositions together add up to “wisdom.” Congratulations. I’m still working on it myself.

Enjoy,
Steven