Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

[Svartalf]

and I'll duly ignore it

[pErvinalia]

You'll applaud my brilliance!

[Svartalf]

If it's good enough for me not to drop in the middle of the second line, I just might

[pErvinalia]

Actually, I don't know if I'll even bother. He agrees with me that his whole premise is flawed. That is, if an idea is a thing unique to the brain that is assessing it, then the attacker can't be attacking the same idea as that which their opponent holds. Anything else he says from this point is fallacious as his whole position collapses at the first premise.

[Forty Two]

An idea can be held by many people.

A brick can be held by many people. Probably about ten. But an idea? Conceiving of an idea as being analagous to a brick may help the conversation flow, but is it actually true? Surely any concept has to exist in each of the brains "hold" it. But since each brain holds ideas in its own unique way, based on its own experience, with its neurons arranged in its own unique way... can it really be said to be the same idea? I don't think so. If someone is saying it's the same idea they are either saying it just for the sake of argument or they're not looking deeply enough into each of the brains which are holding what looks on the surface like the same idea.

It is irrelevant whether the same or similar ideas held by different people are the same idea or different ideas. The operative fact is that they they abstract and intangible things that are not the same thing as the person whose brain conceives of them. That's why it's o.k. to attack the idea and not the person. An idea is not a person.

What I meant by saying many people can hold an idea is that an idea, like "the sky is blue" can be espoused by many different people, jerks and nice people alike. If one attacks the idea of the sky being blue, because today it's grey today, and says the idea is stupid, it doesn't mean the person who is wrong about the sky being blue is stupid. He could just be wrong. And, experience tells us that namecalling against a person himself is taken more personally than namecalling against an idea espoused by that person.

If a person says that "mankind is endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" then that assertion stands independent of the person enunciating it.

Well, the sentence - the arrangement of the words and letters - stands independent of the person enunciating it. But the idea? The meaning and understanding that goes with the idea? I don't think so. Each person will have a different way of storing the memory required to build up the understanding of that sentence - each word has numerous references which are different for each person, each person's experience of learning each word is different, the significance they attach is different. So no, I don't think that "assertion" (idea) stands independent (or outside) of the person enunciating it. Every idea is part of a person.

Attacking the idea on a forum message board is attacking the sentence posted there, as understood by the reader.

Just because each person has a different way of storing the memory required to build up the understanding that sentence (assuming without admitting), and just because each word MAY have references which are different for each person, etc., doesn't mean that the idea is part of the person. The idea is espoused by a person. It's not part of that person. The idea that Hillary Clinton is a liar is not "part of" a person espousing that idea. The idea is an abstract concept espoused by a person.

You've made a very illogical argument. You've asserted:

Each person has a different way of storing memory;
each person's experience of learning words is different
each person's significance attached to words is different
Therefore, every idea is part of a person

The conclusion does not follow from the premises.

Also, you are working off an unwarranted assumption that if an idea is part of a person then it means you can't attack the idea any more than you can't attack the person. Remember, the rules here are based on experience and pragmatism. The rules refer to personal attacks, which are attacks on the being, personhood, or humanity of the individual member. It doesn't mean that if a cell falls off your toenail are protected from attacks because they are part of your body. The personal attack rule doesn't prohibit attacks on the material you exhale, for example.

One can attack the statement, without attacking the person advancing the notion.

Well sorry but that's just another rehash of the original statement that we're debating: "attack the idea, not the person"

No, it's just a statement of fact. You can argue whether it is true. But, I assert that it is true. I can make a statement "my coffee mug is black." You can "attack" the statement by saying "42, the idea that your coffee mug is black is just plain stupid." In which case, the statement has been attacked, but not me personally.

The idea can be attacked by being declared wrong -- we can all see the mug, and we can see that it is not black, it is green. And, we can do a test on it with scientific apparatus which measures the wavelengths of light absorbed and reflected to prove that the wavelengths called "green" are the ones reflected. Thus, the assertion that the mug is black is proven wrong, and yet, I, as a person, have not been proven to be a wrong person. My idea was wrong. But, I could be right about every other thing. This could be the only thing that I've espoused that was wrong. And, the idea being wrong says nothing about me as a person -- I could be a fine person, even though I espoused a wrong, and even stupid idea.

Ideas exist in the same reality as people - assuming that to be true, so what?

So ideas do not float on an untouchable plane. They exist in our heads. Our personalities are made up of ideas.

Everything exists in the same reality as people, yet there are different things. Dogs are not given the same rules of protection as people, and neither are trees, yet they all exist in the same reality as us. Different things may be treated differently.

Nobody said ideas float on an untouchable plane, although they are abstract concepts, not corporeal entities. We, humans, are corporeal entities, of a particular species. Based on this morphology and biology, we are subject to certain rules and not others. Abstract concepts like "greed" or "love" etc., and other corporeal entities, like dogs, cats, banana peels, and barbecue sauce are not subject to the same rules. We can eat barbecue sauce, but not dogs and cats -- well, in some places, you can eat dogs and cats and others not -- those rules are based on culture, and experience, and pragmatism.

Rules can treat different things differently. Abstract ideas are not people, even though they exist in the same reality as people, and are created by human brains. Their existence as abstract concepts and their creation by the human brain does not equate them with the personage of a person.

Rocks exist in the same reality as breasts, but breasts are not rocks and rocks are not breasts.

Every object exists in the same reality: the material reality. But surely breasts are a part of people. My argument isn't that all objects are the same thing. [/quote]

Great, then we agree that different things are different. Ideas are, of course, different than people, by definition.

Idea: a thought or suggestion
Person: a human being regarded as an individual.

We can attack thoughts/suggestions, but not individual human beings, because experience has shown that namecalling and other such conduct directed at a human being, as opposed to a thought or suggestion, is disruptive to the forum. Also, one of the main purposes of a forum is, expressly, to attack ideas. That's why many threads are created here - to lambaste or to argue against ideas that one might find dopey or bizarre. Vigorous attacks on ideas are actually part of the very purpose of the forum.

Someone may see an idea published somewhere, like, an article on faith healing and attack that idea like crazy. Also, someone might come here and espouse faith healing as an idea, and that idea does not become insulated from attack merely because some member here espoused it.

What about an idea makes it o.k. to attack it? It's not a living entity.

I envision an idea, with its essential meaning and understanding, as being located somewhere in the brain as a dynamic structure that depends on brain tissue to exist. I think we know enough about neuroscience for this to stand up to scrutiny. Words can exist on a page but until a living brain gets to work creating an idea using the prompts on the page, it isn't an idea.

You can envision that all you want, but that's just you inventing some kind of corporeal existence or location to an abstract concept. it's like saying "love" is located in your heart. it's an abstraction -- a figure of speech.

And, you're arguing false premises here. So what if words exist on a page and are then interpreted by the brain to mean things? That doesn't make the words or the meaning ascribed to them "persons." Even if we assume you to be correct and that ideas are located in brains, that doesn't make them people. Kidney stones are created by people and are located inside people, but they are not people and the rules can treat different things differently and still make sense. A rule that says you can't launch personal attacks against Existentialist, but you can attack his kidney stones, would be just fine too. Your kidney stones suck!

So, it's kind of like how you can kick a soccer ball, but generally not a testicle.

So a soccer ball is like a brick: not part of a person. A testicle is. We are agreed on that.

Of course. And, an idea is not a part of a person. And, while you have asserted that it is, you've not established that in any way.

Further, being part of a person does not mean that the part is not open to verbal or written attack.

Moreover, one of the purposes of discussion forums is to attack ideas.

Has this been agreed as a Forum objective? I suspect not.

Well, you suspect wrongly -- The forum user guidelines state "No personal attacks. If you don't agree with someone, debate their argument, behaviour or beliefs, do not attack their person. Attacks may be direct ("You are a cunt.") or indirect ("Somebody with that view is stupid."). The initial response for a first personal attack will usually be a reminder or warning - however the choice of response will depend on the severity of the attack and will be decided upon via staff discussion. Attacks made in jest (with the understanding of both/all parties - tacit or otherwise) are allowed. In the first instance, staff will attempt to ascertain if an attack was in jest. Staff will discuss the attack with both parties where possible and then decide what action to take."

The rules state expressly that members are to "debate their argument, behaviour or beliefs," as opposed to "attack[ing] their person." This is the express dividing line in the rules.

One of the purposes of a Fight Club or a boxing ring is to attack people.

So such places simply do not have the same rule as Rationalia. That doesn't undermine my argument.

It does, because it demonstrates that different places may have different rules, which make sense to the people who are organizing the place in question. You may not LIKE the rule, but you've said nothing to demonstrate that the rule doesn't make pragmatic sense.

Look at your arguments -- ideas exist in the same reality as people? So what? Nobody said they don't. ideas are, nevertheless, not people, and as such can be subjected to different rules.

Ideas are produced by people's brains? So what? Just because things are produced by a person doesn't mean that what is produced is the same as the person that produced it. We produce pee and poop, but that doesn't mean that if you have a no personal attack rule you must also prohibit attacks on poop and pee.

Nothing you've said, even if it is assumed without admitting to be true, requires a no personal attack rule to also prohibit attacks on ideas.

How does one differentiate an idea from a person? Well, a person is a human being, and an idea is a thought, suggestion, aim, or purpose. Characteristic of human beings is life and a functioning brain which can produce thoughts, suggestions, aims or purposes. So, I differentiate these things by recognizing that a human being is physical, alive and sentient, whereas an idea is an incorporeal, non-living, thought produced by the human being's brain. We can analogize this to human beings vs. farts. Both are real. Both exist in the same reality. A human being produces farts. But farts are not human beings.

But a fart is released from the body and becomes disconnected from it. But an idea stays in the person's brain,

Whether a fart or an idea is located in the colon or the brain does not make that fart or idea a person. Whether a fart or idea is considered "connected" to the person is irrelevant. Even if we assume that they are both connected to the person they are still not people, and as such, they are not subject to the same rule against personal attacks.

even if the person attempts to express it. If a person expresses a fart, others around them experience it immediately as an involuntary sensation. If the person expresses an idea, others around have to use the expression of it to cause processes in their own brain to occur in order to create the idea in their own head.

That's not correct. Even the smell of a fart is purely the product of the brain receiving the fart. Farts don't "have" a smell anymore than something that is red has a "color" itself. Smell and color are things that the brain creates by interpreting the data received.

How do we exclude ideas from the definition of what a person is? Well, people are people regardless of whether they have or communicate ideas. And, ideas are ideas, regardless of which person communicates them. For example, Barack Obama may say that the sky is green, and so may Joseph Stalin. However, the merits of the idea are independent of the persons communicating the idea. So, I can say that saying the sky is green is stupid, because of X, Y and Z, and that is not an attack on Obama or Stalin. However, if I say that Obama or Stalin are stupid people, then I've attacked them personally. Even very very smart and very very good people may advance very very stupid ideas, from time to time. Even Newton believed in alchemy.

If you say that "saying" something is stupid, then you are saying an act undertaken by a person is stupid.

Sure, which is not against the rule.

To attack a person's acts is to attack the person.

No, to attack a person's acts is not to attack the person. An attack on a person's acts is to attack their acts. Their acts are not their person. You may feel a person's acts are as entitled to protection as a person's personage, and maybe on another forum that would work. Here, the forum has chosen to create a rule that treats arguments/acts differently from people based on the difference between ideas/arguments/acts and people.

Hell, we've already established in your argument that a person is not defined by their ideas.

If you agree on that, then your argument fails.

Now you're saying a person is not defined by their acts.

I haven't said that. It's irrelevant what they're "defined by." A person's acts may, for the sake of argument, "define" them (whatever that means), but that does not make those acts the same thing as the person acting. A person is not the same thing as jogging. A person may act by jogging, but that doesn't make his jogging the same thing as his personhood or personage. Jogging is the act of running at a steady, gentle pace. That's not a person. A person is a human being regarded as an individual. A person may be "defined" by their jogging, I guess - maybe they jog so much they call themselves a jogger and they love it so much.

So I come back to the fundamental question which remains unanswered: what on earth is a person once they are detached from all their ideas and all their acts? Just flesh and bone.

And, that's enough. Flesh, bone, brain, sinew, etc. Saying a person's ideas are bad is different than saying the person himself is a bad person. This forum likes to proceed under the notion that members ought not call each other bad people, but it's fine to suggest their their ideas are bad. Ideas are not people. You may think they are part of a person, or created by a person's brain, or located ephemerally within the brain somewhere -- doesn't matter -- they are not people. People, on this forum, aren't to be personally attacked in violation of the rule. Ideas are fair game, expressly so.

Just an outline of matter that may be slightly differently arranged than another person's. I think a person is more than that. I think a person is the sum of their ideas and their acts. They may be contradictory and confusing but they are all of those things.

Well, that kind of new age mumbo jumbo isn't controlling here.

To attack a person's idea is to attack a person.

plainly, it isn't. To attack an idea is to attack an idea, and to attack a person is to attack a person.

Failure to recognise that is to cause unwarranted pain. And some people here are even encouraging it. Thus, Seth has been hurt.

Well, pain is not what the rule is concerned about, and you...errr... Seth... may be of the mind that the rule is designed to make sure your or his feelings aren't hurt, but that's not really what the rule is about. Your or Seth's feelings are your own, and they are things you or he will have to deal with on your or his own. The rule is about the environment on the board, and encouraging broad, fun discussion, while discouraging what experience tells the forum moderators disrupts good conversation and reduces the overall level of fun for everyone. I.e., they want as wide open conversation as possible, without allowing the sort of attacks which wind up spoiling things. The line has been drawn through experience and pragmatism. Whether a given person is "hurt" is irrelevant. I'm sure lots of people get their feelings hurt when their arguments get blasted out of the water. That's the breaks.

[Seth]

It's not just a matter of teh rulz though Hermy - consistently defining people into some nominal group (Marxists, feminazis, fundamentalists, whatever) and then lambasting them on the basis of that presumed group-membership is a dishonest cheep shot no matter how it's phrased, classic ad-homming, and it amounts to a goodly portion of some member's discursive 'tactics', particularly when their ideas were backed up against the wall with their pants down.

Isn't that what I said here?

Now to indirect personal attacks: It is one thing to describe, say, Marxism as the most pernicious and destructive idea ever and opine that it should be wiped from the face of the earth. Fine. It's altogether a different matter to at best call all Marxists and sympathisers of socialism, at best, useful idiots while accusing half the forum's members of being Marxists and sympathisers of socialism. Not at all fine.

Yeah, it's not, like when Atheists nominally group all religionists together and then lambaste them on the basis of that presumed group-membership, which amounts to a goodly portion of every Atheist member's discursive "tactics." Not okay at all, but still you persist.

Pot, kettle, black, the both of you.

Did you ever stop to think that my "discursive tactics" are quite deliberate and intentional mirrors of the discursive tactics of pretty much everybody here, all of whom are guilty at one time or another of grouping people they don't like together ("Libertards", "Chritens", "Repuglitards" etc.) and then "lambasting them on the basis of that presumed group-membership", particularly when THEIR ideas are backed up against the wall with their pants down?

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander my friends, and I'm going to go right on basting you with it.

I'm surprised you've all forgotten my "rhetorical mirror" practice, given how many, many years I've been doing it. I haven't forgotten it however, and I'll keep shoving it in your face for as long as I participate here, which admittedly might not be much longer, but still, you deserve to be hoist on your own petard and spanked by your own hypocrisy.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

...I'm surprised you've all forgotten my "rhetorical mirror" practice, given how many, many years I've been doing it. I haven't forgotten it however, and I'll keep shoving it in your face for as long as I participate here, which admittedly might not be much longer, but still, you deserve to be hoist on your own petard and spanked by your own hypocrisy....

This constitutes a group attack against the membership here. You are therefore suspended for a period of 2 weeks

[pErvinalia]

[pErvinalia]

Seth meets JimC

[Hermit]

It's not just a matter of teh rulz though Hermy - consistently defining people into some nominal group (Marxists, feminazis, fundamentalists, whatever) and then lambasting them on the basis of that presumed group-membership is a dishonest cheep shot no matter how it's phrased, classic ad-homming, and it amounts to a goodly portion of some member's discursive 'tactics', particularly when their ideas were backed up against the wall with their pants down.

Isn't that what I said here?

Now to indirect personal attacks: It is one thing to describe, say, Marxism as the most pernicious and destructive idea ever and opine that it should be wiped from the face of the earth. Fine. It's altogether a different matter to at best call all Marxists and sympathisers of socialism, at best, useful idiots while accusing half the forum's members of being Marxists and sympathisers of socialism. Not at all fine.

Yeah, it's not, like when Atheists nominally group all religionists together and then lambaste them on the basis of that presumed group-membership, which amounts to a goodly portion of every Atheist member's discursive "tactics." Not okay at all, but still you persist.

Pot, kettle, black, the both of you.

I can't remember grouping all religionists together and then lambaste them, at least not lately, though I do lambaste their ideas when the occasion arises. I'm actually hoping that you don't return, but when you do would you please find a post of mine where I have done what you accuse me of in the past year? As far as I can tell it is you who is the too expert at that, and you have not let up since I first encountered your hyperbolic rants at RDF.

[Hermit]

...I'm surprised you've all forgotten my "rhetorical mirror" practice, given how many, many years I've been doing it. I haven't forgotten it however, and I'll keep shoving it in your face for as long as I participate here, which admittedly might not be much longer, but still, you deserve to be hoist on your own petard and spanked by your own hypocrisy....

This constitutes a group attack against the membership here. You are therefore suspended for a period of 2 weeks

Jim, that is overdone. Seth did not call us hypocrites. He likely thinks we are, but what he basically said was that we have indulged in hypocricy. Much as it pains me to do so, I move that this suspension be rescinded.

[JimC]

It stands.

With Seth, enough is fucking enough. We are not here to bend over backwards for the perfect niceties of continually allowing scathing group attacks on membership, and continuing disruption which has driven away far too many.

[Hermit]

It stands.

With Seth, enough is fucking enough. We are not here to bend over backwards for the perfect niceties of continually allowing scathing group attacks on membership, and continuing disruption which has driven away far too many.

In that case I want to see posts by Pappa, Rachelbean and whoever else has the power to decide on suspensions, writing if they agree with this one, and if so, why. I also want them to reply to my objection, which is that Seth did not call us hypocrites. What he basically said was that we have indulged in hypocrisy. It therefore cannot be described as constituting a group attack against the membership here.

[JimC]

It stands.

With Seth, enough is fucking enough. We are not here to bend over backwards for the perfect niceties of continually allowing scathing group attacks on membership, and continuing disruption which has driven away far too many.

In that case I want to see posts by Pappa, Rachelbean and whoever else has the power to decide on suspensions, writing if they agree with this one, and if so, why. I also want them to reply to my objection, which is that Seth did not call us hypocrites. What he basically said was that we have indulged in hypocrisy. It therefore cannot be described as constituting a group attack against the membership here.

I disagree. His phrase was "your own hypocrisy", labelling us collectively. Not our posts, our persons.

And, for often days or weeks at a time, I am the only moderator around. I will act when I see the rules, which include both general in indirect attacks, broken.

It stands.

[devogue]

It stands.

With Seth, enough is fucking enough. We are not here to bend over backwards for the perfect niceties of continually allowing scathing group attacks on membership, and continuing disruption which has driven away far too many.

Wow. I thought you were joking.

I didn't feel attacked in the slightest.

Why not just ban him permanently like CJ and have done with it?