Do the Forum’s 'etiquette' Rules Allow for Honesty

[Suburbanite]

Do the Forum’s 'etiquette' Rules Allow for Honest Discussion?

Extetencialist Abraham H. Maslow said “What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.”
I actually like this forum a lot. Don’t get me wrong. I think it is well designed, has a lot of smart posters with many unique perspectives. However, where is the honesty in people’s speaking here? People have to hold their emotions back. When ideas get combative, doesn’t it eat at you to have to refrain from saying “fuck you you’re wrong?”
Don’t you sometimes feel like you have to censor yourself from you feelings on an issue to accommodate etiquette, and doesn’t that make you even more upset? You can’t threaten anyone’s life, or insult them, or badger them… things most people want to do real bad I am sure.
The niceness of the forum, in my opinion, gets in the way at the truth of everyone’s messages. They have to censor themselves and come up with these intrigue logical proofs and algorithms for everything they say when all they feel is something that can be summed up in much less and with much more truth to the message. The forum right now is very idealistic, in fact as I see it that is all it is. It is comprised of fabricated truths and complex semantic arguments to achieve some sort of fake debate, when the issue is and will always be your feelings.
I have people who are homophobic. Don’t try and get around the word, not in this thread, you know damn well who you are. They make me sick, to be honest. And then they say something to me as I am giving them the verbal slashing of their life like “well, for a liberal you’re sure not being very relative or tolerant.” And my God that pisses me off. Tolerance, Relativity, Respect are all things people need to earn. I tell them I don’t tolerate them. In fact, I can’t tolerate anyone who disagrees with my stronger opinions. And I don’t have a problem with that. I understand the entire truth behind everything I say. And believe me, I am well versed enough to come up with a load of semantic noise to distort everyone’s perception on an issue, but that doesn’t solve anything, and until people see the pain their actions cause they wont stop.
So, this forum is nice, again, but is it honest and does it actually deal with the issues or does it just put a smilie face on them all?

The guidelines are a small part of those which govern all worthwhile discussion. Essentially all that is being required is respect for others, and an acknowledgement of the nature of reason (though admittedly the emphasis on the latter is sorely lacking).

Which is more productive:
a) a well reasoned argument that conclusively proves the conclusion
or
b) calling someone an asshole or an idiot?

The former has been the method we have used for millenia that results in all involved moving forward "winning" if you will.

The latter may make a few feel better about themselves, though I cannot see how, but it terminates all dialogue and guarentees that no one "wins" including the one who is offering the insult in place of reason. This individual merely makes a fool of himself and shows his fear of careful examination of the ideas.

On a practical note, there are some here who deem themselves not to be bound by honesty, civility, and certainly not reason, so there is nothing to worry about if you just want to see more insults, just look to the posts of those who are most fearful and who are making the greatest efforts to avoid honesty, civility, and reason.

[Mia]

Not every topic has to be in a debate-to-prove-something format. In fact, many threads started in here are specifically created to hear differing opinions and thoughts without argument on who is right or wrong.

Mia,

One of the advantages of honest civil intellectual discussion is that this idea you state about a person being right and another being wrong, is left behind. Ideas are not treated as your children, but rather as ideas.

As Emerson said, No idea is sacred, none profane.

Civility allows for honesty and progress. Insults, personal attacks dishonesty, and the like never contribute, no matter how much animosity you have or may develop against another person.

[Suburbanite]

Dishonesty does not contribute, you're right, that is my point. It isn't honest to yourself to have to justify feelings and hide them behind words. You guys keep talking about this progress of ideas being communicated. That is of course the ideal, but before that some major truths need to be realized, especially on key issues. Is it honest when a Christian justifies being against homosexual marriage because she brings in some kind of obscure fact about homosexuals when the truth is she just hates them because the Bible says so and she has been told so since she was a kid. And she shouldn't have to worry about offending people. If her ideas are offensive, then she should offend. I'm not saying we should just say "you asshole" in every reply. I am saying that is we think someone is a horrible person; we should vocalize it in the closest way possible. If that involves saying they are an asshole than so be it.
Everyone here emphasizes logic and reason and all these mental crutches so much. Why do you project logical reasons? Because you have an emotional response to something. You hate homosexuals, you make up reasons why. It doesn't go the other way around. Our values and morals often come from our early childhood, so we hardly knew what Descartes or Emerson's opinion on an issue. We just felt something, an attachment, a dislike, hatred, envy, love, etc.
So be emotional in your responses if you want to be truthful, don't make up reasons that someone then refutes with more word games and statistics that you then refute. Just say, "I hate..." whatever. "I love..." whatever. Try and understand why you feel that way, and worry less about getting everyone else interested in agreeing with you.

[G. Adams]

You can vocalise your anger at somebody elses position, check back to some older posts and frequently our board leaders have thrown in a 'fuck you', but it's usually part of or preceded by a strong post as to why you believe the posters view to be unnacceptable. Unless that is things have changed here in the month I've been away and the moderaters powers have gone to their headsm Just justify your anger first and it should be accepted, it's just the pure insult posts that arn't needed.

The only "truth" that can be realized, is that which comes from critical thought and reason. Emotion is detrimental to any search for or acquisition of truth.

There is nothing of a crutch nature in reason, quite the opposite in fact. It is using emotion as a shield to thought that is employing a crutch. It is far easier to simply emote than it is to think or be civil.

The advocacy of emotion sans reality, sans reason is self defeating. But of course this ought to be no surprise to anyone given that emotion has no objective, reason, or consistency.

Emotion has its place in our lives, but to assert that it is the only way to think or interact, or to assert that it ought to reign supreme, despite the fact that it is emotion which has led to the most destructive and detrimental times and behaviors of humans, is to beg the question by denying reason prior to examining the facts.

So upon critical examination we can easily and clearly see that this is no place for emotion to reign supreme, but let us also look to the practical effects.

So X says that she hates Y,Z, P, and Q.
J says she hates X.
K says that she hates Z.

Where has this gotten us? Well we have increased animosity, hatred, confusion, anti-intellectualism, and emotions, but we have not learned anything at all, progressed in any way at all, nor come to a better understanding of anything at all.

Leave hatred, animosity, insults, and personal attacks out of discussions entirely. They add nothing at all, and are only detrimental to any and all hope of understanding or progress. There is nothing honest about intentional emoting, hatred, animosity, or insults.

Such behaviors are only the outward manifestation of the fear of facing the important issues. So rather than face the issues honestly, some choose to call others assholes, idiots, or whatnot. Some emote in different manners, such as repeating the same old questions that have already been answered in order to keep their heads in the sand to avoid seeing the world as it is and having their worst fears realized. None of the emoting in place of facing reality tactics serve to help anyone, at best they are delaying tactics, but all are dishonest to the individual choosing such tactics, as well as dishonest to all of those who have tried to engage the individual in an exchange of ideas.

Face the fears do not feed or perpetuate them.

[Suburbanite]

Yes, Emotion is SUBJECTIVE, you're 100% correct. What does that MEAN? If Objectivity is globalizing and all encompassing than subjectivity is individual and narrow. It is human. We are all subjective, that is why objectivity is so unobtainable. Emotions are subjective. But so is logic, in fact, logic is nothing but Emotions put in the right word setting. Using logic is trying to take an emotional or subjective idea and express it objectively. It doesn't involve why or how we feel on an issue, but those are at the core of everything. And until you unravel those, logic has no meaning; it is just a word game.

[Suburbanite]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (G. Adams,)
You can vocalise your anger at somebody elses position, check back to some older posts and frequently our board leaders have thrown in a 'fuck you', but it's usually part of or preceded by a strong post as to why you believe the posters view to be unnacceptable. Unless that is things have changed here in the month I've been away and the moderaters powers have gone to their headsm Just justify your anger first and it should be accepted, it's just the pure insult posts that arn't needed.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

I agree, I like this forum, and some people are honest. But there are still a lot of very pretentious posts, and that is just a hindrance to the goal of truth.

[Mia]

Suburbanite,

Where do you stand on whether truth is subjective?

[Suburbanite]

I think Truth is subjective, but not relative. It exists within us all, though it simply comes out in varying forms. Some are liberals, some are conservatives, but there is an individual likeness in each of them which has only been swayed by powerful social forces particularly as a young child. The most obvious are smaller, Parents, Outer Family, Friends, Neighbors, Your Block, Your City, Your State, Your School, You Religion, etc. Not to mention the constant encounters with people who have been exposed to different social forces.

[Mia]

Well, that's where we run into problems. Some claim that their view is absolute truth for everyone and a civil conversation cannot follow.

[Suburbanite]

That is a problem. This is why that has to be addressed. And the only way to do that is to admit it, admit your emotions on an issue. Until then it is just semantic noise.

How then do you two account for the millenia of counter-evidence? How do you account for every single bit of knowledge that we as a secies have acquired? The very tools which you are using to assert that there is not truth (this is identical to the claim that truth is subjective) and that emotion is a prefered tool to reason, defeat these claims.

When reality and your belief are in conflict, it is always your belief that is mistaken. Reality simply is, it is not wrong.

[G. Adams]

But then of course we must ask what is reality? Damn that sounds like matrix cod-philosophy, but it is a serious point.

[m3talsmith]

One thing I like about the etiquette rules is that it forces me to stifle my immediate emotions, and to rephrase everything in to a nice, neat little format, so that it does not get ignored.

I've noticed people tend to ignore rash words.

Also you can tell that such a reply or post is worth replying to because it actually has well thought out ideas behind it.

This makes the ideas worth more also.

[Suburbanite]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Lightbearer,)
How then do you two account for the millenia of counter-evidence? How do you account for every single bit of knowledge that we as a secies have acquired? The very tools which you are using to assert that there is not truth (this is identical to the claim that truth is subjective) and that emotion is a prefered tool to reason, defeat these claims.

When reality and your belief are in conflict, it is always your belief that is mistaken. Reality simply is, it is not wrong.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

Haha. So you think truth is a toaster and 2+2? I’m not saying math and science are wrong or valueless, I don’t even know how to respond to your questions. For someone who values logic so much you sure do a poor job of using it.




M3tal why don’t you go fuck youself.

Reality is that which is.

[Suburbanite]

uhhhh, alright.

[m3talsmith]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Suburbanite,)
M3tal why don’t you go fuck youself.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

That's what my wife is for