Lol... I talk in IRC a little.

Your inability to handle the truth means your shunned. Several core posters won't be replying to you except to maybe let you know your shunned.

I will let you know, periodically, and others especially, know your shunned for not replying to damaging posts.

I feel insulted to be grouped with the likes of him. x(

It's settled then.  I am not shunned, Einstein.

Attempted IC Politics Shunning Xeno = epic fail, Flint.

This thread is ridiculous.

politics needs a good spam thread every now and then....

But that is different to shunning.... that is just not responding to stupid arguments....

Like I said, I am not with Flint, and came to this decision well before his "big" post...flint caught the scent of not bothering with the arguments, and turned into into highschool antics ("you are shunned from the group"). I simply stated that I do not need to engage in wild theories, and although I must continue to uphold forum rules, I do not feel compelled to respond or comment to Xeno because I already know the outcome of doing as such.

There is no large conspiracy, just a lot of people annoyed with being ignored, belittled, and well, annoyed!

This is how I feel the discussions end up: http://www.somethingofthatilk.com/index.php?id=335

EDIT: Spelling mistake...happy Gwynedd?

> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> Well, as I am not part of any "great" conspiracy, I do feel I should point out that I have better things to do with my time than to respond to "conspiracy theories", inconsistancies in your arguments, your constant need to reduce the argument down to name calling (or making weak accusations of name calling...which is often a double standard), and also your often avoidance of answering any questions that are brought forward. I don't feel compelled to respond to posts because I know that they will end up the same as every other post, and will always be some random conspiracy theory where you know more than EVERYONE else in the world and only if we follow YOUR way will we all be happier. I'm done, at least until it is evident that you can act as a responsible member of a forum community, and that includes recognising others arguments and engaging in a fair debate...

Is this directed to me or Einstein?

Much happier Worny.

If you respected his arguments and point of view, you would respond to them. You'd say "this is why I disagree," or "I think you're wrong about this," or "that's a fair point, BUT [such and such] is why it doesn't change my position."

You don't.

You're a rather disrespectful person.

You don't have to call someone names or be angry at them to be disrespectful. Being a lazy ass and continuing to post when you refuse to address many points/arguments, for example, is disrespectful too.

You do it all the time. You repeat some theoretical argument but refuse to ever actually discuss what you post or what those ideas entail. When someone calls you out on ideas that are completely ludicrous, you completely ignore this massive failure and just repeat other parts of what you posted. There's no discussion with you, because you refuse to engage in any sort of dialogue. You completely disregard anything you disagree with and any/all discussion of what you post.

Poor baby. Don't cry.

I'm going to add myself to the increasing list of people that are ignoring xeno.  No, I'm not ignoring xeno because I disagree with his ideas (if I was, I probably shouldn't even be in the Politics forum as there's relatively few who always agree with me).  Rather, I am ignoring xeno for reasons of his methods of argumentation (or lack thereof) in the Politics forum, which combined have a net result that replying to his posts is an exercise in futility.

I would have posted this earlier, but I wanted to give xeno another chance at redeeming himself.  After over a week of watching two of my most recent posts directed at him ignored, while consequently watching one of the threads receive discussion on other matters, it becomes clear that I'm unlikely to see actual debate here (although I do expect xeno to probably feign replies, as has empirically happened... I'm not bothering at this point, because it's a repetitive cycle).

First, xeno has very clearly been disregarding arguments made by people of alternative points of view here.  Wornsturm has pointed it out.  Flint has pointed it out.  I have pointed it out very substantively.  In fact, the last time I pointed it out, the result was a new thread created (answering about 1/3 of the issues I claimed he disregarded), which was then left to die once I actually finished answering xeno's issues and began to present my own side of the debate.

But even within existing debates (when xeno is actually going through my posts and actively choosing to answer those arguments), I have been able to cite instances of him cherrypicking which arguments he will and which he won't answer.  This is important for two reasons.  First, it is just as bad in its impact on truth finding as the act of ignoring an entire post outright.  Second, because an individual who cherrypicks arguments to answer is actively choosing to engage in the debate by the act of choosing which arguments to answer and which to not answer, it means that person at least has engaged in the decisionmaking process of deciding whether the time invested in writing a post is better than the time invested in not writing a post (i.e., do I have enough time to make a reply), and he has chosen that making a post was worth the time invested, thus refuting any alternative explanations for why a complete post was not given.

Specifically, I have seen instances of xeno actually actively choosing to ignore arguments under the presumption of their distractionary tactic when the argument is, in fact, simply focusing on issues within a thread.  Whether it be the SOPA or Greece threads we dealt with earlier, I was subject to two separate instances of xeno writing posts with a certain claim and warrant, then calling replies to the warrant distractionary.

The best example would probably be in the Greece thread, with xeno's argument essentially being that ancient Greece has a smaller income gap than the modern world, and thus asking how we could close the income gap.  When I raised questions regarding the importance of the income gap, my post was actively ignored by xeno, under the justification that it was "distractionary."

My response to this is very simple.  Communication theory frames an idea as a combination of a claim and a warrant.  The claim is the argument one is trying to make, with the warrant being the justification for that argument.

Example: I believe we should not bomb Iran because if we do, space aliens will retaliate against the US.

Claim: We should not bomb Iran.
Warrant: If we bomb Iran, space aliens will blow up the US.

Without a warrant, a claim has no justification.  Without a claim, a warrant has no direction.  Therefore, both are necessary for a coherent statement of policy to exist.  As such, because an argument requires both a claim and a warrant, the truth value of both are equally important.

Take the statement above, for example.  If we only focused on addressing claims, we don't actually fully understand what will happen, because we begin to take things for granted.  For example, under this scenario, we would take for granted that space aliens exist, and both could and would blow up the US if we bombed Iran.  However, if we want to actually find the scenario that best reflects the actual results of an Iran invasion, one of the first responsible questions that would be levied against the above statement would be an indictment of the warrant (do aliens exist, would they actually care about an Iran war).  Thus, unless both warrants and claims are considered fair game in a debate, the debate has no value in actually attempting to find the truth.

Finally, and most important, xeno has very clearly expressed that he isn't interested in actually considering alternative perspectives.  At the same time, though, he disregards those who he suspects are not considering his own perspective.  As a good example, consider the progressive tax thread:

Page 2, directed at Kemp.

"True intellectuals are capable of changing paradigms as easily as changing sunglasses.

Try my sunglasses.  Take a different look at history through them and see for yourself if the perspective is more accurate than your own.  Change them back to yours if not.  It's that simple.  If you don't try them on, though, there is no way for you see whether your own perspective is not as (or more) accurate."

Same thread, page 4, directed at Simon.

"We seem to have a very fundamental difference in understanding what a debate is..."

I am not looking for debate, but, rather, collaboration with truth-seekers."

As a second piece of evidence, I present the following from the Ancient Greece thread:

"Zarf, if it is going to be a constructive discussion, great.  If not, then I'm not interested.  In order to move on to have constructive dialogue, we have to agree that,

1. having a more egalitarian distribution of wealth in society is a GOOD thing for EVERYBODY.

2. the current distribution of wealth in our societies is ANTITHETICAL to the values purported to be held dear to liberal democracies.

Do you or do you not agree?  If you do, we may move on to more pressing matters."

My response is twofold.

1: Obviously, a contradiction exists here.  Why should it be up to kemp, Wornstrum, Flint, myself, or anyone else to try adopting xeno's worldview when xeno himself does not want to consider the worldview of the alternative hypotheses?

For that matter, who's to say said individuals have not considered said worldview?  If I am exposed to an alternate worldview and decide that said view of the world has fundamental flaws, and can articulate those flaws in refutation of that worldview's adoption, why is that not qualified as considering a worldview?

2: More important, the common perspective collaboration is frankly useless unless it is combined with the alternate hypothesis clash.  Let me provide an example.  If I were to post a thread asking people how I could most effectively censor all possible alternative viewpoints in the politics forum, I'm pretty sure most active participants in this forum would reply with "Don't you dare!"  If I was morally required to engage in a clash of alternative worldviews, I would be required to justify why I would want to censor all other points of view in the politics forum.  Yes, I would fail miserably in that debate. 

However, if I was not required to consider alternative perspectives, without the intervention of alternative hypotheses, there is nothing to challenge the truth value of my stance... so as far as I am concerned, my stance would be truth, even if alternative theories exist, only because I am not exposed and forced to justify myself against those alternative theories.  Thus, the likely result is that I will act in a way which is shaped by an isolated worldview.

Isolation of ideas has been the cause of so many tragedies throughout history.  Whether you consider the totalitarian states in which the government could isolate alternative worldviews, or any number of politically driven organizations ranging from the Klu Klux Klan to the Nazis (Godwin's Law), the result is the same: When you allow a viewpoint to exist unchallenged in a state, the viewpoint becomes capital T truth within that community, regardless of its actual truth value.  This does not actually help create good ideas.  It only allows bad ideas to fester, poliferate, and inevitably silence alternative ideas.

I know many people have issues with which they personally identify in politics, whether it be abortion, income distribution, or whatever.  This is mine.  I have attempted for months to explain the logical flaws in xeno's process of communication and argumentation in this thread because I believe unless open discourse between people of conflicting ideologies actually happens, truth seeking is impossible.

I've attempted to correct the issues as I go along, only to be ignored.  So... I figure it's about time I reciprocate.  I actually did like our arguments, xeno, but when they degrade into a mix of obvious ignoring of arguments, redefinitions of my posts, and ad hominem attacks, it's useless for me to continue the argumentation.  Long story short, I'm done.