My life


Wonder why I’ve come to despise debate? Because people who can’t logic their way through a T-maze they’ve run a hundred times before think your refusal to waste time with them is an endorsement.

Comments

  1. lakitha tolbert says

    Are they not aware that the one who makes the assertion, is the one who has to prove the assertion they just made? I may be mistaken but I thought that was how this worked.

  2. rpjohnston says

    The soundest “logic and reason” for those types is the argument ad cranial chair leg.

  3. says

    But that’s true in context!. You can’t take me out of context, because you’re mis-characterizing my argument. And besides, you’re tedious.

    Uh, sorry, I’ve been listening to Sam Harris talks again.

  4. cartomancer says

    In the civilised parts of the English-speaking world “debate” is not a transitive verb. One debates “with” an interlocutor “about” the topic at hand.

    Will nobody think of the poor people slaving away in the preposition mines? They took ages unearthing all those prepositions for you, and now you ignore them?

  5. wontbehere4long says

    This is how I feel about so-called “free speech.” People have lorded it over me for decades to the point that I more than happily reject it.

  6. wcorvi says

    I think if I were called upon to debate with someone, I would stand up and say, “He’s a f*cking idiot. I’ll yield the rest of my time so he can prove me right.”

  7. piscador says

    wcorvi, #10
    Similar to an old tagline I once saw:
    “The problem with arguing with idiots is that they drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”

  8. snuffcurry says

    In the civilised parts of the English-speaking world “debate” is not a transitive verb

    In the end, I expect we’ll have debated about that for years, only to reach stalemate. There’ll be those of us that are correct, and then there’ll be sticklers holding close their ahistorical hypercorrections. About this latter point I can’t imagine precisely with whom I shall debate, but to me it seems likely that to me they are probably closer than I expect, perhaps in the next room even, or maybe from me they are further still.

  9. Nemo says

    I cringed to see David Corn doing exactly this on The Last Word last night. I forget who he was calling out. But I thought of you, PZ.