Sand wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
Sand wrote:
It's a matter of tactics. Sometimes dealing with a jerk gets better results by calmly indicating a better approach. Of course, it doesn't always work.
Oh, well I wasn't talking about general debate tactics, that's a whole other thread, but more the specialized difficulties of arguing with people who may have varying levels of functional impairment without either insulting their intellect or using unnecessarily forceful verbiage. I view obnoxious postings as a sort of self authorizing language, once a poster has crossed that threshold they can't really call foul later that they were treated harshly out of turn.
I actually agree that keeping one's cool in the face of an abusive poster is usually the better and more persuasive approach, I'm just talking about the propriety of aggressive argument with someone who
may be less capable.
Indulging in insult because a precedent has been offered may make a lively interchange but it might be more incisive and instructive to ignore the insult and examine the issues more closely.
Since you're a gun enthusiast let me put it in those terms.If someone takes a shot at you (and misses) is it always a good policy to shoot back or perhaps it might be more effective and better for both parties to back off and talk a bit.
i can sympathize. it's a difficult game to play if you intend to play fair. a lot of forum posters "play for the win" even on wrongplanet, as far as i've seen. i think the "autism factor" figures into it quite prominently, here. we tend to fixate on specific subjects and trains of thought and this gives us the feeling of authority on the subject. this leads to some people being seen as arrogant because they speak matter-of-factly about subjects the rest of us haven't spent years thinking about.
it does, indeed, make things difficult. i do wonder how much of that is actually the "autism factor" and how much is just stupid human games.
take the analogy proposed by sand. many people with interests in logical fallacies will see it and cry "straw man!" without ever considering that it may be appropriate to consider the idea from that perspective. i think if it were appropriate to consider not returning fire in the case of someone shooting at you, it would be appropriate to consider a pot shot taken at you in a forum as a misunderstanding. i wonder how many cars have been shot on the street my sister lives on in east LA because they backfired and someone mistook the sound for a gunshot and returned fire.
alas, because the comment was made by sand and was on a topic that you have argued from opposing sides, it is easy to take it as bait for a continuation of that argument.
some of this may have to do with our ASD. being a long-time resident of teh introwebz and a relative newcomer to the autistic community, i don't automatically attribute such misunderstandings to ASD. perhaps it is much more pervasive than i had previously understood.
06 Apr 2010, 12:05 am
