Mea culpa.

[Pale Blue Dot]

It's been about a year now since I became a skeptic and an atheist for good. During my "conversion", 3 things influenced my way of thinking more than any others: One was Dawkin's The God Delusion; another was Brian Greene's History of Nearly Everything. While the first two have had the greatest impact on my thinking about science and religion, the third - the podcast "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" - has had the most influence about how I think about DU.

Specifically, through that podcast I was reintroduced to the concept of logical thinking and logical fallacies. Just as my newfound atheism opened my eyes to the thousands of everyday ways that religious dogma influences our lives, so the podcast opened my eyes to the fact that most - nearly all, I think - of the arguments made on DU are not remotely based on logic thinking. Straw men and ad hominem attacks abound, and all of the other logical fallacies on this list can be found in almost every thread and thread title. Worse, it seems that the only time these logical fallacies are recognized are when they are used against a particular candidate (ANY candidate) - and the response to them are more logical fallacies. These types of arguments are used by the supporters of all candidates and all arguments pretty much equally. It's as depressing to me to see as when I see religious dogma infecting our everyday lives.

At first, I tried to calmly present logical arguments. I tried to avoid the ad hominem attacks and snark that I see all over DU everyday. Sometimes I hoped that I was successful when my post killed a thread; perhaps my argument was so good that there was simply no good response left(:rofl:). Most of the time, however, I found that the more calm and logically sound was my argument, the more I was ignored.

So here's the thing: My response to this fact was to become part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I find that I'm reluctant to post anything until I get so pissed off about something that I post with snark and venom rather than calm, logical arguments. In the process, my DU persona has diverged even more from my real personality than it ever has before. In real life, I'm a nice guy, I rarely say a negative word about anyone, and because of that I am really well-liked and trusted. On DU, I've become an asshole, one of the many. I don't like this change in me almost as much as I don't like the type of thinking that I see on DU daily.

I really need a break from this place. I tried to take one last week, but it's so difficult; there really is no place like this on the internet. Ideally, I'd love to find someplace as active as this where the issues were debated based on the rules of logic. Until I find it, I've realized that is really, really hard to maintain a logical stance in an illogical, snarky world.

[Imperialism Inc.]

1. Thread killing.

I think the thing with thread killing is that this place moves so dang fast. I've given up on even a slow moving group like Religion and Theology for the most part. My post is very often the very last post on a thread. If there were more posts later, just not to me, I would assume I just didn't say anything interesting but often times it is the last thing ever posted to the thread. And this is often the result of being no more than a day or two late. The speed of things also contributes to making it more difficult to present good arguments.

[Evoman]

2. Embrace your inner asshole.

I'm the opposite...I'm a fucking asshole in real life but I am admired on DU for being one of the nice guys and am respected for my politeness........ BWHAHAHAHAHA :rofl:


Don't sweat it dude. We all know your a nice guy. You really don't come across as an asshole at all.

[Warpy]

4. I just embraced mine on a statistics flimflammer

and although the response was carefully worded so as not to trigger undue interest from the mods, I'll bet it curls the hair in his nose.

[TZ]

3. Honestly, I don't think you are going to find anything better on the internet

Lets just face it, humans aren't logical critters. The internet seems to make the irrationality much worse. I suspect a lot of people take out their daily frustrations on message boards like this. I think a lot of us get jerky faced with the right provocation (you want to see my darkside? read the health forum sometimes. The only reason my posts don't get deleted more often is that I put my insults in technical terms and most people don't really understand how nasty I am being (for instance I called a woo "unethical" and trust me, if I said that directly to any scientist I know...well...).
I hope you stick around. I do enjoy your posts. Even the snarky ones!:)

[LeftishBrit]

5. I've never found you snarky!

I'm usually pretty soft-spoken and tolerant myself; and on the few occasions when I've really gone for someone, I've usually managed to translate it into words that sound innocently intellectual - (e.g. "Your views do not represent mainstream Europaean opinion, at least during the last 60 years or so"; instead of "You are an effing Nazi!") But there is a certain person on the Health Forum who has at times brought out the pure bitch in me. Oddly enough, medical fraud does not appeal to me.