X-Message-Number: 29740
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: internet debating
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2007 13:11:10 +0100

One way of "winning" a debate is to give the holder of the opposing 
viewpoint so much reading to do for which they have no time, that they give 
up. Just deleting certain people from the debate does not seem to me to be 
rational. I think that there needs to be some sort of "Godwin's Law" 
formulated to address these points in connection with Internet exchanges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_Law

I think the big problem with politics is that people who want to control 
other people (especially by taxation) have to resort to force to do it, and 
this translates to anger if they meet resistance. This appears also in 
discussions, so no real understanding results.

This appears tp be relevant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law_of_controversy
Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information 
available. It appears in his novel Timescape.

If the real information can only be acquired spending several days reading 
boreing books about someone's opinion as to right and wrong this may well 
apply to political debate as well.

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

> "Fred C. Moulton" <> calls for political debate
> to be kept off cryonet. There has been quite a lot recently on
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LongevityReport/ Drs Stodolsky and
> Harris have presented arguments on either side.

To call this debate is miss leading. While opposing views were
presented, you can't say a debate is taking place unless one side
responds to the other. In the case above, Harris responded, but his
assumption of what I had said was just the opposite of what I, in
fact, had clearly stated. That is, I said, "Read X to understand Y."
Harris then said, "Stodolsky says there is no way to understand Y."
This 'debate' was permanently terminated when I set my mail program
to place all future mail from Harris in the Trash.
<del>
 I posted some reference to books on ethics that would allow
a solution to be formulated. This was, apparently, lost on the
audience. So, another case of a failure in debate.


dss


David Stodolsky    Skype: davidstodolsky


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