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I don't find either of your examples to be anywhere near the level of dunking or the vitriol that's displayed by antifa here. Wording meaningful claims about truth in a way that's meant to sound controversial isn't good, but it's a whole other world away from content-less naked loosely connected declarations that amount to booing the outgroup. Like, the question of whether or not leftists care about child rape isn't pleasant, nor is it nice, but it's a real question that can be honestly, in good faith, answered as No given the political issue being discussed (as a leftist myself, I'm perfectly okay with saying that when I was a younger, more naive leftist, I genuinely didn't care about child rape or other potential negative consequences of unmitigated immigration, such as lower wages or suicide bombings; such things were the cost I would gladly have me and my fellow citizens pay for giving more poor people the opportunity to thrive in a first world nation like the USA. My opinion on that has changed since; I think I've gained greater empathy than I used to have for certain groups of people). And characterizing a drug as for aiding gay men in going to orgies isn't nice, but IIRC that was just one off-hand line in a comment that otherwise had some meaningful thing to say about different ways different drugs are covered by insurance. There's actually meat to the bones, along with all that shit.
The comment here by antifa, and IME the occasional leftists who come in "hot" here, are basically pure shit with perhaps some bones and ligaments there. That difference matters to people who care about the meat on the bones, i.e. the actual content of the arguments, but that difference matters little to people who care primarily about getting their views lauded and their outgroup's views booed. This is one reason why, even as a leftist, I find the quality of conversation and discussion here, where it's predominantly populated by people well to the right of the most right-leaning person I might meet IRL. Who cares if they'll drop in little - or big - digs at me and my ingroup here and there or all the time? Their actual substantive criticisms are actually interesting and valuable and the wording and the digs don't affect the level of charity or quality of arguments.
I think you have to admit that you're an extremely unusual leftist though. I would think most people on the left side of the spectrum would find it more plausible that it's the right wing who don't actually care about child rape and just find it to be an extremely convenient cudgel in debate and drumming up passions. If they really cared they'd act very differently and choose very different leaders.
Sure, that's what many/most people on the left side of the spectrum would find more plausible. Whether or not right-wingers care about child rape has little to do with whether or not left-wingers do, though. Maybe they both don't. Maybe left-wingers don't care to a lesser extent than right-wingers, and that's a W that we should put on our mantle.
In any case, what left-wingers find to be plausible about what right-wingers care about doesn't seem likely to have much truth value except by coincidence, similarly to what right-wingers find to be plausible about what left-wingers care about. It's because I'm a leftist who, from within leftist spheres both experienced and observed directly the explicitly non-caring about child-rape with respect to immigration (and more recently male access to female locker rooms in schools) through a lack of curiosity about negative consequences of one's preferred policies that I'm willing to carry water for this claim made by a right-winger about left-winger beliefs.
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Okay see this is what I am trying to illustrate as bad debating. The question of “whether or not leftists care about child rape” isn't a real question that can be honestly, in good faith, answered as “No.” solely because of your anecdotal experience of not caring about certain potential negative consequences of unmitigated immigration when you identified as a liberal. Anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to make declarations like that, because, uh, I’m so liberal I sat under the Democrat tent on election day and advertised Harris yardsigns and I care about child rape lmao. Does my experience trump yours? Does yours trump mine? Like how am I supposed to argue with that? That’s why I believe in the spirit of debate anecdotal evidence holds little weight compared to objective evidence and I would like to see if you have other data pools to prove that “leftists don’t care about child rape” otherwise…I dunno what to tell you other than we’re not debating anymore lol.
No one who says "[x] do/don't care about [y]" mean that "literally every individual within the group [x] do/don't care about [y]." This is common sense and shouldn't need to be explicitly stated in a discussion like this. In this situation, the question is relating to how "policies that leftists prioritize/champion have predictable outcomes on child rape such that their level of caring about it is necessarily below others and below some meaningful threshold in order to prioritize such policies." And, again, as a leftist who used to champion such policies, I was by no means unusual as someone who openly said that, if allowing in poor people that Republicans dislike into our country also means that some of those poor people will do things like rape more children in the USA, then so be it. But more common were people who would outright deny that such policies would lead to bad outcomes without doing the very very hard work of actually checking with multiple adversarial sources that disagree heavily with oneself, which is the ultimate form of not caring about those bad outcomes, i.e. child rape in this case. I am perfectly comfortable saying that those leftists would absolutely, 100%, honestly, in good faith believe they care about it, but their lack of curiosity in actually checking if their beliefs about reality are correct shows that their belief about what they care about is incorrect.
Okay, but we’re trying to debate and your response was “I think that leftists don’t care about child rape because of my anecdotal experience of being a leftist” and I responded with “anecdotal evidence isn’t enough, do you have evidence outside of that”, and not only have you not responded to my claim about anecdotal evidence you have not responded about providing said evidence. I’m not saying you need to agree to those points or some type of action or whatever, but you have to acknowledge those points so we can move on to the next point of debate or we are literally talking over eachother.
This is, again, illustrating the problem with the Motte. It is not that you’re a right winger insulting me a left-winger; you’re being a bad debater. Part of the rules of this site are “speak clearly”, so yes, you DO have to clarify that when you say “leftists don’t care about child rape”, you SHOULD say “policies that leftists champion lead to child rape and so on” or that “leftists believe in stopping child rape but don’t take action”.
It is sincerely a gigantic waste of time for everyone if we can’t agree on debate rules and you keep making me feel like you’re not even reading what I’m saying until I quit the conversation, which I am really close to doing. If you cannot provide evidence outside of anecdotal evidence for your claim so we can properly debate it or even just respond to my request for such I’m going to assume you’re not interested in a conversation.
No. One of the rules of this place is to be charitable, and I believe that an obvious charitable reading of “leftists don’t care about child rape” is something akin to “policies that leftists champion lead to child rape and so on.” I would agree that wording it this way is not nice, and certainly something that I would prefer to see less of in this space, but it's a world away from the type of crap that the likes of antifa posted.
If we're having a debate here, it's certainly not about whether or not leftists care about child rape. Commentary on the truth-value of that was something I put in a parenthetical to point out that the answer of "No" is one that I agree with. You don't have to agree with it, and I don't care if you do.
My actual point, the point surrounding whatever debate we're having, is that this is a perfectly reasonable question to ask and to answer with a "No" given the topic at hand. It's not a particularly productive question, nor is it a nice question (though personally, I'd say it's a productive question for a leftist - or really anyone - to ask himself, based on my own personal experience as a leftist who did, but not productive for someone to ask about others). But given the topic and underlying reality at hand, it's a question that makes sense both to wonder about and to answer with "No."
Okay, well I think you're wrong in thinking that the charity rule means posting baileys (leftists don't care about child rape) instead of mottes (policies that leftists champion lead to child rape) is acceptable. This site is...literally called the Motte. "It's obvious this is what I'm saying" is literally the shady thinking we are trying to avoid. It's the exact same poor debating as what antifa is doing.
I mean, this debate started because you said "I don't find either of your examples to be anywhere near the level of dunking or the vitriol that's displayed by antifa here because the question of whether or not leftists care about child rape isn't pleasant, nor is it nice, but it's a real question that can be honestly, in good faith, answered as "No." because when I was a younger, more naive leftist, I genuinely didn't care about child rape or other potential negative consequences of unmitigated immigration." therefore the comment here by antifa, and IME the occasional leftists who come in "hot" here, are basically pure shit with perhaps some bones and ligaments there, whereas the comments left by right-wingers are not."
I responded with, "I don't think you can answer "do leftists care about child rape" with your own anecdotal evidence, because anecdotal evidence is bad on its own. Do you agree that anecdotal evidence is bad on its own, and do you have other evidence that "leftists don't care about child rape" other than anecdotal?"
You responded with "I'm not saying every leftist doesn't care about child rape, I'm saying leftists would absolutely, 100%, honestly, in good faith believe they care about it, but their lack of curiosity in actually checking if their beliefs about reality are correct shows that their belief about what they care about is incorrect. And, additionally, my anecdotal evidence stands because I was no means being an unusual leftist as someone who openly said that, if allowing in poor people that Republicans dislike into our country also means that some of those poor people will do things like rape more children in the USA, then so be it."
I responded with, "Okay, but why are you not saying what you think then? There is a world of difference between "leftists don't care about child rape" and "leftists are unwilling to look at the true ramifications of their policies and therefore don't actually care about the results". Additionally, you haven't responded to my claim anecdotal evidence on its own isn't valid, much less my question if you have any other evidence than that, you just repeated your anecdote, which I assume means you think that type of data is valid and you don't have that evidence, but then can you say that out loud so we can move on?"
And now it seems you don't know what we are debating about, as you said "whatever debate we're having". This is what I mean. I believe your bad debating habits have derailed the conversation. Your actual point was not "saying leftists don't care about child rape is valid", it was "I don't find either of your examples to be anywhere near the level of dunking or the vitriol that's displayed by antifa here." I think my examples do support my claim which wasn't and isn't even that there is too much vitrol and dunking on leftists but that debate fallacies were derailing conversations and driving away leftists because the mods have an unrecognized bias towards these debate fallacies.
This is where I would like some type of mod action that is similar to debate moderators, in which a clear direction of, "07mk, you are talking about this, and justawoman, you are talking about that. Respond to eachother so this debate can be productive instead of a bunch of hot air."
I've written before that I don't think such writing is good. I honestly think it's borderline in terms of rulebreaking, since it's clearly meant to create more heat than light. Does it cross some imaginary threshold from "acceptable" to "unacceptable?" You think it does, I think it doesn't. C'est la vie.
This is such an obvious strawman - the strawman is directly beneath the statement it's strawmanning! - that I wonder why you do this in a comment that's specifically complaining about the quality of debate here. Note the parts I bolded. The first part is a fairly accurate mostly-quoted but partially edited synopsis of my comment. The second is your response to my comment where you seemed to claim that I was using my anecdote to answer the question "Do leftists care about child rape," when the above paragraph, particularly the bolded part, does nothing of the sort. What the anecdote does is answer the question, "Is it reasonable to ask the question, 'Do leftists care about child rape,' and it is it reasonable to answer it with 'No?'" These are 2 fundamentally different questions, and it's either careless or dishonest to elide between the 2.
In this one, I just bolded the words you added to your synopsis of my comment that fundamentally change the meaning of my comment. I never once claimed that my anecdote was evidence of anything. It was merely context for why I believed that the question and answer we're discussing now are reasonable things to say in that discussion. At best, you can say that it's evidence that this question is a reasonable one to ask, though I wouldn't even characterize it as such (indeed, I've never once used the word "evidence" to describe my anecdote, nor have I used it to support any other notion in a "because" or "therefore" fashion).
Where did you ask this question? Please point it out to me, because I couldn't find it. I am saying what I think. Where am I not saying what I think?
And my contention is that there is no world of difference between "leftists don't care about child rape" and "leftists are unwilling to look at the true ramifications of their policies and therefore don't actually care about the results." In fact, I think there's basically no substantive difference, it's a matter of tone. And the tone in the former is bad, something we should have less of here. I don't think it's some egregiously bad thing, though.
I didn't respond to your claim about anecdotal evidence not being valid because your claim had nothing to do with my own claim. You are the one who decided to derail this conversation by putting words into my mouth and then demanding that I defend those words I didn't say.
If you want to complain about debate fallacies driving away leftists from here, don't be a leftist who introduces debate fallacies while debating the case, because it demonstrates that, at least for one leftist, debate fallacies are no objection to contributing to this place.
I wish again I could properly express my sincerity when I say your-this response is very much in line with the kind of conversation I am looking for and I am verily satisfied and optimistic. I made specific claims and feel you are directly addressing them, therefore listening to me, and continuing the conversation yadda yadda. That's the best anyone can ask for on this forum.
"You think it does, I think it doesn't. C'est la vie."
and
"This is an obvious strawman"
and
"the question, "Is it reasonable to ask the question, 'Do leftists care about child rape,' and it is it reasonable to answer it with 'No?'" and these are 2 fundamentally different questions and you are eliding between the two."
and
"the words you added to your synopsis of my comment fundamentally changed the meaning of my comment."
and
"Where did you ask this question?"
are all elements of your response I think are valid and worth time and attention to answer because they are, at least to me, objective rigor and commentary. Unfortunately, I just don't want to do that right now and likely won't in the future if I don't now in this response. And honestly, if I'm not willing to take the time to respond to your points the way I want you to respond to mine then the onus is on me to concede and take responsibility for inappropriately closing the argument. My apologies for the frustration, -50 points to house Leftist, I shouldn't start debates if I'm not willing to see them to the end. Since I am not responding to your points, I think it is fair to say you are correct. I dunno, if I say, "Cats don't drink milk." and you say, "Yes they do." and then I run off without responding, the winner that's left is "yes they do" unless I come back and pick back up the argument.
Anyway, long-winded way of thank you for responding, sorry, I'm wrong, and trying my best to point big arrow signs that say "THIS IS WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR".
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And this is where I say no, no, and hell no.
At this point, reading through your entire post, it's "you responded and then I responded and then you responded and then..." and you want me to sort out "what proposition did @justawoman make, and did @07mk respond to that proposition or to another one, and was his response directly relevant," and we're supposed to referee this like a formal debate club?
No.
Then it looks like the moderation on this site isn't for me. If your intent is for this site to be "a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases", then when two people are clearly not on the same page about what "shady thinking", much less what counts as "responding", is, the only person who had the authority to provide guidance is you. I thought this place was trying to consider itself a debate club and like any, any debate platform, there has to be a moderator to keep the conversation from getting derailed, otherwise, yes, it devolves into trying to parse out and agree on what the hell the other person is even saying. By you not checking that 07mk is actually responding to what I'm saying, you're signaling that other users can get away with the same behavior I'm pointing out. Nobody wants to argue with someone they think isn't listening to them, so all that you have left is an echochamber.
That is to say, I do feel like you are listening to me in this particular response, and your answer is "Hell no." I wish I knew a way to illustrate the full sincerity of when I say that is perfectly acceptable to me. I don't want to moderate this site, you do, and I appreciate a succinct and clear answer.
That may be the case. Based on everything you said, it's unlikely we are going to change our moderation to suit you. Bear in mind, of course, that so far you have only been talking to me, and I can't say how many of the other mods are reading this thread. You can always ping them and try to get their feedback.
Well, the thing is, the intent is for this to be a platform where people can do that, but we never said that our purpose is to be referees and try to enforce a particular kind of discourse, beyond generally pushing back against people who try to step out of bounds. It was never meant to be a formal "debate club" with judges blowing whistles. We aren't teachers, judges, or editors. If people post shitty arguments and no one argues back, or worse, gives them upvotes and AAQCs, well, that's what the community has decided it wants, and while we will continue to enforce some norms regardless of community sentiment, we're not going to take on the role that you seem to want us to.
Yes, I am not going to check every time someone replies to you or anyone else and make sure that they are "actually responding" to you. If you think someone is breaking the rules and report the post, I will look and see if I think they are breaking the rules, but "Not answering my question, or going off on what I consider to be an irrelevant tangent," while annoying, is not a violation of the rules.
You can also be selective about who you engage with. Some people here are very low-quality posters and I pretty much ignore them except when they are being reported for being particularly shitty. Some people are worth talking to and some aren't. There are definitely some people who think that about me.
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