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In your opinion, indeed. You sound like you're offended he wouldn't bet with you. My view on this is nobody has to bet on anything and "I don't want to" is sufficient reason. "Oh, you're so pussy-whipped your missus won't let you bet" and "boo-hoo, your family will starve if you bet a small amount of money, loser" are not, as I said, convincing arguments and make you sound like a playground bully.
His reasons are his reasons. You proposed a bet, he refused, there we are. Again, my own view is that "if you really believed the postion you hold, you'd bet money on it and if you don't you're a pussy/coward/poorcel loser" is fucking stupid, like the local tough guy trying to chivvy someone into drinking drunk because "a real man can hold his booze and if you don't want to go pint for pint with me, you're a dum-dum loser!"
Then again, I'm a woman, and these male dick-measuring rituals don't impress me much.
I've also never liked the Rationalist love of betting and I considered writing an effortpost about it at one point.
There is a certain machismo to it that I find distasteful. I also don't think it's a coincidence that the same belief structure that loves to make people pay rent (via utilitarianism) also love to make beliefs pay rent (via betting). The motto is the same in both cases: "if you're not useful, you're out".
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I am only mildly offended that he wouldn't take a bet with me.
I take much more umbrage with his dismissal of betting in general, which I consider it a rather good rationalist tradition, though it's certainly not exclusive to them. Like I said, it's a tax on bullshit, and a strong signal of confidence in one's claims.
I certainly would be embarrassed if my wife and kids stopped me from spending 10-100 dollars on a whim. If saying that counts as bullying in your eyes, so be it, I wouldn't have even thought to bring it up if he hadn't clearly mentioned it.
We're (hopefully) all adults here, and I for one don't see it as bullying in the least to point out flaws in someone else's policies, nor do I complain when others criticize me without making blatantly unjustified accusations.
Hlynka's claims that I misunderstood him because apparently I might have mistranslated from English to "Indian" is just about the only one, barring some idiot who insinuated that my medical degree was fake because he got mad at me speaking ill of C.S. Lewis. And even then, I only found it laughable rather than anything I care about, not that I minded the people speaking up for me. I'm not looking for a school marm to stop people from saying mean things of me, or in this case, simply making a negative judgement. If that's not to your taste, I'm sure you can acknowledge that I'm not a hypocrite about it.
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