Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 4:29 pm
I don't intend to debate the matter with you. I have made an assertion, and anyone who sees it is free to make what they will of it.
I beg to differ. You
cannot debate the matter because you make an assertion that you cannot back up. You accuse others of engaging in deception and lies -- fair enough since we all have to make these assessments according to our lights -- but in your specific case you have no foundation for your assertions. You simply
say them. And that is not valid. Certainly not in a forum dedicated to philosophical discourse.
Saying that others will 'make what they will of it' is more an invitation to engage dishonestly, as you are engaging, as if numbers of agreers proves your point.
AJ wrote: This is a worthy topic for conversation.
Harbal replied: Yes, it is. Certain people have cottoned on to the idea that internet forums are a great place to spew out their political -and religious- poison. It doesn't matter what the nature of the forum is. It could be a philosophy forum, a singles/dating forum/ music lovers forum, absolutely any kind of forum. They see a ready assembled audience just waiting to be lied to, and manipulated into changing their attitudes and opinions to match those of their own. I've seen these scum bags on every forum I've been on, and I'm happy to say that they don't have much success, because most people have the sense to see them for what they are, just like most of us here see you and IC for what you are. The fact that such people overwhelmingly tend to be of the conservative right is just an unavoidable observation, and I would detest them just as much coming from any other political direction. I have no interest in Left v Right, I really don't care, but I do care about, and hate, dishonesty.
This is a philosophy forum not merely a random Internet forum. Here, ideally, ideas are discussed in depth among people with genuine interest and some level of preparation. So your entire assertion, whatever it is, has no bearing here.
They see a ready assembled audience just waiting to be lied to, and manipulated into changing their attitudes and opinions to match those of their own.
You fool, Harbal. All speech, all of our utterances, every time and anytime that we make a statement about what is true or what is false, we are proposing to others to be influenced by what we are saying.
If you have an understanding about something, if something you regard as true has foundation, then you will communicate from your platform and you will, or you will not, influence others. But you have to have worked out a platform! You have to have struggled with ideas. You will have had to submit your ideas to a forum (a group of people) and to have been challenged to defend your positions, or to alter them. To amend one's views, to alter one's views, to change one's mind, you idiot, is always a reasonable possibility. We accept when we come into an intellectual environ that we will encounter ideas that may indeed change how we see.
In the paragraph that I have quoted you are, in my view, talking sideways out of your asshole. What you are saying amounts to unsupported opinion amped up by claims asserted through ungrounded assertion. It demonstrates a bizarre but an empty circularity.
because most people have the sense to see them for what they are, just like most of us here see you and IC for what you are. The fact that such people overwhelmingly tend to be of the conservative right is just an unavoidable observation, and I would detest them just as much coming from any other political direction. I have no interest in Left v Right, I really don't care, but I do care about, and hate, dishonesty.
I challenge your assertion and your declaration at a basic and core level.
You are dishonest. "Most of us here see you for what you are" is a dishonest, and fallacious, assertion. That is operative dishonestly and intellectually corrupt.
I have challenged you to present and develop your views. And you are
incapable of it.