People are pathetic

[SkyPanda]

How very American of you.

No thanks.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

How very American of you.

No thanks.

No, I'm serious.
Look:

I've never subscribed to this "they're just exercising their rights" viewpoint. I'm not liberal enough to stand back and watch children, or even adults, cut themselves, drink blood, rip through their own face with a chainsaw, etc. If two friends are about to leap into a fight, i'll hold them apart. If a guy stands in the middle of the street, brandishes a knife and declares that he's tired of life, i'll confiscate the knife and forcibly nudge him in the direction of the nearest mental health clinic.

You're interested in interfering with everyone's choices, even those that don't affect you in the slightest. You're imposing your own opinions on people who might not want anything at all to do with you, or anyone else for that matter, and you're willing to force them into compliance. That's very American, in the worst sense of the word. Far too many people think that the freedoms promised to them are somehow freedoms from being annoyed by other people, and that's possibly the most meaningful reason why we have idiotic and un-American legislature like bans on gay marriage and theism as a requirement to hold public office.
You even got the stereotype wrong -- a liberal is farther away from the libertarian side of issues like self-injury and self-mutilation; a liberal would be more likely to try to force you into some government program or make it illegal for you to give the impression that you're disorderly, just as they already censor the Christ out of American media. A conservative would be more likely to say, "do whatever, so long as I get to keep my right to my gun to protect myself from your insanity; you're not my problem, and I'll end you if you become my problem."
Do not confuse conservatives with republicans. The latter are quite simply schizophrenic.

[SkyPanda]

You even got the stereotype wrong -- a liberal is farther away from the libertarian side of issues like self-injury and self-mutilation;

You may be correct, but here's the definition of 'liberal' that I was using:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_liberalism
You'll love that article, it mentions America.

Are there laws against fighting? Yes. Are there laws against brandishing knives in public? Double-yes. But face it, there aren't any laws against contemplating cutting yourself. It's not your job to be involved, and it certainly isn't your job to make these supposed cutters feel horrible about their lifestyle choices. I'm not saying you don't reserve the right to, all I'm saying is these people aren't trying to provoke a reaction from you, but you're definitely giving them one.

I wouldn't take action on a legal basis, or because of a sense of duty. As you point out, when it comes to self-harm, neither of those provide for action.
Any interference on my part would be motivated solely by compassion, and a conviction that the person in question temporarily lacks the ability to make a good decision (intoxication, depression, tiredness, online subscription to the vampyre club, etc). I should clarify that I don't have a blanket policy of spear-tackling anybody who is contemplating harming themselves, and that I'd weigh up the possible consequences before interfering.

[Tanner]

You even got the stereotype wrong -- a liberal is farther away from the libertarian side of issues like self-injury and self-mutilation;

You may be correct, but here's the definition of 'liberal' that I was using:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_liberalism
You'll love that article, it mentions America.

Gah! Are you not the same person who argued so fervently for a change in vocabulary so as to avoid unnecessary connotations in the "'black' and 'white'" thread? And now you're coming in here and flip-flopping on your own choice in verbage; being all "I said 'liberal' but I meant 'cultural liberal' and ya'll shoulda got that from my intonation"? Sweet Jesus, man, that stuff drives me crazy. Your dialectic is meaningless if you can't maintain your dialect!

Now, despite the bullshit you just pulled, SkyPanda, I agree with you to a certain extent. There are certain moral and ethical duties that comes with citizenship and those duties can be defined (albeit loosely) to include helping those that you think are a danger to themselves. Unfortunately for you, these people aren't a danger to you and they don't seem to be any particular danger to themselves so you don't get to play civic hero on this one. Sorry.

[Torex]

But nobody is going to attack me in some forum for it.

That's where you're wrong. Maybe not us, but lots of forums will look at you and type "lol noob".

[SlappyMcGee]

But nobody is going to attack me in some forum for it.

That's where you're wrong. Maybe not us, but lots of forums will look at you and type "lol noob".

So, you're basically saying that this thread is the collective consciousness of Metanet writing "lol noob" to Vamp-kids? Because if that's the case, I still don't know why this is in Debate.

[SkyPanda]

Gah! Are you not the same person who argued so fervently for a change in vocabulary so as to avoid unnecessary connotations in the "'black' and 'white'" thread? And now you're coming in here and flip-flopping on your own choice in verbage; being all "I said 'liberal' but I meant 'cultural liberal' and ya'll shoulda got that from my intonation"? Sweet Jesus, man, that stuff drives me crazy. Your dialectic is meaningless if you can't maintain your dialect!

I think i'd die before you'll catch me saying "ya'll". ;)
Seriously though, just because I believe that a commonly used term is inappropriate, does not mean that everytime I use an obscure definition of a different and unrelated word, that i'm a raging hypocrite. In fact, the only link between the two is that they both involve words. A lot of things involve words. Nice try, but no points for this one.

There are certain moral and ethical duties that comes with citizenship and those duties can be defined (albeit loosely) to include helping those that you think are a danger to themselves. Unfortunately for you, these people aren't a danger to you and they don't seem to be any particular danger to themselves so you don't get to play civic hero on this one. Sorry.

Remember when I said that it's not down to a sense of duty? Like, in the post above yours?
You're not agreeing with me in the slightest, and you're also wrong in the last part, because
FACT: cutting yourself open to collect your own blood may cause some health problems.

[SlappyMcGee]

Since when does "compassion" not coincide with a sense of duty?

Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly, but I believe your saying that you don't feel inclined to do things you deem would be better for them, but you will do things you deem better for them. Is that right? Because I'm not understanding that at all.

Basically, it comes down to this. There are two kinds of people. One kind of people will decide what other people should or shouldn't do on a case by case basis, and blanket it under the guise of morality, and the other kind of people don't care what others do as long as they aren't bothering anybody else.

[SkyPanda]

Maybe I'm not understanding you correctly

I was under the impression that tanner was referring to a duty to country or leader, since he mentioned 'citizenship'. Maybe I misunderstood him, its possible he was referring to citizenship as in 'member of a society of people'. Either way, its no big deal, just read my post as "I am not motivated by a sense of duty to my country".

Basically, it comes down to this. There are two kinds of people. One kind of people will decide what other people should or shouldn't do on a case by case basis, and blanket it under the guise of morality, and the other kind of people don't care what others do as long as they aren't bothering anybody else.

Yes, that's pretty much how I would call it, were I shallow; subscribed to the complete opposite viewpoint to the one that I currently hold; and incapable of refuting an opposing argument in any way other than rephrasing it in a meaningless manner. :/


Tsukatu, you did raise a good point against my viewpoint, i'm still writing a response, ill edit my post with it here eventually, if you actually give a damn ;)

[origami_alligator]

Trying to confiscate a knife from a crazy guy in the middle of the street could end up in your death or serious injury. There's a reason why we have law enforcement to handle those kinds of situations.

The way you have presented your argument makes it sound like you would take action to prevent people from hurting themselves. The way I see it, no individual or group or government should be able to tell me what I can and cannot do to my body as I see fit, they should only protect me from other people and protect other people from me.

Just because you don't think you're a vampire doesn't mean that people who do think they are vampires need mental help or need to be censored, SkyPanda.

[Tanner]

Your opinions will, eventually, make you into a sort of morality-based vigilante which is an attractive quality... if you're John Wayne or Spider Jerusalem. Not so much if you're SkyPanda from the Internet. These are the sorts of opinions expressed by the guy who stands in front of the abortion clinic and keeps pregnant women from entering. If you can't convince us with your argument, you will not be able to convince them with your argument and if at that point you resort to a "forcibly nudge", well, that's when we part company. I'm all for a good debate as to what I should or should not cut off, stick in or otherwise do with myself but, last time I checked, the final decision was up to me. Perhaps you would be more comfortable in an environment where your opinions are law, SkyPanda. Might I suggest North Korea or Saudi Arabia?

[SlappyMcGee]

Basically, it comes down to this. There are two kinds of people. One kind of people will decide what other people should or shouldn't do on a case by case basis, and blanket it under the guise of morality, and the other kind of people don't care what others do as long as they aren't bothering anybody else.

Yes, that's pretty much how I would call it, were I shallow; subscribed to the complete opposite viewpoint to the one that I currently hold; and incapable of refuting an opposing argument in any way other than rephrasing it in a meaningless manner. :/

So you agree with me, then? :/

[isaacx]

I blame Twilight for the pathetic element of things, and i have no idea how to explain everything else

[capt_weasle]

I blame Twilight for the pathetic element of things, and i have no idea how to explain everything else

There were Otherkin long before there was Twilight. Hell, people were romanticising vampires before you were born. I own a book which satirizes the "vampyre" thing, and it was published in 1998, seven years before Twilight even existed.

[scythe]

Yes, that's pretty much how I would call it, were I shallow; subscribed to the complete opposite viewpoint to the one that I currently hold; and incapable of refuting an opposing argument in any way other than rephrasing it in a meaningless manner. :/

Yeah, that's pretty much how I would respond, if I were an idiot who had ran out of any reasonable defense for my position...

...see what you (and I) did? That was a pretty poorly veiled personal attack that did absolutely nothing to address SlappyMcGee's post (and what I said was a pretty poorly veiled personal attack that did nothing to address your post). I'd expect to see it on reddit or SomethingAwful before here.

Your last few posts conflated words and nitpicked "duty" vs. "compassion". Frankly, I'm not convinced you even understand what you're saying.

[bobaganuesh_2]

I think I'm a god because recently I've been thinking that everyone should suck my nuts.

some people live in a fantasy, I guess

[capt_weasle]

I think I'm a god because recently I've been thinking that everyone should suck my nuts.

some people live in a fantasy, I guess

Protip: Lying about your age in your profile does not make you sound any more intelligent, nor does it give you credit for saying "suck my nuts" in a formal debate thread.

[Eiturlyf]

Vampires are pathetic.

[bobaganuesh_2]

I was giving an example of what a person might think of themselves. A person can get so influenced by something, in this case someone said 'Twighlight', that they want to be a part of the fantasy, know what I mean? I remember reading this article somewhere about this World of Warcraft-addicted kid who commited suicide so he could become part of the fantasy of the game.

[SkyPanda]

Trying to confiscate a knife from a crazy guy in the middle of the street could end up in your death or serious injury. There's a reason why we have law enforcement to handle those kinds of situations.

Ha yeah, my example wasn't supposed to be proper instruction on certified procedure or anything. It was just a metaphor for ‘taking action’ rather than sitting back and not doing anything. Knives are indeed dangerous, guys. They can have up to two sharp edges, which may or may not be serrated.

Of course, when you say that law enforcement will "will handle the situation", you mean that they will escort him to his place of residence so that he can commit suicide without disturbing anybody else, right?




Now, apologies for taking so long to write this up, but here is my viewpoint and accompanying arguments, as promised.

In order to prevent a debate on euthanasia, I’m going to start by saying that everything below does not refer to suicides for reasons of unbearable physical pain or similar. In this post, I talk only about self-harm/suicide for psychological reasons.

Now firstly, if the person is a child, then stopping them from committing suicide should not be a controversial action. Even if suicide was accepted practice among adults, children would certainly be deemed not sufficiently mature to make a decision like that, in the same way that they are currently considered legally not mature enough to drink alcohol, or drive a car. I believe that the minimum necessary force, whatever that may be, would be acceptable to prevent them from harming themselves. To not use force would be to allow the illegal action. It's no good having a system based on "oh well, if I can't talk you out of it, go ahead and commit murder, go ahead and steal that jewellery”. I believe that any bystander should be legally permitted to themselves forcibly prevent a child from self-harming or suiciding, because it is a matter of life and death and relevant authorities may not arrive in time.

If the person is an adult, but is intoxicated or otherwise temporarily inhibited, then it is not unreasonable to intervene and prevent them from harming themselves. This opinion is based on my personal knowledge of the sort of things that intoxicated people try to do, and how likely they are to retrospectively appreciate interference once they are no longer intoxicated. Again, reasonable force is not immoral, nor illegal, nor should it be. It may be a matter of life and death, and the relevant authorities may not arrive in time.

If the person is an adult, and is not intoxicated/inhibited, then it becomes more tricky. Here is an excerpt from the esteemed academic source, wikipedia:
“The predominant view of modern medicine is that suicide is a mental health concern, associated with psychological factors such as the difficulty of coping with depression, inescapable suffering or fear, or other mental disorders and pressures. Suicide is sometimes interpreted as a "cry for help" and attention, or to express despair and the wish to escape, rather than a genuine intent to die.”
I agree with this statement, and I believe it has several implications. Although death is permanent, the reasons for the decision to self-harm or end your life are usually not. If a person is harming themselves or attempting suicide as a ‘cry for help’, then to not intervene is to ignore their plight. For those who are thinking “well why not just try and talk them out of it?”, yes, talking, paying attention, that may indeed be all it takes.

if at that point you resort to a "forcibly nudge", well, that's when we part company.

Where force may be necessary is when they are part way through the act itself. This temporary use of force is morally justifiable after taking into account the common reasons for self harm and suicide.

I realise this has moved on somewhat from self-harm and the vampyre folk, but it’s similar- many of the people posting on that site were showing signs of depression and mental conditions, a fair few of them sounded autistic.

Based on all my above arguments, I am of the opinion that all governments should, if they don't already:

1. Legislate for legal suicide prevention
(Essentially, so that people who take reasonable action to prevent a suicide are not be charged with deprivation of liberty or similar)

2. Legislate for mandatory psychological and medical assessment for people after a failed suicide (note: this is not for euthanasia)
I don’t think this should involve locking people away. However, if the person is sufficiently delusional or mentally damaged to warrant them being considered a danger to others, then it is not immoral for them to be committed just as any other person with a mental condition would be.

3. Develop suicide/self-harm education programs

This post is already bloated enough so I’ll stop here, but there’s still a fair bit to say about the website in question and what should and shouldn’t be done about things like that, I can post more on that if the discussion goes that way.

SkyPanda: Your style of argument is very strange. Tanner made a perfectly valid point when he said that you argued in one thread that implied meanings should never be understood and words should be perfectly exact in their meanings, while you argued in this thread that you had an implied meaning that other people should have understood. You are not following your own principles of communication. Either your behaviour needs to change or your principles need to change, but right now they're contradictory. Your entire refutation was "both situations have to do with words." This is indicates that you either don't understand Tanner's point or you're too intellectually lazy to defend your own actions. I don't mean to be too harsh here, but I'd like to see you refute people more comprehensively and logically than you have been doing in this forum.
To quote Role Models, "You can't bullshit a bullshitter." Messing around with definitions like you do used to be how I argued. It's a childish waste of time, and it's something that I think you should be able to overcome. Instead of playing semantic games, try to address what people mean in their posts.

I’m getting a bit annoyed with the critiquing of my posts, so I’m going to tear into this ridiculous post of yours Demonz, even though it isn’t relevant. Sorry if I cause damage to the scroll wheel on anyone’s mouse.

You’re incorrect or confused with everything single thing you’ve said. Let’s recap.
Tanner: “Are you not the same person who argued so fervently for a change in vocabulary so as to avoid unnecessary connotations in the "'black' and 'white'" thread? And now you're coming in here and flip-flopping on your own choice in verbage; being all "I said 'liberal' but I meant 'cultural liberal' and ya'll shoulda got that from my intonation"?”
Me: “Seriously though, just because I believe that a commonly used term is inappropriate, does not mean that every time I use an obscure definition of a different and unrelated word, that i'm a raging hypocrite. In fact, the only link between the two is that they both involve words. A lot of things involve words.”

Firstly, for the record, I wasn’t actually using an obscure definition of a word after all. Tsukatu mislead me. I was correct in my initial belief that most forms of liberalism place importance on personal freedoms. From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)- ” Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity.” Furthermore, discussion about meanings and definitions are common in any debate, as you should know. See my reply to scythe. Feel free to retract your statement that I was “playing semantic games”, Demonz.

Secondly, you are completely incorrect about my “entire refutation”. If you had paid any attention, you would have noticed that my “entire refutation” was actually that there is no link between a debate about the appropriateness of a racial term and an argument about the definition of ‘liberal’. This is a reasonable and logical refutation. Tanner provided no link. I demanded one. Unless he can provide a reasonable justification for his accusation, then my refutation is perfectly fine.

Lastly, and most importantly, Tanner’s post and my reply was all side-banter anyway! My hypocrisy, or lack of, has no relevancy to the main debate. I don’t see why you felt the need to defend a jibe of Tanner’s that was between him and me. Ultimately, all he said was “you had a different opinion in that other debate”, which as you should know, is not an argument, because although double-standards apply in the real world, in an artificial online debate like this one, I can change my opinion between debates as often as I want.
Heck, you said it yourself, in the guidelines:
Demonz: “Similarly, debaters should address the argument presented, and not the person who is the source of the argument.”
No doubt Tanner knows this, but you seem to have forgotten. All your babbling was based on the assumption that tanner was making an argument against my viewpoint, which he wasn’t. Therefore your entire post is incorrect, confused and pointless.

Feel free to retract your whole post.

Your last few posts conflated words and nitpicked "duty" vs. "compassion".

Just trying to make sure that there's no confusion about my opinions, and about the definitions of words being used. This is not a big deal. There’s really no good reason for you to complain about it or make it out to be a bad thing.
“Duty” and “compassion” are entirely different, by the way. One implies an obligation to an external authority. The other implies a moral motivation, or obligation to self.
If you’re going to make an attack like this, you need to show which words I’ve conflated, and explain why you think duty and compassion are the same thing. Good luck with that.

Guys, please stop claiming that arguing about definitions and meaning is bad debating! Yes, it is possible for a person to manipulate semantics to confuse the argument or to divert attention away from weak arguments. I’m sure that happens often. However, it’s also important to ensure that everybody is using the same definitions, that posts are understood and interpreted correctly. This should be obvious.

If you feel I’ve manipulated definitions inappropriately, you need to justify that accusation. Merely arguing about definitions is not a bad thing in itself.

...see what you (and I) did? That was a pretty poorly veiled personal attack

I was pointing out that SlappyMcGee didn't address my post, other than rephrasing it without adding anything. The only thing I did that was wrong was to call him shallow. Yes, I phrased that extremely poorly- I don't think he as a person is shallow! Just his arguments. Thanks for pulling me up on that one, you help me improve.

[SlappyMcGee]

Trying to confiscate a knife from a crazy guy in the middle of the street could end up in your death or serious injury. There's a reason why we have law enforcement to handle those kinds of situations.

Ha yeah, my example wasn't supposed to be proper instruction on certified procedure or anything. It was just a metaphor for ‘taking action’ rather than sitting back and not doing anything. Knives are indeed dangerous, guys. They can have up to two sharp edges, which may or may not be serrated.

Of course, when you say that law enforcement will "will handle the situation", you mean that they will escort him to his place of residence so that he can commit suicide without disturbing anybody else, right?




Now, apologies for taking so long to write this up, but here is my viewpoint and accompanying arguments, as promised.

In order to prevent a debate on euthanasia, I’m going to start by saying that everything below does not refer to suicides for reasons of unbearable physical pain or similar. In this post, I talk only about self-harm/suicide for psychological reasons.

Now firstly, if the person is a child, then stopping them from committing suicide should not be a controversial action. Even if suicide was accepted practice among adults, children would certainly be deemed not sufficiently mature to make a decision like that, in the same way that they are currently considered legally not mature enough to drink alcohol, or drive a car. I believe that the minimum necessary force, whatever that may be, would be acceptable to prevent them from harming themselves. To not use force would be to allow the illegal action. It's no good having a system based on "oh well, if I can't talk you out of it, go ahead and commit murder, go ahead and steal that jewellery”. I believe that any bystander should be legally permitted to themselves forcibly prevent a child from self-harming or suiciding, because it is a matter of life and death and relevant authorities may not arrive in time.

If the person is an adult, but is intoxicated or otherwise temporarily inhibited, then it is not unreasonable to intervene and prevent them from harming themselves. This opinion is based on my personal knowledge of the sort of things that intoxicated people try to do, and how likely they are to retrospectively appreciate interference once they are no longer intoxicated. Again, reasonable force is not immoral, nor illegal, nor should it be. It may be a matter of life and death, and the relevant authorities may not arrive in time.

If the person is an adult, and is not intoxicated/inhibited, then it becomes more tricky. Here is an excerpt from the esteemed academic source, wikipedia:
“The predominant view of modern medicine is that suicide is a mental health concern, associated with psychological factors such as the difficulty of coping with depression, inescapable suffering or fear, or other mental disorders and pressures. Suicide is sometimes interpreted as a "cry for help" and attention, or to express despair and the wish to escape, rather than a genuine intent to die.”
I agree with this statement, and I believe it has several implications. Although death is permanent, the reasons for the decision to self-harm or end your life are usually not. If a person is harming themselves or attempting suicide as a ‘cry for help’, then to not intervene is to ignore their plight. For those who are thinking “well why not just try and talk them out of it?”, yes, talking, paying attention, that may indeed be all it takes.

if at that point you resort to a "forcibly nudge", well, that's when we part company.

Where force may be necessary is when they are part way through the act itself. This temporary use of force is morally justifiable after taking into account the common reasons for self harm and suicide.

I realise this has moved on somewhat from self-harm and the vampyre folk, but it’s similar- many of the people posting on that site were showing signs of depression and mental conditions, a fair few of them sounded autistic.

Based on all my above arguments, I am of the opinion that all governments should, if they don't already:

1. Legislate for legal suicide prevention
(Essentially, so that people who take reasonable action to prevent a suicide are not be charged with deprivation of liberty or similar)

2. Legislate for mandatory psychological and medical assessment for people after a failed suicide (note: this is not for euthanasia)
I don’t think this should involve locking people away. However, if the person is sufficiently delusional or mentally damaged to warrant them being considered a danger to others, then it is not immoral for them to be committed just as any other person with a mental condition would be.

3. Develop suicide/self-harm education programs

This post is already bloated enough so I’ll stop here, but there’s still a fair bit to say about the website in question and what should and shouldn’t be done about things like that, I can post more on that if the discussion goes that way.

SkyPanda: Your style of argument is very strange. Tanner made a perfectly valid point when he said that you argued in one thread that implied meanings should never be understood and words should be perfectly exact in their meanings, while you argued in this thread that you had an implied meaning that other people should have understood. You are not following your own principles of communication. Either your behaviour needs to change or your principles need to change, but right now they're contradictory. Your entire refutation was "both situations have to do with words." This is indicates that you either don't understand Tanner's point or you're too intellectually lazy to defend your own actions. I don't mean to be too harsh here, but I'd like to see you refute people more comprehensively and logically than you have been doing in this forum.
To quote Role Models, "You can't bullshit a bullshitter." Messing around with definitions like you do used to be how I argued. It's a childish waste of time, and it's something that I think you should be able to overcome. Instead of playing semantic games, try to address what people mean in their posts.

I’m getting a bit annoyed with the critiquing of my posts, so I’m going to tear into this ridiculous post of yours Demonz, even though it isn’t relevant. Sorry if I cause damage to the scroll wheel on anyone’s mouse.

You’re incorrect or confused with everything single thing you’ve said. Let’s recap.
Tanner: “Are you not the same person who argued so fervently for a change in vocabulary so as to avoid unnecessary connotations in the "'black' and 'white'" thread? And now you're coming in here and flip-flopping on your own choice in verbage; being all "I said 'liberal' but I meant 'cultural liberal' and ya'll shoulda got that from my intonation"?”
Me: “Seriously though, just because I believe that a commonly used term is inappropriate, does not mean that every time I use an obscure definition of a different and unrelated word, that i'm a raging hypocrite. In fact, the only link between the two is that they both involve words. A lot of things involve words.”

Firstly, for the record, I wasn’t actually using an obscure definition of a word after all. Tsukatu mislead me. I was correct in my initial belief that most forms of liberalism place importance on personal freedoms. From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism)- ” Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity.” Furthermore, discussion about meanings and definitions are common in any debate, as you should know. See my reply to scythe. Feel free to retract your statement that I was “playing semantic games”, Demonz.

Secondly, you are completely incorrect about my “entire refutation”. If you had paid any attention, you would have noticed that my “entire refutation” was actually that there is no link between a debate about the appropriateness of a racial term and an argument about the definition of ‘liberal’. This is a reasonable and logical refutation. Tanner provided no link. I demanded one. Unless he can provide a reasonable justification for his accusation, then my refutation is perfectly fine.

Lastly, and most importantly, Tanner’s post and my reply was all side-banter anyway! My hypocrisy, or lack of, has no relevancy to the main debate. I don’t see why you felt the need to defend a jibe of Tanner’s that was between him and me. Ultimately, all he said was “you had a different opinion in that other debate”, which as you should know, is not an argument, because although double-standards apply in the real world, in an artificial online debate like this one, I can change my opinion between debates as often as I want.
Heck, you said it yourself, in the guidelines:
Demonz: “Similarly, debaters should address the argument presented, and not the person who is the source of the argument.”
No doubt Tanner knows this, but you seem to have forgotten. All your babbling was based on the assumption that tanner was making an argument against my viewpoint, which he wasn’t. Therefore your entire post is incorrect, confused and pointless.

Feel free to retract your whole post.

Your last few posts conflated words and nitpicked "duty" vs. "compassion".

Just trying to make sure that there's no confusion about my opinions, and about the definitions of words being used. This is not a big deal. There’s really no good reason for you to complain about it or make it out to be a bad thing.
“Duty” and “compassion” are entirely different, by the way. One implies an obligation to an external authority. The other implies a moral motivation, or obligation to self.
If you’re going to make an attack like this, you need to show which words I’ve conflated, and explain why you think duty and compassion are the same thing. Good luck with that.

Guys, please stop claiming that arguing about definitions and meaning is bad debating! Yes, it is possible for a person to manipulate semantics to confuse the argument or to divert attention away from weak arguments. I’m sure that happens often. However, it’s also important to ensure that everybody is using the same definitions, that posts are understood and interpreted correctly. This should be obvious.

If you feel I’ve manipulated definitions inappropriately, you need to justify that accusation. Merely arguing about definitions is not a bad thing in itself.

...see what you (and I) did? That was a pretty poorly veiled personal attack

I was pointing out that SlappyMcGee didn't address my post, other than rephrasing it without adding anything. The only thing I did that was wrong was to call him shallow. Yes, I phrased that extremely poorly- I don't think he as a person is shallow! Just his arguments. Thanks for pulling me up on that one, you help me improve.

Yeah, fuck those vampires!

[SkyPanda]

Yeah, fuck those vampires!

Executive summary provided by Slappy.
Cheers man :)

[Tanner]

Filibuster much? That entire post was a form of flamebait, dude. You leave for an extended period of time and then return with a ridonkulous tower post? I don't debate with trolls.

[SkyPanda]

You leave for an extended period of time...

In between practising debate, I have a life. I'll usually get back to you as quickly as possible. Try to hang in there. :)

...and then return with a ridonkulous tower post

If you honestly can't bear reading more than a few snappy sentences, then i'll put my longer posts in spoilers for you, no probs.

That entire post was a form of flamebait, dude.

Seriously, just stop talking. I made a reasonable post that explained my opinions, justified them, and dealt with the criticisms of others.

YOUR post, RIGHT THEN, was flamebait. You've contributed absolutely nothing, posted a lame-ass link, blabbed criticism that lacks any explanation or justification whatsoever, and then pretended you think i'm a troll so that you can wuss out. All you've achieved is that I have to once again defend myself from attacks that lack any quality at all, you once again get utterly shot down, and other people are no doubt getting annoyed listening to me do this.



I'd really like to get on with talking about the issues now... :(

[blue_tetris]

Filibuster much? That entire post was a form of flamebait, dude. You leave for an extended period of time and then return with a ridonkulous tower post? I don't debate with trolls.

Don't be a dick to Skypanda, Tanner. Long posts are a hallmark of debate and it's certainly not "trolling". You regurgitate the word liberally these days, like it's your afternoon binge cake; the usage, in itself, is just harassment disguised as justice.

You got angry and attacked Skypanda instead of addressing his argument. Don't do that.