>Giving a justification is seen by these people are an excuse to debate.
I know what you mean here, but I disagree that my suggestion opens up a debate. It is clear what about the action in question was, and it politely asks not to do it again. Debate cannot exist one sided, so if the person is intent on "debating" a simple, "we can take this offline later", or "its not up for discussion" usually clears things up. Just because someone wants to debate, does not mean that you need to engage them.
Regarding your scenario, if person B simply just said "No" it would eliminate all of the need for future questions. This isn't the same thing, as person A didn't violate any social agreed upon rules by asking their question.
Odd. From my POV, there's nothing to argue here. You've decided. And per you, that decision is final.
Once you said, "I'm not going to read...to learn new things..." the conversation was over on my end. The line was drawn. But, for the record, there are other here that might be interested in new ideas and new perspectives, and the flaws in their own. It's why I'm here. So for completeness and fairness to others, I played through.
I'm fairly confident you didn't hear an idea I referenced. So to me, it's odd that you perceive someone was trying to argue with you. Why would anyone bother? You're immune to all outside influences, yes?
I think that's wise. I could have done that. I actually sort of insulted him and that was probably unnecessary.
But if I had expressed an opinion explicitly maybe there'd have been a debate. Probably just should have said "I can't agree with that, but you are entitled to your opinion."
> Force them to address your argument before allowing the conversation to progress.
That's generally boorish and can make for short uninformative conversations. If someone evades your argument multiple times, like it or not that's an answer.
Although you resolved it later, you started it the way I have described, which is what I am taking issue with. I don't care how the argument ended, I'm taking issue with how it started. Most people lose interest when shut down the way you shut that guy down.
How is it remotely logical to expect someone to denounce someone else's rhetoric before they're allowed to discuss the argument with you? I'm not going to apologize to you for something that somebody else said, but if I agree with his points, you know what, I agree with his points.
Just read the dissenting opinions. That you chose not to, clearly, is a choice you made to avoid confronting differing viewpoints.
Also, consistently and repeatedly asking others to research for you is an easy debating tactic used frequently to bury inconvenient facts behind a barrage of requests.
I did. I mean, I /could/ focus on only one sentence of a post, argue from that point alone, and insist the conversation hinge on that point but that would be ignorant and rude.
Because I don't have any desire to prolong a conversation with someone who feels like a possibly poor choice of words on my part renders my entire argument useless.
Choosing to opt out of a discussion is not the same as attempting to prevent others from having one.
Having a discussion with someone whose principle argument is that the discussion shouldn't be had seems like folly to me. Call it unfruitful if you like, but I wasn't attempting to start an argument as much as do my duty and explain the downvote.
We could go on and talk about the hypocrisy of how your attempts to extend the conversation are being made in order to bolster your argument against having one in the first place, but truly, I was not, nor am not trying to be condescending, as much as expressing my outright rejection for the idea that there is ever grounds for preventing an intellectual discussion on the grounds that someone might not like it.
If you read the conversation I did stop having discussion with them and told them to stop having a discussion with me.
Facts don't always tell a story or explain the "why". Often times you have to form an opinion based on the facts and that is what you're bringing to the table when discussing stuff. I don't see why I need to explain this concept on a site like this.
I don't think that the parent understood where I was coming from when he called my position a what-about strawman. I'm sure that was in good part because I didn't do a good job of communicating what I was thinking. I attempted to fix that with additional information. Understanding what others are thinking and why is often helpful, especially in a democracy.
As the original person, this almost exactly. I can totally understand why someone might hold those opinions. I don't share them, and argument won't be productive. Litigating values doesn't get anywhere.
Or 4. I don't care to argue those points because I find doing so to not be entertaining or insightful. I used to argue to the death and then I realized that in the end it brought neither joy nor enlightenment. So I don't anymore.
You're free to think you've won, I don't care. Although one piece of life advice for someone who seems to like arguing and seems to be good at it. People will often stop arguing with you because they find it tiring. You'll think you've won and pat yourself on the back. They'll think you didn't win. Instead they'll just think you're good at arguing (but still wrong), an a-hole and will dislike you silently from then on.
Normally I would have stopped responding by now but I find this side conversation insightful.
Anyway, I'm not going to debate whether such a person exists. If you think there exists no such person, we're not going to productively carry the conversation forward.
If you think there exists such people, but it's a small enough set that the merits of a caucus outweigh the disenfranchisement of that set, we can discuss that.
But if your argument is that flat out no such person exists, then we can stop discussing it.
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