Florio
Miniature Giant Space Hamsters
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Posted - 2011.08.14 17:41:00 -
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Edited by: Florio on 14/08/2011 17:43:08 Discussions on anything vaguely political, racial or to do with religion tend to end up in fisticuffs, as these are topics which the majority of people seem not to be able to be rational about. And it's a shame, as they're the most interesting things in the world in my opinion.
For examples, take a look at UK's Newsnight. Several months ago it had Nick Griffin on it (leader of a far right national party in the UK who hold racist views) but his opponents in the discussion could only launch personal attacks rather than rationally pick apart his policies and viewpoints. Thus his actual standpoint was not challenged and people actually felt sorry for him due to all the nasty and unhelpful ad-hominem attacks.
More recently, Newsnight held a discussion with historian David Starkey, who stated that the London riots were partly possible because of a particular culture originating from the black community but now held by people of all colour. Mr Starkey didn't say it was all black cultures, or black culture in general, but a particular culture. Has this view been picked apart rationally? After all it is either true or not. Perhaps it is a culture that has never been a black culture. Perhaps it did not originate from the black community, but from the white community or the orange/purple/etc one. Perhaps the riots were nothing to do with that culture. Were these rational arguments against Starkey made? No: depressingly no such rational arguments were made - Starkey was just called racist, subject to ad hominem attacks, and it was proclaimed by various ranters hoping to get votes/readers from the left that his career was over.
It seems to be some people's agenda to shout and rant at the merest hint of a viewpoint opposite to their own, without paying heed to the truth or to the possibility that their own view may be incorrect or in need of tweaking.
In none of these cases were rational arguments made, and that's fairly typical of these kind of things, which is probably why it is best to limit them on a gaming forum.
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