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Underground > Creation >

Political Discussion Flowchart

22:34 / 22.03.06

Doc Argentum said:
What I find the most tedious is that after a while you can see the patterns that occur during such debates, especially online. One person makes a statement, and there is a set response from the opposing side - usually one sourced from Fox or other media outlets. In the end nothing seems to go anywhere, and there's no real debate per-se. I've never seen anyone change their minds in a heated debate, either. It's too much like losing.

It gets to the point where you could draw a flowchart mapping out how one side's points would be made against the other's that would be accurate 95% of the time. I've actually contemplated making this.

What a wonderful idea. Let's get cracking!

Two bits that ought to go on there somewhere:
1) "But it was a joke!"
2) "You're using words! No fair!"

Links to pointless (id est, nobody will admit to learning anything) political debates are also dandy, for research purposes of course.

02:14 / 23.03.06

thought this might be informative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentation_theory

02:17 / 23.03.06

also, I remember seeing once a flow chart that showed not the cyclical nature of argument, but rather, when an argument was worth having and when it was not

it was quite interesting
I wish I could find it now

as for avoiding logical fallacies and such (which tend to force arguments past the "point of no return" in terms of pointlessness and polarization), I'd recomend the book Crimes Against Logic to anyone (British title: Bad Thoughts)

07:42 / 23.03.06

Here's one that riles me up:

Person A: All wars are caused by religion
Person B: What about WW2?
Person A: Hitler was a christian!
Person B: Stalin was an atheist, and look how many he killed.

Obviously simplified, but not by much.

03:37 / 13.04.06

Another argument pattern, quoted from Mordant Carnival:

What we're seeing here is the latest iteration of an all too well-established pattern:

1) X is frowned upon or criticised on Barbelith;

2) Opinion on Barbelith is monolithic and homogenous; AND

3) Opinion on Barbelith is an exact reflection of popular opinion in the world outside.

THEREFORE: By espousing X, I am being Brave and Edgy and Iconoclastic. Possibly I am also Coyote/a pookha/ect.

The flaw in this is that X is almost always some concept that would not ruffle a single feather or raise a single eyebrow almost anywhere else, often the stuff of newspaper headlines and laws that are enforced daily. This is utterly familiar and it itsn't getting any less dull with constant repetition.

(Right now I'm just collecting for my, er, collection.)

09:16 / 13.04.06

collect on!
this looks brilliant.

i would love to see it expand into a whole message board conversation flowchart...you could map all of it, in time.
it might take a while, but dear god...
we could build an automatic poster as cannon fodder, maybe even a few.
we could watch them argue, or argue with them ourselves for sport!

there'd be money is arguing robots, i'll wager.

12:45 / 13.04.06

Something like Alice?

Maybe that's how to beat the Turing test.

12:45 / 13.04.06

it could be called malice!

12:57 / 13.04.06

Another one -- Quantum sums up the sexism argument in one line, which I'm breaking up here for clarity:

*the debate of course is usually the three pages after the initial comment hashing back and forth in the familiar pattern,
sexist-post;
criticism;
I'm-not-sexist-you-PC-thug;
go-and-read-the-PC-thread;
you're-a-mean-feminazi;
dogpile;
I'm-leaving-4evah!1!;

01:02 / 20.04.06

Another one, not from Barbelith this time, about women and gaming.

(1) In my experience, a lot of groups do have an androcentric focus, sometimes becoming horribly female-unfriendly.
(a) but I didn't mind it
(b) but it was just youthful high spirits
(c) but they were socially inept in any context
(d) but you shouldn't be so sensitive
(e) but they were just reflecting societal values

(2) Our group is thoroughly integrated genderwise.
(a) and I think the horrid geek stereotype is a myth
(b) but we've all known each-other since kindergarten anyway
(c) but I live somewhere with a completely different culture than mainstream US
(d) but we're all over thirty, and thus past the particularly intense phase of sexual competition, anyway
(e) and all my friends got married to other members of the group

(3) Our group is pretty much a bunch of guys, although I don't think we're female-unfriendly
(a) but our games aren't the sort of thing women would be likely to enjoy, anyway
(b) but it's not because we're a bunch of geeks
(c) but it's for essentially historical reasons.
(d) but the presence of women distracts from male bonding
(e) but the presence of women intensifies male competition

Another feather for the collection. One of these days, I may make a hat.

03:16 / 20.04.06

A snarky, yet insightful Wired guide to common arguments regarding Wikipedia.

Excerpt:
What should I know if I want to contribute to an argument nexus (or "article") on Wikipedia?

It will help to familiarize yourself with some of the common terms used on Wikipedia:

* meat puppet: A person who disagrees with you.
* non-notable: A subject you're not interested in.
* vandalism: An edit you didn't make.
* neutral point of view: Your point of view.
* consensus: A mythical state of utopian human evolution. Many scholars of Wikipedian theology theorize that if consensus is ever reached, Wikipedia will spontaneously disappear.

07:09 / 09.07.06

Here's one for those arguments which involve us craaaazy wimmin wanting to think we're people and all:

The "What about the Mens?" phallusy.

In any discussion focusing on women's issues, the probability that someone will come around and say "Men are [fill the blank], too!" approaches 1 the longer the discussion gets.

MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!

09:26 / 11.07.06

To be fair, the probability of somebody saying anything gets closer to 1 the longer a conversation goes.

20:04 / 14.07.06

Agreed, but it takes a *lot* longer for, say, chocolate pudding to come up in most arguments about feminism, sexism, and/or are women really people.

01:42 / 22.05.07

Another one for the collection: Karen Healey over at Girl-Wonder.Org has compiled a list of the most commonly encountered arguments against feminist comic fans -- into a bingo scorecard. (Pure. Genius.)

Then she went ahead and debunked every single one of them.