Let's start this off with something fairly prosaic - a critique of a facebook argument. who is winning? (inb4 TL;DR LMAO - feel free to supply your own shorter subject matter to critique)
OP: Hey March for Lifers, if ya'll don't want an abortion, how about you don't get one and then mind your own damn business. #singleissuevotersmakemewanttopunch
Respondent: From the point of view of pro-life people, abortion is murder. It's not exactly like it's OK to stand idly by while people get murdered right next to you, is it? How about you pay them the respect they are due and actually understand their belief systems before criticizing them in a facile strawman version of their argument? Many of them are supportive of initiatives to end the reasons for abortion as well as the act itself (although you have to ask yourself - if you think it's good to end the reasons for abortion but don't think abortion is wrong in and of itself, then what exactly do you think abortion is? And if you DO think abortion is a necessary evil, then why do you think it is evil, really?).
By the way, I agree with the hashtag. Single-issue voters are crazy and throwing their vote away. I just wanted to point out the opposing view.
Matthew Rogers
OP: I have taken the time to understand as I was once Pro-Life. Don't assume that the people who are upset about pro-lifers hasn't attempted to understand their views. Being, a vegetarian I think eating meat is sense less murdering of animals. Do I try to convince people that eating meat is bad for our bodies, the environment, and the animals that are not only murdered, but when alive treated harshly and in an inhumane fashion? Sure, if the topic comes up. What I don't do is try to enact legislation that restricts people from making their own decision about eating meat. Am I comparing a fetus to an animal? Yes, because until a baby is born they are a part of a woman.
No one ever wants to get an abortion. While there is free will, condoms that break, impoverished people that can't afford contraceptives, genetic abnormalities that cause fetal birth defects, rape and incest, there will always be a need for safe and affordable abortions.
We need to be more practical about this issue and leave the theology out of the discussion. As I said before, if your belief system compels you to not get an abortion, don't get one.
Aaron Jackson
Respondent: Theology doesn't even need to enter into the equation - belief systems - perhaps we could better term them "systems of morality" to be more obviously inclusive - are what everyone relies on when making judgment calls about what is or is not acceptable behavior in our society.
If you truly and honestly believe that the murder of an animal is equivalent to the murder of a human, then I would absolutely hope to see you try to enact legislation to stop people from doing it. If we didn't have laws punishing people for murdering each other, surely you would try to enact such legislation. Laws exist to punish (and sometimes reward) certain kinds of behavior. There is no other reason for them to exist. If you will not, at some point, for some reason, tell someone that how they are behaving is unacceptable and will be punished by law, pure anarchy is the alternative.
Dealing in absolutes like "no one ever wants to get an abortion" are not a super way to make me feel like this conversation has any particular chance of going anywhere. But isn't it incredible that in one moment you can be absolutely furious that cops who killed a black man for no particular reason have gone free, while you at the same time don't think it's right to legislate against killing cattle even though you believe they are both equivalent murders?
Or do you REALLY think they are equivalent? I don't think you do, and I think that is the fundamental source of your inability to understand the pro-life position.
Logan Gomez
OP: I've been thinking about a good and/or respectful way to respond to this for a bit. Let me rewind for a second, I used the example of meat eating as a bit of hyperbole, just wanted to paint an example that my belief system and yours are quite different, but we needn't continue down that road ... With all respect I don't care if my languaging doesn't make you want to actively engage in this conversation. The fact of the matter is, maybe not you in particular, but folks who share your belief that abortion is murder also stopped the conversation when they started enacting legislation restricting my personal reproductive choice via the bogus person hood amendments which attempt to give full constitutional rights to fertilized eggs, non-surgical abortion restrictions, a slew of thinly veiled trap laws, and the physical and verbal harassment of patients and providers. I want you to have the independence to practice your belief systems to the fullest, but as my original post notes when others belief systems begin to affect my personal rights and freedoms and the safety of others (if you don't think restricting access to safe and legal abortions is a safety issue than you are sorely misinformed and should reconsider shifting your care for living things to those that are outside of the womb ) then I get angry. If Christian groups oppose abortion so much, instead of making it illegal ya'll should be working to change the hearts and minds of those who seek to have one (good luck with that!) instead of forcing the rest of us to conform to your belief system. Your response was disrespectful and typed in a way to make me feel diminutive, don't for a second assume that you know what I think or feel and I will not do the same to you. I could sit here and divert the conversation by picking apart your last post as you did mine, but again it all boils down to this: Keep Your Theology out of My Biology. End of conversation.
Joshua Reed
Respondent: OK... lovely to type all that and then ask me not to keep the discussion going... But since this is your post I barged in on, I will listen. I will say that while you felt diminutized by my post, that was not my intent. Ignorance is something we are all guilty of at one point or another and I don't feel that me pointing out that you are ignorant in this matter should be taken as an insult so much as a potentially valid point to be considered. We went to school together and I know how smart you are - smarter than me. But intelligence does not necessarily mean you are not ignorant on a subject.
Since we can't talk about what I want to talk about, let's have a different discussion instead - one that probably ought to have preceded this one anyway: what behaviors DO you think ought to be prevented, and how would you go about preventing them? Because I feel like maybe our differences of opinion lie at some fundamental misunderstanding on the level of how we feel laws should work. I realized earlier that I have heard you many times criticize laws, but haven't heard you support laws - so I am ignorant of your philosophy in lawmaking.
Owen Reed
>who is winning?
No one.
Reddit tier pseuds arguing on facebook over something they know very little about is pointless.
If you want to watch actual debates, go watch videos of political debates or competitive debates on youtube.
If you want to learn about rhetoric, go read De Oratore or something.
And if you want an actual 'discussion' about rhetoric, oratory, and debate, there are better ways to go about starting one than posting some autism you participated in on facebook. For example, you could post something relevant to the subject, or notable figures in the subject, or begin with a question.
Even frogposting about Plato would be more likely to get you a discussion on rhetoric than this. in fact, here, have a Plato Pepe as my contribution to this doomed attempt at a thread.
Nathan Smith
Great book. Would recommend
Cameron Wilson
thank you for your thoughts. however, I think it is far more useful to examine debate as it actually happens in the wild rather than rehash the fundamentals.
Jackson Morgan
I will take a look at this, cool.
Oliver Clark
>I think it is far more useful to examine debate as it actually happens in the wild
Its not a debate though it's two retards arguing about abortion.
Real debates involve the presentation, reinforcement, examination, and refutation of specific ideas with accompanying evidence. Real debates also generally involve people who are relatively informed on the subject in question, as this is necessary when it comes to citing supporting evidence.
Kayden Robinson
I mean, on one level it is interesting watching you try to define debate into your specific idea of what it is, but on every other level it's incredibly boring, since what actually obtains in the world is closer to the facebook argument than any sort of idealized process such as you are imagining.
The idea argument is a useful tool so that you can evaluate your own argument and compare and contrast to determine where imperfections lie, but it is far from the only kind of debate that is or can be had.
Furthermore, insofar as many debates the "greeks" had supplied the things to mention, so too are those items supplied in the facebook argument in question, as near as I can tell.
Socrates and Plato didn't supply citations except in passing, bro. Debates can carry forth usefully on logic alone sometimes.
Anthony Carter
ideal* not idea btw
Grayson Parker
I'm an omegle debater ama
Leo Bennett
what's the qualtity of debate like on omegle? what are the big fights/discussions about there?
Thomas Williams
I don't want to participate in the discussion - just wanted to say I really, really love OP's pic, it's so effing true (this is comming from a PhD in Philosophie).
Matthew Moore
ups... *coming
Angel Miller
I hear that, lol
Hudson Wood
I use the "political" interest on omegle because that one is usually active all the time. Most chats last about 1 minute for me but every now and then I have one that lasts 20 mins+ and about once a day I get one that is for multiple hours. We typically start off by telling each other our own belief system. For example, someone might say they label themselves as a conservative and then someone who labels themselves as a liberal. knowing that info someone brings up a specific issue they want to debate.
However, lately I've come to doubt my own belief system so now I'm just asking others about what they believe on an issue and why they believe in it. It seems like most people haven't thought about their beliefs too deeply so it often boils down to some feeling they have rather than a philosophical justification or something. When pressed on the issue they usually get mad at me or try to get me to defend some position of my own.
The issues that they want to discuss are usually things you hear about in the news or the stuff debated during political campaigns. I don't think it's too different from facebook debates as far as I can tell from reading this thread. But the main difference is probably that since it's a time sensitive thing the replies aren't as long or as thought out as the replies are on facebook. This is because if you don't reply to someone on omegle within a minute or so most people just leave you and go to the next chat. So it's a lot more rapid fire. However, in the chats that last 20 mins+ people tend to be more willing to wait for longer replies. Also in those longer chats we often move on from topic to topic, we don't just sit in one place and discuss the same thing for an extended period of time.
Xavier Sanchez
oh btw, in the chats when we go from topic to topic it usually isn't the case that someone convinces the other of their position. it's more like "we've hit a wall so let's move on".
Michael Hughes
>"political" got that wrong. I meant to say "politics". Also "philosophy" is pretty active as well. It's sort of the same thing as politics just with a different subject matter.
Zachary Campbell
sounds fun, honestly (well, at least for someone like me). Might have to see about omegle.
It does suck that people won't wait for longer replies, but then it's good to learn how to debate more effectively given a time constraint as well.
I don't understand why people get mad when it is revealed to them their beliefs stem from a gut feeling - to me that is a fascinating discovery about myself and one that warrants a lot of thought and research.
