Increase in Personal Insults

I hold the belief that 'personal' attacks in a debate are expected. As long as they are just opinion (you're a dumbshit!), and not defamatory (you're a child molester!), I think that they should be accepted. And as long as it is realized that they are not personal, but are merely a result of a heated and tense argument. In otherwords, it's OK to insult in public, but you should not carry the grudges into private conversation.
 
I reckon that anyone who sinks to the level of throwing personal attacks in a debate have lost. I mean if you think about it, after a reasonable point has been made, the other person just doesn't accept it and flies into a fury of insults. Maybe they realise their opinion is wrong? maybe they don't like this... etc etc...

Having said that it could be a number of reasons why, but its certainly pretty appaling. I can't talk in the same thread as one particular person without being called a retard many times. Sure i might have graduated from the University of "Duh" (holds hand up in spastic way), but my qualifications shouldn't be up for discussion :p
 
May I present the alternative theory to the theory that you automatically lose a debate when the opponents start throwing personal insults.

If you are being called a 'retard' by many different posters you might be one.

The probability of this being true increases with the frequency this occurs and the unrelatedness of the posters that use personal insults.

Not in your case of course. I would never for instance call you a retard. Just someone with suspicious moral values. But is that a personal insult? More like a personal subjective observation. The same can be true of course for the 'retard' classification.
 
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spacemansteve said:
I reckon that anyone who sinks to the level of throwing personal attacks in a debate have lost. I mean if you think about it, after a reasonable point has been made, the other person just doesn't accept it and flies into a fury of insults. Maybe they realise their opinion is wrong? maybe they don't like this... etc etc...

Having said that it could be a number of reasons why, but its certainly pretty appaling. I can't talk in the same thread as one particular person without being called a retard many times. Sure i might have graduated from the University of "Duh" (holds hand up in spastic way), but my qualifications shouldn't be up for discussion :p

I can name more than one person here who pretends to be on the side of the mainstream of science, and they start hurling the insults first.
 
MetaKron said:
I can name more than one person here who pretends to be on the side of the mainstream of science, and they start hurling the insults first.

Physics subforum?
 
Absane said:
Physics subforum?

They seem to be the worst. I don't visit the others as much. We have several people here who think that they are qualified and claim to have paper qualifications, but they start insulting people by calling them names or questioning their intelligence the minute they write any rebuttals to their ideas.
 
MetaKron said:
They seem to be the worst. I don't visit the others as much. We have several people here who think that they are qualified and claim to have paper qualifications, but they start insulting people by calling them names or questioning their intelligence the minute they write any rebuttals to their ideas.

Yeah, me too. I hate it when I post some simple physics observations and get bluntly told I don't know what I'm talking about. Sheesh.
 
MetaKron said:
You started it.

Transcript ensues.

SL:

This hypothesis is physically impossible. There is no physical mechanism in orbital dynamics for rapidly( 1 day?) slowing the rotation of planet sized body and then speeding it up again. The only mechanism for slowing the rotation of a body is tidal drag. The same mechanism that is currently slowing the earths rotation and causing the moon to spiral farther away in its orbit. This is a tiny effect that happens over billions of years.

Close approaches of planet sized bodies would have other consequences though. Massive tides, earthquakes, and more importantly, a permanent alteration of the earth's orbit about the sun. Analysis of our orbit shows that it has been stable for billions of years.
Physics observations only.

MK's response:

MK:

Uh, "analysis" of our orbit means that we calculate where it was so many years ago using its present state. We do not have any other way of "knowing" where the Earth's orbit was before humans started taking accurate measurements of its position in relation to the sun and stars.

You can "show" anything by mathematics. That doesn't mean that it actually happens. The mathematics may not be a truly accurate model and even when accurate we don't know what might have changed between now and then. We also can't easily predict the interaction between the Earth's orbit and Jupiter without more advanced modelling techniques that include a hell of a lot more than the interaction between two hypothetical point sources of gravitation.

In other words, Superluminal, you don't know what you're talking about.
Personally insults SL's intelligence because SL presented physics argument against a hypothesis.

SL's response:

SL:

Uh, "analysis" of our orbit means a bit more than that my astrodynamically challenged friend. If one looks at the near circularity of our orbit, given the time scales involved for other influences to "circularize it" it has been nearly circular for billions of years. A close approach by a massive body would absolutely disturb that circularity and our distance from the sun. Significantly.

...

Actually, the orbital dynamics of the solar system are quite well known. There are clearly many subtle interactions that cannot be modelled as acurately as others, but for the situation as we see it now to be as it is, it implies a long term overall stability on the order of billions of years.


"In other words, Superluminal, you don't know what you're talking about. "

Really? And you do? Pray tell, what orbital dynamics would you propose to stop the earths rotation and then speed it up again without disturbing our nearly perfect circular orbit about the sun? Has to happen in one day. Then please detail the energy released by stopping or significantly changing the earths rotation over a period of 24hrs. Or 12 and the effects that might have on the planet?

Eagerly awaiting your analysis.
SL requests support for the earth stopping hypothesis.

MK's response:

MK:

No mechanism for the stoppage? That's a pretty hyperbolic statement. We are not talking about theoretical analyses of orbital mechanics that treat planets and stars as if they are point sources of gravitation, a treatment that might not be all that workable even under normal circumstances. We are talking fluid dynamics now, the effects that cause tidal waves a thousand feet high thousands of miles away when a piece of an island drops into the ocean.

The "energy released" is a red herring that anyone should be ashamed to employ. Energy is exchanged between two closely approaching bodies according to rules that do not include huge flashes of light that magically appear during the exchange of kinetic energy, and yes I do accuse naysayers from the so-called scientific community of resorting to magic to try to refute ideas.

"No proven mechanism" does not mean the same thing as "no mechanism." So-called scientists want to declare doors closed when they have no idea if their declarations are legitimate. It may well be far too much work for a modern scientist, equipped with modern tools, credibility, and a bad attitude, to actually test his own declarations. The usual attitude is that they don't have to. We are left with the destruction of the credibility of people and ideas by people who won't check their own work and whose work is faulty and even deliberately dishonest.
1) Uses "shame" and accusations of "magic" as inflammatory attacks.
2) Entire paragraph is slanderous against scientists in general and has no other purpose but to inflame.

Discussion degenerates form this point forward.
 
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*eats a spider*
spider-eating.jpg
 
Well, it's tough to be a kewl and uber scientist.

Like, you know, oooh-ahh, saying things like:

You know, this bloody Gödelian trap makes me sick.
or
And then that mofo of an absolutist self-view believer showed his ass in that thread, spouting on some bullshit about the provability of the existence of an absolute, finite and context-independent self. Bugger.
or
Where could that be, in your miniature excuse of an objectivist brain?
or
Pshaw QM!


Hah. Eh.
Because saying things like "On the basis of [insert valid, qualified argument], I disagree with ..." just gives so damn little ego gratification!
 
Red Devil said:
I have noticed over the past 12 months or so an increase in the amount of personal insults towards fellow members. Are you childish enough that you have to throw your teddy bear in the corner when someone has the temerity to disagree with you?

...thus you are insulting them in return.

Eye for an eye,
Eye for an eye,
Eye for an eye,
It makes the world blind.
 
It's one thing to say someone is ignorant and explain why. It is another thing to call someone stupid with no evidence of such. I think it is much easier to prove someone is ignorant than it is prove they are stupid. Ignorance needs only one dislay of such... stupidy shows over time.
 
you are stupid, absane.
:p
oh..fuck off, too!!!

MUUAAAHAHAHHAHAAA!
dude, i just took your whole argument apart!!

uh...hmm...maybe not.
SHUT UP!!
 
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