Re: THe OverRelational Manifesto (ORM)

Marshall Spight wrote:
> ...
> I still don't like name-calling, though. I still think it's
> intellectually
> unnecessary, and I still think ad-hominem reasoning is
> logically invalid.
> ...

A grand comparison compared to narrow db interests I'll admit, but WWII, at least part of it, might not have happened if Neville Chamberlain had been into ad-hominem logic instead of religious politeness. DB theory is a minor factor in the area of human thought, but I'd say the economic cost of its mistakes must be approaching that of a major war by now. I'd say ad-hominem is fair by me since politicos have such a loose definition of economic activity and the people here are doing rather little damage compared to many commercial interests. On the other hand, more than a few killing wars were started with ad-hominem arguments. Even if I disagree with the point, it doesn't bother me when people put their feet down, get no intelligible result and then resort to cursing my ancestry. However, I don't think there's much useful effect from this in a newsgroup, as the traffic on this theme might prove. In person, it certainly can work better. I think it's okay, even brave to call somebody a bloody eejit to their face but it doesn't carry much weight on this remote medium.

p Received on Fri Apr 21 2006 - 01:42:14 CEST