Jay said:
“You’re quite obviously wrong, and I can’t be bothered to explain why.”I feel the need to point out that you have done exactly this to me.
I don’t remember the exact post(s), but I’m guessing you and I had to go in circles before I ended up in that place; it probably wasn’t for lack of trying, and I probably only went there out of frustration. Frink defaults to that point of view. Not the same thing.
No, you repeatedly ignored almost everything I said about Jordan Peterson and then refused to acknowledge my actual arguments, only singling out specific sentences out of context and acting as though my entire posts were unreasonable based on that and then said you were no longer willing to address anything I said. So, you’re right, it’s not the same thing. You also employed some great ad-hominem attacks about how I’m irrational and don’t have a grasp on reality because I’m delusional and some other irrelevant bullshit that had nothing to do with what I was arguing. If you’re going to that, I’m all for it. I have no problem with such tactics, and I even employ them myself from time to time, but let’s at least admit that it happens. That’s all I ask.
We didn’t agree on JP because we have a fundamental disagreement on what he’s saying. I don’t think you’re representing his words accurately (not saying you’re being dishonest, we just have a very different take on his opinions), and if we can’t agree on what he meant as a baseline, there’s no point in furthering the discussion.
I found your previous post mostly reasonable except for the whole “the world is in the shitter” thing. I’m guessing we could pick any year on the calendar and had you been alive at that time, you would’ve been saying the world is in terrible shape. A negative outlook on life tends to do that.
If you read my post then you’d have seen that I acknowledged that. I just don’t like the method of stifling criticism of the world by bringing up that other times have been bad too. I don’t see how that’s helpful or even relevant. I’m also curious about what you disagree with me on aside from that since the rest of my what you call “mostly reasonable” post was dedicated to debunking the black Republican movement that you say is supposedly happening where black people are somehow coming to the baffling realization that the Democratic has made their lives worse over the last 60 years.
This is another area where we have problems establishing a baseline. I don’t see how any rational argument can be made that criticism of the world is being stifled at this point in time. Practically everything being thrown at us is bad news. Introducing the idea that things have been way worse in the past isn’t an attempt to rewrite the present; it’s an attempt to establish a baseline that many people have lost sight of.
Your words:
Uh, everything is awful and the world is pretty much in the toilet.
That’s patently absurd. Where do we go from there?
I don’t think the world is at its worst. I think the worst of the world is on the news and social media 24 hours a day, everything has become politicized, and it’s eating away at people’s sense of well-being. I decided not to be a victim of that mentality any longer. The truth, despite all the imperfect things about this world, is that this is probably the best time to be alive in human history.
Are you going to address anything that I actually said about why the world is a disaster overall? Regardless of whether it’s the best time to be alive, which I agree that it is, the world is still largely in very poor hands.
I’ve heard this argument from both sides of the fence after every election. We’re all still here somehow.
I’m not trying to insult you. It’s just difficult to fashion an argument against an overwhelmingly negative worldview that I fundamentally disagree with. I get the impression you aren’t going to budge on the idea that “the world is pretty much in the toilet”. Am I wrong?