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Part of the point of the academy is to have people argue wildly different positions. Certainly debating the merits of colonialism would fall in there. If deba

Part of the point of the academy is to have people argue wildly different positions. Certainly debating the merits of colonialism would fall in there. If debates like this don't happen, you end up with a populace that has no idea why certain things that were tried in the past went horribly wrong, even if they seemed innocuous. Personally I'd far rather be exposed to outrageous claims and work it out for myself.

UncleMeat 7y ago
Forever? Surely at some point it stops being productive to debate everything. There are plenty of topics that have been discussed and settled. Colonialism is one such topic. PragerU isn't bringing new facts or ideas to the table. Instead they are repeating ideas that have been analyzed and dismissed by experts decades ago.
- downerending 7y ago
  Yes, actually. Being exposed to a bad idea once doesn't confer eternal immunity. Periodic exposure is the price for real immunity. Beyond that, hardly anything can make a bad idea more attractive than telling people that it's been dismissed by their betters long ago and should no longer be discussed.
  - UncleMeat 7y ago
    You'd support continued and endless discussion and debate about the following topics then: * Whether it is good to own black people as property due to belonging to an inferior race * Whether women are incapable of rational thought and should be denied voting rights and the ability to hold a job * Whether gay people are aberrant and should be forcibly sterilized or less evil but still stupid * Whether the earth is flat * Whether the halting problem is undecidable * Whether the ether exists * Whether bloodletting is an effective medical treatment * Whether the miasma theory of disease is correct * Whether the time cube theory is correct And you'd support active discussion among experts at professional conferences on these topics, taking time away from other topics? Frankly that's insane. We've only got so much time in the day. Your approach enables literally anybody to perform a denial-of-service attack against any discipline.
    - downerending 7y ago
      No, you've strayed from what we're discussing. The question is: Should someone be able to present a position on either side of such questions in public? My answer is yes. For questions that are clearly "decided", those positions are very likely to be completely ignored in general. But it would be very useful to have people periodically explain why they are incorrect. There is no DOS here, unless someone is actively interfering with (say) a professional conference. Those people should be bounced regardless of the position they're advocating.
      - UncleMeat 7y ago
        You led with "Part of the point of the academy is to have people argue wildly different positions. Certainly debating the merits of colonialism would fall in there." "of the academy" In the beginning, you were explicitly talking about academia. PragerU is welcome to spray its drivel all over the web. But when academics all look at that and say "this is garbage" and didn't engage on PragerU's terms, you complained. Colonialism is discussed. Constantly. There have been hundreds of academic books written on the subject in the past year or so. But these books don't set out to discuss the merits of colonialism, since that would be a waste of paper. The material is widely available if people care. PragerU doesn't.

UncleMeat 7y ago

Forever? Surely at some point it stops being productive to debate everything. There are plenty of topics that have been discussed and settled. Colonialism is one such topic. PragerU isn't bringing new facts or ideas to the table. Instead they are repeating ideas that have been analyzed and dismissed by experts decades ago.

downerending 7y ago
Yes, actually. Being exposed to a bad idea once doesn't confer eternal immunity. Periodic exposure is the price for real immunity. Beyond that, hardly anything can make a bad idea more attractive than telling people that it's been dismissed by their betters long ago and should no longer be discussed.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  You'd support continued and endless discussion and debate about the following topics then: * Whether it is good to own black people as property due to belonging to an inferior race * Whether women are incapable of rational thought and should be denied voting rights and the ability to hold a job * Whether gay people are aberrant and should be forcibly sterilized or less evil but still stupid * Whether the earth is flat * Whether the halting problem is undecidable * Whether the ether exists * Whether bloodletting is an effective medical treatment * Whether the miasma theory of disease is correct * Whether the time cube theory is correct And you'd support active discussion among experts at professional conferences on these topics, taking time away from other topics? Frankly that's insane. We've only got so much time in the day. Your approach enables literally anybody to perform a denial-of-service attack against any discipline.
  - downerending 7y ago
    No, you've strayed from what we're discussing. The question is: Should someone be able to present a position on either side of such questions in public? My answer is yes. For questions that are clearly "decided", those positions are very likely to be completely ignored in general. But it would be very useful to have people periodically explain why they are incorrect. There is no DOS here, unless someone is actively interfering with (say) a professional conference. Those people should be bounced regardless of the position they're advocating.
    - UncleMeat 7y ago
      You led with "Part of the point of the academy is to have people argue wildly different positions. Certainly debating the merits of colonialism would fall in there." "of the academy" In the beginning, you were explicitly talking about academia. PragerU is welcome to spray its drivel all over the web. But when academics all look at that and say "this is garbage" and didn't engage on PragerU's terms, you complained. Colonialism is discussed. Constantly. There have been hundreds of academic books written on the subject in the past year or so. But these books don't set out to discuss the merits of colonialism, since that would be a waste of paper. The material is widely available if people care. PragerU doesn't.