> > especially after an opener of "have you been to any beaches recently" I didn't write that, please check the thread. That was someone else. Sorry I was conf

> > especially after an opener of "have you been to any beaches recently" I didn't write that, please check the thread. That was someone else. Sorry I was confused about this, but the context to which you seemed showed up in defense of; namely a personal "observable"ism as a sufficient means to define the nature of a global phenomena, makes the point stand. > There is a different, meta-level dialog embedded in our dialog, but this terribly ironic juxtaposition is exactly the kind of distracting, subtractive, thing I meant. I've been following that meta dialogue very closely and here's what I wish we can agree on. Distraction and subtraction hinges on our personal formulation to solve the problem at hand. My formulation strongly presupposes that rational argumentation can scale through time and people better than an emotional and personal appeal, at least in forums similar to this. Your formulation seems to presuppose that concentrating on the emotionality of your personal experience and impressing the audience to action through that is a better way to get results. You seem to feel any poking holes in the logic is a disservice because it takes away from that concentration of emotions and impressions. To the extent these approaches are at odds (and I don't think they necessarily are) any one could accuse the opponent formulation of being subtractive, distracting, action stopping etc. My plea is for you to see that you're willfully asserting a supremacy of your particular formulation in this meta-dialogue, without clear evidence that it is the case, and with a desire to evacuate alternative formulations out of an open forum. > I'll go back to picking up garbage, since in my experience, that is the only activity that reliably has impact. Since you've shared this, it is fair game to ask about it, and I know it might piss you off but bear with me because it has a point; is it an impact to the environment or impact to your conscience? One could cut their arm to feed the hungry, but how far could that go for making a change? I'm bringing this up because it ties back to my original point of taking time to make sure we have the right formulation. The observable, the immediate, the emotional is super-salient to us but that doesn't automatically mean more true, more effective and ultimately the best thing to follow.