4 ms·

That's the second time you've failed to comprehend the use of a negative. I suggest you reread what you've written. The rest of the thread doesn't show me atte

That's the second time you've failed to comprehend the use of a negative. I suggest you reread what you've written. The rest of the thread doesn't show me attempting to win any argument. I suggest rereading that too. Whichever way my interlocutor responded to my question would neither invalidate his own position, nor 'win' an argument for me. You are mistaking this form of discussion for a straw man because you are seeing things in black and white, when instead the question was intended to provide context. Sometimes people ask provocative questions in order to better understand where other people are coming from. Dialog consists of more than just direct argument. Not every exchange is about gaining rhetorical advantage. If you try playing back the comments in your head as if they are being spoken by a collegial group involved in a discussion, you'll see what I mean. Your judgement is incorrect because you have misidentified the nature of the conversation. You are imagining there to be an argument where instead there is actually a discussion. And on this note, do you really think it's helpful to throw comments like "straw man" into conversations you aren't constructively participating in?

olalonde 15y ago
> That's the second time you've failed to comprehend the use of a negative. I suggest you reread what you've written. You are right, thanks for correcting me, I'm a bit tired. Luckily, it was just an example and not central to my point. The key point here is that this way of formulating a question attributes an opinion to your opponent that he may or may not have. Fixed it: "Decades of isolationist Maoism didn't have more influence on the rural poverty in China than US and British protectionism." > The rest of the thread doesn't show me attempting to win any argument. I suggest rereading that too. At this point, there's nothing I can do but question your intellectual honesty. The least I can say is that you come across as someone who disagrees with your interlocutor's opinion. If you are not willing to admit that, I will call this conversation over. > And on this note, do you really think it's helpful to throw comments like "straw man" into conversations you aren't constructively participating in? Yes. Fallacies are subtle and it's important to highlight them.
- rbarooah 15y ago
  The least I can say is that you come across as someone who disagrees with your interlocutor's opinion. If you are not willing to admit that, I will call this conversation over. I don't think that the relatively emotive statement that the interlocutor made paints a particularly complete picture. That's why I asked the question. I don't know enough of his opinion to disagree with it or not because he didn't answer. If you reread what my interlocutor wrote you'll see that he introduces a number of different ideas which don't add up to a single coherent argument to agree or disagree with. Typically when someone presents me with this sort of communication and I find it interesting, I don't consider it an argument. Instead I try to find out more. You say 'all you can do is to question my intellectual honesty', but if you really thought I tried to win an argument using a strawman, you would be able to point out where I did that and yet you can't. If you won't acknowledge the possibility that you have perceived an argument in what was actually a discussion, then I have to, in return, question your intellectual honesty. It's counterproductive to the cause of rooting out fallacies to make drive-by comments out of context.

olalonde 15y ago

> That's the second time you've failed to comprehend the use of a negative. I suggest you reread what you've written. You are right, thanks for correcting me, I'm a bit tired. Luckily, it was just an example and not central to my point. The key point here is that this way of formulating a question attributes an opinion to your opponent that he may or may not have. Fixed it: "Decades of isolationist Maoism didn't have more influence on the rural poverty in China than US and British protectionism." > The rest of the thread doesn't show me attempting to win any argument. I suggest rereading that too. At this point, there's nothing I can do but question your intellectual honesty. The least I can say is that you come across as someone who disagrees with your interlocutor's opinion. If you are not willing to admit that, I will call this conversation over. > And on this note, do you really think it's helpful to throw comments like "straw man" into conversations you aren't constructively participating in? Yes. Fallacies are subtle and it's important to highlight them.

rbarooah 15y ago
The least I can say is that you come across as someone who disagrees with your interlocutor's opinion. If you are not willing to admit that, I will call this conversation over. I don't think that the relatively emotive statement that the interlocutor made paints a particularly complete picture. That's why I asked the question. I don't know enough of his opinion to disagree with it or not because he didn't answer. If you reread what my interlocutor wrote you'll see that he introduces a number of different ideas which don't add up to a single coherent argument to agree or disagree with. Typically when someone presents me with this sort of communication and I find it interesting, I don't consider it an argument. Instead I try to find out more. You say 'all you can do is to question my intellectual honesty', but if you really thought I tried to win an argument using a strawman, you would be able to point out where I did that and yet you can't. If you won't acknowledge the possibility that you have perceived an argument in what was actually a discussion, then I have to, in return, question your intellectual honesty. It's counterproductive to the cause of rooting out fallacies to make drive-by comments out of context.