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Or, to put it another way: Leave off, man. It wasn't THAT bad! Sorry for piling on, but it's my prerogative as an English teacher, and Marcus Brutus has a po

by Pitarou 13y ago

Or, to put it another way: Leave off, man. It wasn't THAT bad! Sorry for piling on, but it's my prerogative as an English teacher, and Marcus Brutus has a point. Phrases like: it's very dangerous to treat human beings as fungible stimulus-response machines, and locate the nexus of responsibility for outcomes in the complex of external behavioral influences rather than in human agency itself are great for showing your college professor you've mastered the jargon, but they don't get you many Likes on Facebook. Why not just say: while there can be mitigating circumstances, I believe in personal responsibility

DanBC 13y ago
> and Marcus Brutus MarcusBrutus is mostly a troll.
- Pitarou 13y ago
  So I've sided with a troll. Oh dear.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Your point was well made and added to the conversation.
Gormo 13y ago
I'm sure that one might find a more concise and elegant way of expressing the thoughts I attempted to convey in that sentence. But I hope you'll agree that reducing > Everything might be rightly construed as a potential influence on human behavior, and anything taken to excess might inspire dangerous or irresponsible behavior; but it's very dangerous to treat human beings as fungible stimulus-response machines, and locate the nexus of responsibility for outcomes in the complex of external behavioral influences rather than in human agency itself. to > while there can be mitigating circumstances, I believe in personal responsibility is at best an example of extremely lossy compression. That rewording gives at most a vague impression of what my position would be were the question reduced to a mere binary "are you for or against prohibition?" contest. I agree that concision is important, and I know that my earlier comment didn't quite achieve it, but I'd still regard concision as efficiency in the use of words: saying as much in fewer words, not using fewer words for its own sake, even if it means actually saying less.

by Pitarou 13y ago

DanBC 13y ago

> and Marcus Brutus MarcusBrutus is mostly a troll.

Pitarou 13y ago
So I've sided with a troll. Oh dear.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Your point was well made and added to the conversation.

Gormo 13y ago

I'm sure that one might find a more concise and elegant way of expressing the thoughts I attempted to convey in that sentence. But I hope you'll agree that reducing > Everything might be rightly construed as a potential influence on human behavior, and anything taken to excess might inspire dangerous or irresponsible behavior; but it's very dangerous to treat human beings as fungible stimulus-response machines, and locate the nexus of responsibility for outcomes in the complex of external behavioral influences rather than in human agency itself. to > while there can be mitigating circumstances, I believe in personal responsibility is at best an example of extremely lossy compression. That rewording gives at most a vague impression of what my position would be were the question reduced to a mere binary "are you for or against prohibition?" contest. I agree that concision is important, and I know that my earlier comment didn't quite achieve it, but I'd still regard concision as efficiency in the use of words: saying as much in fewer words, not using fewer words for its own sake, even if it means actually saying less.