The moderators, in allowing the tone to be set in such a way, perpetuate the kind of academic cruelty that never should be allowed. — uncanni
Yep this forum, even in it's original incarnation was never one that promoted healthy exchange. It's as if people here equate dbaggery with superior argumentation. There are exceptions but mainly demeaning antagonism is the norm sadly. — schopenhauer1
People on these forums are on many different levels of philosophical understanding and competence in critical thinking, so there will be many threads which the more philosophically adept will not be interested in, as well as specialized threads which the generalists will not be interested in. — Janus
Surely the purpose of participating is to learn, and to try to overcome our biases and humility dictates that we should learn from those who are more adept, if we can understand them. I welcome my ideas being challenged, and I hope I can find the humility to admit it when I am wrong. — Janus
To pretend that there are posters that are not being demeaning and purposely antagonistic and not arguing in good faith is to overlook a lot of what is the case. — schopenhauer1
I think you meant to write: "To pretend that there are not posters that are being demeaning and purposely antagonistic and not arguing in good faith is to overlook a lot of what is the case." so I will answer that. — Janus
I'm not saying there are not posters of the kind you describe, but that they are a small minority and not characteristic of the forum. — Janus
So, from the top down, I see a lot of both of these kinds of nasty behaviors. I am just telling it how I see it a lot of times. — schopenhauer1
I'm not letting a few warty, bilious, infantile trolls chase me away. I just wish they would play nice. — uncanni
An angry, insulting, patronizing participant has nothing to teach me. — uncanni
Surely the purpose of participating is to learn
— Janus
An angry, insulting, patronizing participant has nothing to teach me. — uncanni
You missed the point. It isn’t what they can teach you, but what you can learn from your participation in the discussion: humility, patience, tolerance... — Possibility
It's as if we are engaged in writing a kind of essay together, — uncanni
Let's keep it to no more than a 200-word essay, please — Terrapin Station
You must stay away from the discussions with around 2,000 responses. Just because a discussion gets long doesn't mean it can't keep its focus. — uncanni
You missed the point. It isn’t what they can teach you, but what you can learn from your participation in the discussion: humility, patience, tolerance... — Possibility
even single long posts on the board are never focused. — Terrapin Station
It seems that even the short posts aren't focused quite frequently. — uncanni
In this case you can become the teacher. — god must be atheist
but when the teacher's tuition turned against accepted, strong beliefs, he or she was burnt, mutilated, hanged, quartered and cut into many little pieces. — god must be atheist
I agree with that hypothetically, but in practice, contingently, even single long posts on the board are never focused. — Terrapin Station
I teach students to question authority — uncanni
It's a challenge not to assume that one knows exactly what someone means when one might not really understand where the other is coming from without further clarification. — uncanni
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