The analogy that just popped into my head is taking a shower.. If the water
is too hot, all of your pores close up, and you can't get clean. If you walk
up to someone and say:
"Hey.. All your ideas are wrong. Your God doesn't exist. I will live forever
as a dark matter wave traversing the universe, replacing everything I touch
with a realtime simulation in my vast distributed processing network powered
by the near-infinite electromagnetic flux in hard vacuum."
They're probably not going to want to talk to you for long.
--Wilson.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dana Hedberg" <dah@signalinteractive.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2000 2:40 PM
Subject: Communication and Conversion, WAS:[Re: SOC/AG-BIO: AgBio Industry
Beginning to Wake Up]
> A question: Is it more profitable for the advancement of Extropian ideas
> and philosophy to adopt an attitude of overly polite conversion first,
> rather than use language that gets blood pressures rising and minds
> disengaged?
>
> I would argue that a more profitable approach within the goal of getting
> others to think critically about their held positions and beliefs is to
> question the source and reasoning first, then move onto stronger
> language if necessary.
>
> Does calling someone a luddite (whether it is true or not) increase or
> decrease the probability of converting them to a "better" mode of
> thought? I'd be interested in hearing everyone's take on this, not just
> Mike's.
>
> -Dana
>
> "Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
> >
> > "R. Harrill" wrote:
> > >
> > > "Michael S. Lorrey" decided to attack again with a new round of
inflamatory name calling:
> > >
> > > Mike, here is Merriam-Webster's defintion of non sequitur...
> > >
> > > "a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from
anything previously said"
> > >
> > > It's possible you're so anxious to get me that you're not making
enough sense for me to
> > > responsibly respond. So I'm going to let the thread go and instead
start a new one.
> >
> > Perhaps its that you have no ability to debate my points, and prefer to
call
> > them attacks specifically because you cannot answer them. Being able to
label
> > something a non sequitur requires that the recipient of the comment be
able to
> > think logically. What I am anxious about is to figure out why you, a
luddite,
> > would willfully subscribe to a known anti-luddite list, snipe the list
with your
> > unfounded luddite propaganda, and act all incredulous and surprised that
people
> > don't take up the challenge to quickly dispatch your ridiculous
comments. Why
> > would you, the agressor, complain that your are being 'attacked' when it
is you
> > who initiated the action? You sound like a terrorist holding hostages
who shoots
> > a hostage and tells the negotiator,"Now look at what you made me do."
> >
> > Mike Lorrey
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:34:57 MDT