Re: flame wars

From: Hubert Mania (humania@t-online.de)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 05:35:03 MDT

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    Harvey Newstrom said:

    > I have no more intention of letting ad hominem slide then George Bush has
    of
    > letting terrorists slide. Letting them get away with it will only
    encourage
    > more attacks.

    In some extreme cases I guess it is appropriate to attack someone
    personally, so she or he gets a chance to reevaluate his/her thoughts.
    Whenever it comes to the support of killing people for any cause whatsoever,
    except for oself defense I think I even have the obligation for a personal
    attack.

    When Robert Bradbury made his sick nuking proposal the other day, he did
    express a monstrous, ultimate example of the ugliness of utilitarian
    philosophy, moral depravity and mega-fascism: wiping out a huge group of
    humans for his beloved fetish, called technological advance. This abhorrent
    example of hubris was based on a blasé academic glass bead game, in which
    R.B. displayed the astonishing abiltity to hijack some free lancing and
    innocent exponential digits from Euler space, hold them as hostages and
    abuse them by rearranging them maliciously for a cracked up point of view,
    Hitler, Goering and Goebbels would have been proud of thinking them up
    as their own original idea.

    The ad hominem rules might be appropriate most of the time, but they loose
    their effectiveness at the event horizon of black hole thinking desasters
    like the one Mr. Bradbury has proved to be capable of. Here the ad hominem
    protections crumble under the gravity of his comment and are transformed
    into a useless collection of academic placebo pills. With other words: a
    load of bullshit.

    Returning to cases where ad hominem might be appropriate: transhumanists
    supporting a war of aggression. I know in advance, that I will get a bloody
    nose if I, say, kick some weapons of ass destruction (no misspelling here!)
    into a crowd of proud patriots that represent the majority of the actively
    posting members of this virtual community. But that's okay, I accept it and
    I can live with the bruises. Maybe it has to do with a different kind of
    ironic and sarcastic discussion culture in intellectual German circles where
    no one is surprised if he receives a personal attack for his shitty views.
    Frankly, I am surprised how many puritans and preacher's daughters are
    present on this list and who are ready to faint if someone uses more
    substantial and hearty words without making an affected fuss about it.

    Gloomy regards from Nietzsche's Dragon,

    humania



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