Ad hominem? I think not.

From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue Nov 20 2001 - 15:39:06 MST


Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience@pobox.com> Wrote:

> My personal opinion at this point, for whatever it's worth, is that John
> Clark has lost the current argument between himself and Samantha, having
> resorted to ad homonym arguments without provocation.

Ok Eliezer, it's time to put your money where your mouth is. I want to see you say with a
straight face that the idea this war was not caused by the destruction of the World Trade
Center but because evil American oil companies want to build a pipeline in Afghanistan is not
stupid, or that USA has the world's largest supply of biological weapons, or that one nation
should never interfere with another under any circumstances, or that the American
government sent anthrax letters to itself to increase war fervor, or that the reaction to 911
was "overboard and overly broad", or that after Mr. Bin Laden says he wants to kill Americans
and after he has killed 6 thousand American civilians he nevertheless does not want to kill
Americans, or that the true terrorists are the Americans, or that doing something because we
can must be dishonorable, or that it would be bad if Afghanistan were to become more like a
free modern nation such as the USA, or that no nation has caused as much destruction in the
world as the USA. So Eliezer pick one of the above statement, I don't care which one, and
defend it. I dare you!

This is not a case of disagreeing with a colleague, this crap is brain dead dumb, on a pare
with flying saucers, perpetual motion machines and the lost city of Atlantis. But it's worse,
far worse, Bermuda triangle fans don't kill people and this is life and death. Forget about
the Singularity, if the bilge Samantha Atkins spews out were to be adopted you and I and
everybody we know would be dead in less than a decade.

Of course it's possible that you're right and I have lost this argument, if so it's because I'm
a poor debater not because I'm wrong.

       John K Clark jonkc@att.net



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