To be continued...

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A "compartmentalization" eh? Still sounds like something contrived, crafted, whatever.

And the dramatic sounding terminology you use; body blows face punching war. I had no idea you were that sensitive. I guess your online persona was hiding the real you. So I try not to tease you ever again, now that I have gotten a glimpse of the real you that you let peek through.

It's an argument we're having, it's the verbal equivalent of war. You have a side, I have a side, there are now two factions on polar opposite ends that won't back down, what's so hard to grasp with the war analogy?

As for compartmentalization, it's the concept that me and you in this debate are merely figures, you are attacking my position and I am attacking yours, attacks on say my credibility won't be taken personally by me, they'll be taken as a function of the debate: it's your job in a debate to attempt to discredit my ideas if you're my opposition and vice versa, of which credibility is one issue.

Again, you and I are actually unimportant in this discussion even though we're the ones prosecuting it-- the audience is ALL that matters. Why? Because you don't want a personal discussion via say PM, you want an audience to influence-- and that's what makes it a debate. If gaining the audience's ear wasn't important we would be having this discussion via PM. That's where compartmentalization comes in, and why one shouldn't take things personally in a debate: the opposition's goal is to tear down your argument, not play paddy-cake, they're focused on appealing to the audience, not you.

Speaking of which, perhaps we should do a soft reset, and introduce an actual topic as opposed to a re-hash of what's devolved into petty invectives over several threads.

Edit: fixed typos and such, a very bad cat was jockeying for attention on my keyboard.

^^Exactly! That's what debates are for, an audience!

I rather see this, then the murderer who killed his pet and wants to kill people next...

Ezra's very capable and I'm very capable, it should be entertaining. I actually want to debate non-political if possible, say Star Trek vs. Star Wars, Soccer vs. Hockey, Furbies vs. Tickle-me-Elmo, something truly entertaining and not serious, to break the death-lock he and I have spiraled into. Perhaps a series of topics? On a side note, I'd also like to debate from devil's advocate on an issue. That's all up to Ezra though, you willing to transition this to something fun?

I get the war analogy, it just doesn't seem applicable.

I don't relate to the rest of that much at all. I just spontaneously reply to what I am reading. The only reason why this isn't PM is I have no interest in being pen pals with you.

I think this is where you are having a problem with me. You're into all this stuff, therefore you think I'm doing what you're doing and why you come up with all this crap about me doing whatever, having some plan, wolf in sheep's clothing, ethose method blah blah whatever. I read, I spontaneously respond, and that's it. And I don't really keep track of what I say. And I have a really bad memory. My only pen pal has a really excellent memory and remembers like 100% of what I've ever said to him or ever posted (he's not a WP member but he reads my posts) going back years. I remember like 5 or 10% of what I wrote yesterday. And I'm sure he will agree with that.

This is one of my favorite movie scenes, because it's basically how I operate:

Last edited by EzraS on 04 Jan 2018, 11:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

Duly noted. My point is that I wasn't going after you as a person, I was going after the credibility of your moderate viewpoint. That's not an attack on you personally, that's an attack on the framing you used. And no, politics, isn't a game for me, nor is serious debate, but anything and everything is on the table in public discourse, that's why I use the war analogy. That's also why I'd like to have a fun little debate to ease tensions. If not, that's cool too, we can go our separate ways until next time we butt heads.

I'm just having a conversation here. This stuff you're going on about framing credibility and whatever doesn't compute.

I noticed in the other thread you equated the ethros plan whatever with lying. But I'm not getting the connection.

Edit: I looked up political moderate and got this:



That sounds correct for me. If I'm wrong about that, then I am just wrong, not lying about it.

Is that what you are all worked up about?

Well I guess we're done here then, the tit-for-tat seems to be over. Yay for detente! SMH, sorry for no fireworks show. Also Ezra I sincerely apologize if I caused you emotional distress, that wasn't the intent, I thought we were on the same page as far as debate, but I miscalculated, and for that I do apologize and see how I came off as an asshat (one of my favorite words outside of debate btw, along with clusterf**k and shitstorm, all classics imo).

One last thing about 'framing' and 'audience', that will hopefully compute: when we go to church we wear different clothes than what we wear around the house. We don't talk to our parents the same way as we talk to our friends, we don't talk to our boss the same way we talk to our spouse. We're the same person in all those scenarios: we're the exact same picture, we're just putting that picture in a different frame to be more appealing to those different audiences. That's my point with PM vs public, not that I need a pen-pal or anything, just that our conversation would be vastly different than it is now because we wouldn't have an audience to account for.

When I was your age that was the hardest concept in the world for me to understand, but now that I do it makes absolute sense. I wasn't diagnosed with autism until a few years back, but I knew at an young age I had communication problems, that's the entire reason I spent so much focus and time learning language, rhetoric, public relations, etc.-- to help with those problems, and while it didn't solve them it certainly helped. So far outside of debate or politics, or anything of that nature, I hope it does compute for you someday because it is a benefit.

edit: I started writing before your edit, so I will say this-- humans have a tendency to downplay their own biases, but others catch them very easily. That's why in the initial argument I asked the question if you were aware or if it was purposeful. Example: if I were to make claims of non-bias about myself but just couldn't find anything wrong with Barrack Obama no matter how hard I look, I'm going to appear biased, regardless of if I view myself as a moderate or not.

Yea for detente and SMH doesn't compute without looking it up. No emotional distress. Like I said I am generally a dispassionate person. I can get frustrated if I get too confused though, sensory thing. Okay I was back and forth on whether you were just screwing with me or it was something else.

Okay I get some of that. I am not sure I would talk to you differently in a PM. For me this vs pm is like being with another student in an open classroom rather than like in an elevator with him.

I will be fine with having a debate with you. Just keep in mind that I fly by the seat of my pants and don't follow any plan. I understand some of that logical fallacy stuff like what a strawman is (I believe) but just barely.

I know about Star Trek and Star Wars but nothing about Soccer vs Hockey, Furbies vs. Tickle-me-Elmo, other than what they are. If you play Lord of the Rings Online I can debate something like Champion vs Hunter.

Okay. I don't know about me making a claim of non-bias. That seemed to be more of something you extrapolated from stuff I said about myself. When I said I call it as I see it, I just mean that I say something about something the way I see it, right or wrong. I take into consideration that I might be wrong about stuff. Like my attitudes about liberalism and the way people view Trump might be wrong. And I mean the extreme views that sound kooky to me. What I call hyperbole. And the stuff I call superfluous like what color his hair is or what he eats and drinks, that seems to be such a big deal. A lot of stuff people seem to go bananas over about Trump, just doesn't have that effect on me or my reaction seems much more reduced than theirs. I think he really is trying to have a better heath care plan and create more jobs and make the tax system better, rather than having some diabolical plot involving those things. But he might be doing all that stuff the wrong way.

Should have been @SH90 (F'ing cat, seriously), because he didn't get to see us debate for entertainment.

No EzraS, I like you, you're very intelligent despite the autistic deficits that you mentioned earlier. You come across as a skilled debater, hence the reason I turned it up a notch, which is where it got personal (again, I don't view it as personal, I view it as opposition). Let me put it this way: if I have a best friend and we get along great, but we get picked for different teams on the soccer pitch, I'm still going to go all out to win that soccer match because that's why I'm on the field. When we got to the tit for tat part, cat and mouse game as you put it yesterday, it's like choosing opposite teams on the soccer pitch.

That PM I sent you a few months back before my recent hiatus was true, I do respect you, and I've seen you make great strides in your written speech. If that sounds condescending, I apologize, because it's meant as a compliment and encouragement to continue making that progress. When I first visited this site the only place I saw you post were games, and when I saw you jump into real conversations I thought: good for him he's branching out and learning new skills. And yes, you do remind me of myself at your age: socially isolated to an extent, black/white thinking (still am), communication problems, but wanting to improve my skill set. And no I'm not stalking you, there's no weird pedophilia thing going on (I'm a survivor of such things, I take that s**t real serious), I just have a very long memory-- I remember people and posts that left years ago. I will point out one thing: my long paragraphs, 'intellectual' syntax/words and the aforementioned memory are actually part of my autism. My brain is like a spiderweb, you plop an idea in the center like a fly and every strand of that web vibrates with random words I've encountered over the years, and it's deafening trying to pick and choose which ones to use so I generally use the first one that comes up to save my own sanity. You exploited it very well in our argument too (don't worry it's a valid critique, I've learned to adapt to the criticism/attack when it comes up).

As for the difference between PM and with an audience, that's probably part of your autism at play. Most NT's do that with ease, it's a necessity of modern social life. They'll 'tweak' their personality a bit depending on where they're at and who they're talking too so they fit into the group better. That's why in professional speaking, writing, etc, there's a great deal of time spent analyzing the audience, it's not that they're 'lying' to the audience, they're attempting to 'interface' with the audience by tailoring their message to that audience. So it makes perfect sense to me why that doesn't click for you, as I said when I was younger it didn't click for me either, and I hope it does for you someday. Again, sorry for being so 'long winded'.

I don't think I have ever posted in games. The bulk of my posts for the first 3 years was in general autism discussion and the rest in random discussion. When the Trump thing started that is when I ventured into PPR and news and current events. Before that I didn't pay much attention to politics. Mainly all the hullabaloo over Trump drew me in.

I may respond to more of what you wrote later but I have to get back to my online schoolwork now.

I like your clarification here. That makes more sense from what I've seen in previous posts of yours. Yeah the 'I call it like I see it line' is similar to 'I'm a straight shooter', or 'I only look at the facts'. The claim is you're to be trusted as an impartial source, it's also one best used sparingly, or it appears you're trying too hard to convince people with that statement alone and not the evidence you presented itself. What a lot of those on the left are seeing (I'm included in that group obviously) you make statements like that (or similar) frequently, but you may not realize how frequently due to your memory issues. See, knowing that you have significant memory issues changes the entire argument we had yesterday for me. I thought you were being obstinate, hence the reason I used the 'wolf in sheep clothing' attack. That's not to say don't use that line or lines, just use them as a last resort.
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I know you like playing it as it goes, everyone does, because it's public debate and it's too unpredictable to control.
But there are a few other methods you can use to defend yourself without actually making a claim of objectivity (and no these aren't just one liners, they're on the fly examples myself, but if you learn the concepts you just need to find your own words to express them):

Don't use I, that puts the focus on you (it opens for the attack I used yesterday), use the source as your objectivity (block). i.e.-- "It's not my opinion, it's the opinion of the AP" (or whatever the source is). A more snarky version: "Did you even read the link? It's pretty obvious it's not my opinion, I'm just reciting the article." The asshat version: "I didn't come up with it, common sense did."

*Change the focus to their objectivity (riposte). i.e-- "You're obviously partisan: [insert evidence or quote here]", "It takes one to know one, and since you're obviously from [insert faction here] I don't think you could tell a bias free opinion if it smacked you in the face", "When was the last time you read [insert non-partisan source here]?"
*I've seen you use this one a few times, just a reiteration.

Avoid the claim altogether (disengage). If you're confident you've appeared as an unbiased source there's no need to engage, just walk away and don't think about it because you have nothing to gain. If someone is hammering away as I was yesterday it's also good to disengage and re-engage later, because if you don't riposte it puts you on the constant defensive and aggressive positions are rewarded much more than defensive ones, the last election being an example: Clinton played the safe game in the debates (always a mistake, it's like prevent defense in football it sure sounds good but tends to blow games), where Trump was on the constant offensive, he didn't even play defense, he just kept lunging at Clinton, and she just kept taking it.
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I agree, there are a lot of superfluous things going on with Trump that don't matter, such as his diet, his hair color, etc. That's nothing out of the ordinary though, politicians are in the same class as movie stars: they're in the public eye and thus they are constantly picked over for things that don't fit the norm or expectations of society (just like us autistics, but with celebrities they get it in public and for very minor things). As for hair color numerous articles were written about Obama's hair becoming 'peppered' over time (gray hairs). As for diet, Bill Clinton was criticized for using his morning jog to jog to McDonald's (SNL skit). Hell, even George W. was criticized for having a goofy smile and awkward ears (Alfred E. Neuman). On the same note, every first lady going back to the first photograph has had her appearance and 'style' critiqued by the media and public at large-- because she's in the public eye. Point being, if you're looking for moderation, those are exactly the stories you need to pass over because they serve no moderate purpose: they're used to either 1. give one's base a caricature to tear down or 2. infuriate the opposition. I mean sure you can comment on them, but those are highly partisan waters which will make you appear partisan if you jump in frequently.

I want to be real clear here: I'm not telling you to change your politics or ideas, just offering some advice I've learned by observing or reading people that have highly credible moderate images.

Closer: I read your other posts not quoted here after I made this one, I'll get to those tomorrow, chances of me being on the rest of today are slim to none. Also it may have been general, not games, my memory is long term, not perfect, point being I noticed your avatar outside of politics (which tend to be more intense/stressful threads, as we've demonstrated lol). [joke]Enjoy the school work. [/joke]

Quick edit: On that concept of framing, notice how this thread is our own personal thread we've been allowed to talk with each other without worrying about others jumping in, or an audience so to speak, and it's been civil? Part of that is because we're talking with each other, not worrying about the audience, or making miscues to be misconstrued, and all those other things that happen in a debate, because the audience isn't important here. It's different, very different, the jockeying for audience changes virtually everything. I'm still me and you're still you and we've exchanged some political ideas, but the tone from both of us is completely different without the audience-- that just naturally happens.