I'm glad I'm not a human...

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... I'd hate to have to defriend and be a () towards an Aspie that beats me in an argument with flawless logic.

Did you get into an argument with a friend and need to blow off some steam?

Did you go to the pub?

Actually it was a debate, but when he realized he was losing, he started hurling abuse and random insults. Now we're no longer friends. Blocked me on Facebook and everything.

I don't do anything to anyone. How the f@#k do these people justify falling out with ME of all people? Out of everyone in the "group", I am the only one who doesn't believe in violence or verbal abuse of any kind, but I am the one who is singled out by these certain individuals over nothing more than trivial s@#t and ignored.

The debate in question was over who we believed was a better drummer, Danny Carey or Mike Portnoy. I was with Carey and he was with Portnoy. He kept repeating himself, saying that Portnoy is in over 24 bands, is in the Drummers' Hall Of Fame, and that Neil Peart himself said that Mike Portnoy is one of the greatest drummers of all time. I sedately and calmly pointed out that recognition doesn't mean anything, and that he is in so many bands may detract from focusing properly and honing his music. Danny Carey is chiefly a member of Tool, and focuses a lot of his time on just the drumming for Tool songs. He hasn't received as much recognition because he is more interested in perfecting his drumming to best serve the music, at the expense of being showy. I was promptly told to shut the f@#k up because I don't know anything about drumming and Neil Peart said Portnoy's the best and he's in the Hall Of Fame and Danny Carey hasn't even released any DVDs showing off his skills and Mike Portnoy is in over 24 bands and he's a lot faster and I'm an idiot and Danny Carey sucks and Mike Portnoy rules and Virgil Donati is better than Danny Carey and Tool is s@#t and David Gilmour is better than Adam Jones and I'm an idiot.

See what happens when humans are introduced to calm, collected, logical reasoning?

I don't know of either of those drummers (though I do know of Neil Peart) so I can only judge based on who presents the stronger argument.

He presented the stronger argument.

That wasn't the whole argument. There is a lot more stuff that was said which he dismissed as bulls@#t, which included the intentions of the artists involved. Danny Carey's drumming is constructed to best serve the music of Tool, which aims to enable humanity into waking up from its stupor, the band acting as a "tool" in aid of such an event, as well as acting as a tool to recognize the nature of the "realm", which is the world people see when they take psychedelic drugs such as LSD and DOI. Say what you will about the "realm" and such stuff, my point was to illustrate that Tool's music is entirely in its meaning and its emotional impact. Mike Portnoy's drumming, lyrics and songwriting for Dream Theater all serve the purpose of showing off the band members' exceptional talent (and I did recognize that they are all extremely talented, but he chose to ignore this) as instrumentalists, at the expense of creating any kind of musical language, or emotional journey, or aesthetically pleasing sounds. It's showy, attention-whore music, for musicians who aim to be star musicians rather than musical artists.

This is all irrelevant, though. The point is that I argued my case rationally, calmly, and without explicitly contradicting him, but apparently I'm still a w@#$%r and I deserve to be blocked and reported on Facebook and ignored in person.

You can't argue something subjective and "win" - one is either persuaded or not. In matters of opinion, I think your expectations are skewed. Personally, I prefer Carey, though Carter B and the cat from 311 are also pretty enjoyable. For pure musicality on the kit, though, I'm a big Max Roach fan.


M.

I won because he insulted me. When these (skilled) types run out of options in a debate, they resort to more primitive means to "beat" me.

As Mak said as I was composing this, "better than" is subjective. It cannot be overcome with logic. You could present a list of achievements and trophies and still be unable to convince your debate opponent. Doing so often causes people to become emotionally exasperated and lash out in this manner.

"I won because he insulted me."

Insults are insults. They do not win an argument. Example:

Debater #1: The moon is made of cheese.
Debater #2: Hey, !@#$ you, pal.
#1: I win, I win! The moon is now cheese!

This is a debate that you cannot (and in this case did not) win OR lose. It is an opinion fight. The only logical move is... not to play.

Take the right lesson away from this experience for dealing with future opinions. You don't want a repeat of this from someone you really care about. This isn't an example of someone "losing" and pulling out insults to "win" and then you "winning" because they used insults. This is you innocently promoting your position (which you may see as fact) to the point where you broke someone's cool. Watch for the signs of this in the future; don't lose your friendships!

In your example, Debater #1 is stating non-fact.

Why couldn't he just say, "I see what you mean, but I still think Mike Portnoy is better." He's very shallow-minded and only barely clinging on to his belief, to the extent that anyone who threatens it becomes the enemy. He's a drummer himself, and views drumming as a skill to be learned and perfected to a singular common standard. He's aware that music can be much more than that, but to acknowledge that would threaten his dear Mike Portnoy's position as "da best", and he would have been wasting the past ten years of his life having unquestioningly idolized this person.

I just don't get where people get off following something like a sheep and blindly defending their position to the death. Open-mindedness seems to be a thing of the past and is now merely reserved only for Aspies, schizophrenics and users of psychedelic drugs.

Sorry about the question.

This is why I don't do debate.
If I can't agree, I will agree to disagree
and keep my own belife and let the other
keep their own belifes.

My belifes are right for me, and their
belifes are right for them.

I honestlysay both drummers belong in the top whatever list. Carey pretty much is the heart of tool. Mike portnoy is just as good IMO, one of my favorite drummers (yet the only band that he is in that I listen to much is dream theater, and they are my favorite band).

This is an opinions, clearly stated. Im not gonna get in to musical minuitae over it, because I simply view them as equals.

You and your ex-friend are both crazy. John Bonham was the best drummer who ever lived.



Don't answer that. You're entitled to your opinion and I don't care whether you agree. Your point of view will not affect my enjoyment of either Led Zeppelin or Tool, because I don't listen to them based on your recommendation or approval.

I understand that you feel unfairly rejected, but you really have to watch that tendency to pontificate like a knowitall and expect to sway people to your way of thinking. Few people choose the music they listen to based on logic, and frankly that would be a poor method of making aesthetic choices anyway. Who's the best drummer? Come on, you can narrow that down to a short list based on pure skill and innovation, but at the end of the argument, that beauty is in the ear of the beholder - there is no one best in the world or best of all time - there is only the one that best suits your personal taste. That's what subjective means.

Honestly, you probably owe someone an apology for being a stubborn d*ck.

Quite true! But nobody debates facts, right?
Regardless, this isn't my point and I'm not reaching you with this example. Someone else might have something better to make it clearer (join in please)... ?

Excellent, excellent, excellent! I was pretty shocked to read this; this is incisively insightful. I'm sure as he matures he'll learn this too. Be the earlier to mature and apply this excellent philosophy both ways, i.e. YOU could be the one to say this and de-fuse things before they escalate. It’s the same philosophy no matter which of you says it, right! That’s the beauty of this thought you had here.

I think you're on the edge of a realization here and I hope I can push you over it. You understand about defusing. You understand even further regarding this particular situation; your hyperfocus has allowed you to see not only his behavior, but the REASON behind it. Use this. Read what you just wrote there. If you were to have convinced him, ten years is quite a lot of wasted time! There's no way you can make him give this up! Portnoy himself could show up and say "I suck" and your friend would go on with "Well, you might think you suck now, but I'm talking about back in the day when you..." etc. and go right on arguing.

When this happens there are a couple important things I like to consider before going further:

1. How important is the issue? Will it affect someone's life negatively if they go on believing this?
2. How close am I to this person. Is it worth convincing them if the end result is making them feel awful in some way?


You're bitter right now and understandably so. You really described the situation well and because of that clarity I can see both (at the same time) why you defended like you did AND why he flew off the handle. You weren't doing anything "wrong" here in any moral sense. You just want to make sure you weigh the price of being right very, very carefully.

You're a bright guy. I don't want you to risk the loss or diminishment of any more of your friends when it seems you have a real shot at stopping it.

You can never truly "win" against your friends or anybody who is close to you. Defeating somebody that close to you will only ruin your relationship with that person, and is extremely counterproductive. Your "win" is in many ways also a "loss". In this case, the only possible outcomes were that both of you would win, or both of you lose... NOT "one wins, the other loses".