Comment by jvanderbot
3 months ago
Your off-topic ad hominems or pedantic takedowns weaken any point you might have had, if you'd had one. This is not high school debate or reddit. We can do better here. It's best to take the most generous view of a post and address the core thesis.
I think the core argument was wrong and it was surrounded by a whole list of other errors which demonstrate flawed thinking and lack of knowledge and understanding.
I further think that pointing out errors is absolutely vital and core to intelligent discourse and discussion. It is a terrible weakness of 202x attitudes that saying "you are wrong, your reasoning is wrong, and here I will spell out how and why" is perceived as rude.
This attitude is what led to Trump, notably the 2nd term, it led to Brexit, it led to the Ukraine war, and it led to international attitudes on Israel v Palestine.
Calling out mistakes and outright lies is crucially important. It is not rude or discourteous. It is necessary.
If people don't like it... well, tough.
My friend, you didn't say they were wrong, and didn't point out why they were wrong. You got hung up on the trees and completely missed the forest. This is absolutely a critical discourse failure indicative of 202x problems in and of itself.
Putting away pedantry and word lawyering, stopping any attempt to trap a person so that their core thesis can be ignored, and actually discussing the core statement (in this case that 100 years isn't so long that we'd forget the details) is indicative of healthy engagement and good faith discussion. That's what we should encourage. As soon as you can put together some statements about the 100 year thesis, you're fine by me.
But for now I'm done reiterating my point and we should put this behind us.