Had another 48hr game jam this weekend...

[Timon Gehr]

On 09/04/2013 08:00 PM, Joakim wrote:
> On Wednesday, 4 September 2013 at 13:23:19 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>> On 09/04/2013 11:26 AM, Joakim wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, 3 September 2013 at 21:34:42 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>>>> On 09/03/2013 06:33 PM, Joakim wrote:
>>>>> Sure, but I did provide demonstration, that thread.
>>>>
>>>> That thread seems to demonstrate a failure of communication.
>>>
>>> By whom?  [...]
>>>
>>
>> When communication fails, there is usually not a single side
>> responsible for it. (Unless one side is trolling. Trolls are typically
>> anonymous.)
>
> Except that trolling has nothing to do with communication failure

Good trolling is often _indistinguishable_ from communication failure.

> ...
>
>>>> "Any" impartial observer would notice the personal attacks, even if
>>>> that observer was completely ignorant of the discussion topic. "Any"
>>>> impartial observer would interpret those as lack of a well-reasoned
>>>> argument and decide to spend his time impartially observing something
>>>> more interesting.
>>>
>>> I call it like I see it.
>>
>> Great.
>
> Except that you then criticize me

I don't criticize people, I question arguments. If you think these two 
things should be conflated, I beg you to reconsider.

> for "personal attacks" and name-calling, [...]
> ...

There are multiple possibilities to replace the above statement in a way 
I would disapprove of, eg:

- "I call it like I don't see it."

- "I state inevitable fact."

>>> An impartial observer can determine if what
>>> you call "personal attacks," more like labeling of the usually silly or
>>> wrong tenor of their arguments
>>> and what kind of person generally makes such dumb arguments, are
>>> accurate.
>>
>> How? Accuracy of conclusions of fallacious reasoning is mostly
>> incidental. Consider googling "ad hominem", "association fallacy" and
>> "fallacy of irrelevance".
>
> [...] what "incidental" means. :)

It means: "Occurring by chance in connection with something else." A 
possible reason informal reasoning makes use of heuristics is that they 
often work by chance in some evolutionary relevant contexts.

> [...]they make several statements that are just factually
> wrong, [...]

IIRC you more or less successfully debunk some factually wrong 
statements. Not all of them were actually made, though.

> If you [...] don't [...] know the facts, there can be no discussion,

One of the points of a discussion is to exchange facts and to widen 
one's understanding of different viewpoints.

> which is why I bailed on that thread.
> ...

There are less intrusive ways of doing that.

>>> If you want to take a long thread full of arguments about the topic
>>> and pick out a little name-calling
>>> and then run away, clearly the argument is lost on you.
>>>
>>
>> Frankly, I'm unimpressed. It's you who picked out the name-calling
>> instead of arguments when summarizing the past discussion. In case any
>> valuable arguments were part of that discussion then I'd advise to
>> pick out those instead and put them in a coherent form.
>
> I called them what they are,

As I see it it is irrelevant in a discussion how anyone may classify 
anyone else taking part in that discussion. It is often even irrelevant 
who those people are. I'm just saying that if the goal is to make one's 
reasoning and opinions available to a potential reader, making it 
inconvenient to read and seemingly irrelevant is not the way to go.

> [...] which isn't really name-calling
> but an accurate description,

:o)

> and noted one of their main [...] arguments,
>  so I did both.

No point can be made by noting that one hasn't made a specific 
fallacious argument or by noting that somebody has defended another 
point poorly.

> [...]
>>> On Wednesday, 4 September 2013 at 00:25:30 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
>>>> You seem confused by the difference between saying something and
>>>> providing conclusive evidence.
>>>
>>> That thread _is_ conclusive evidence.  [...]
>>
>> (Please do not mess up the threading.)
> [...]
>> Well, if this kind of simply-minded pseudo-reasoning is to find
>> resonance, it has to be targeted at a less critical audience.
>
> Except there was little reasoning in my above two sentences, only two
> statements about the other thread.

Exactly. (Or rather, one statement about the other thread and one 
irrelevant statement about a community member.)

So a point of contention appears to be that some assume that evidence 
should be given in the form of reasoning or at least be accompanied by 
reasoning, whereas others don't?

> [...] I'll leave this "meta-discussion" here, as you two are clearly
> incapable of dealing with

Typically the ones incapable of dealing with something leave.

> my actual arguments.

What actual arguments are there? ("Go look for them yourself." is not a 
valid answer.)