- A lack of the ability to critically think. Its important. Don't they teach that stiff in public schools anymore?
- Not adhering to a set standard of criterion in fields that have just that.
- Logical fallacies, specifically making apeals to *insert classification here*.
- Defense Mechanisms kicking up when they should accept the fact that beliefs can be challenged and changed through effective argumentation. You do not own your beliefs because they are shared estimations among human beings about how the world works. You give up your beliefs when you lose.
- Coming to a discussion with no prior knowlege of the topic and opponent's position. Not only you have to research and post your findings, it helps that you make it availible for those who may want to get involved in the discussion at a later point in time. You also have to prove your findings that it adhered to a set of criterion that governs a field.
- Emotions are weighed too f***ing much over reasonable logic. This is why censorship is unjustly used to stifle discussion.
- Deciding that one person's position is worthless without proof or elaboration. Even if their argument is riddled with fallacies, either argue their point and expose what kinds of fallacies are used, or do not argue at all.
- Having the responsibility for the loser to pursue happiness. That is a conversation stopper akin to censorship used by the losing side to justify their position and demonize the winner when in fact that they are out of cards to play and in fact should concede their entire position to the winner.

This list took a while to make. If there are anything that needs "correcting", feel free to state what you have to say. After all, tis my observations that I could improve on by removing any skewing of what actually happened.
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Edited by: TDW, Dec 17th, 2014 @ 12:04 pm

Why do you keep bringing this stuff up?

Um, I haven't brought up before a list of reasons why conversations about controversial issues often degrade into shouting matches. And besides, doing you guys a service by attempting to list reasons on a permanent software for reference if you do discuss controversial issues.

Looks more like you are trying to dictate what everyone should do, how they should act, and how they should think.

Not being well-informed about the topic being discussed frequently leads to problems, especially when you're talking to people who convince themselves that they know more than they actually do!


Don't count on America's broken public school system to teach kids how to think critically. They should, though!


This would be nice, but I can't think of many fields have a set of criteria that are universally accepted and are consistently interpreted. In most cases, opinions are just that: opinions. They can't necessarily by evaluated quantitatively.


Sometimes, yes. But changing other people's deeply-rooted beliefs and values is an extremely difficult task, regardless of the quality of your rhetoric. Many a newlywed has tried to "change" their husband or wife, and these people rarely make much progress. If it's hard to change your life partner, it's far more difficult to change the opinions of people you don't know well. A better goal is to try to get people to consider an alternative viewpoint, or to reconsider a questionable opinion of their own, than to set out to change other people's minds.


This is where conversations about controversial issues, especially in the online world, tend to deteriorate. People filter everything through their own experiences, and just because someone else looks at things in a different way doesn't mean that their position is invalid. A positive, healthy argument always begins and ends with respect for opposing viewpoints: After all, there's always the possibility that you could be wrong!
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Edited by: Bibby, Dec 17th, 2014 @ 2:49 pm

1. Agreed. To those who are ignorant about the topics discussed, the first step before spitting out any opinions is to inquire.

2. I distinctly remember hearing that those who call for reform are hypocrites, though that would be a dumbfounded generalization at large. What I do hope for is an altruistic movement that does not institute policies meant to benefit themselves.

3. -TBC-: Various professional fields that make use of the scientific method. Though I am not suggesting that opinions should be evaluated quantitatively, let alone suggesting that they be evaluated by others who have experience in certain fields that have standards in place and that maintaining opinions is subject by the boundaries in place by that standard.

4. I will agree to that.

5. Agreeing with this post as well, though my point there was more directed at people who call out someone else's post for using logical fallacies yet not making an attempt to list what fallacies were used.