Callahan's Crazy Crosstime Salloon

bouncing. With irrelevant (yes, I mean that) glee. Fay reads Spider!

Of course I want to get the last word! That's only human. Who doesn't?

Huh! This is something that never occurred to me as a goal of Buffista discussion. I like the way discussions ramble on and go off tangentially and so forth on this board - you end up learning lots of neat stuff (like about refridgerator compressors!) and about people's neat opinions, even if you disagree with them. I don't see even the political discussions here as people trying to convert others to their points of view, but rather to express their own points of view, in a valid, thoughtful, or occasionally blowing-off-steam kind of way. It's not like we're in a court of law and there's a jury to impress. We're more, um, intellectual, or pondery, or kinda shooting ideas around, maybe? Among friends. As I see it.

Anyone else singing "Fandom's just another word for nothing left to lose"?

Well, I am now! Hmph.

Nothin' and that's all that Jossy left me...

I like getting the last word and having all bow to my superior wisdom, but I also like having my assumptions challenged. If I pop up and say "Howard Dean is the next Democratic nominee!" knowing next-to-nothing about him, and somebody responds "Hah. Have you seen the recent polls?", I may regret being wrong, but I'm glad of the information.

Losing individual points is part of what makes debate interesting for me. One of the things I like about Buffistas is that not only do they call me on my factual errors, but I can learn something from watching them argue.

I was arguing with a brother-in-law last weekend, and I was slowly going nuts, because he couldn't back up his reasoning or his facts. He could repeat slogans, but when you shot down a slogan, he simply moved to another one.

He couldn't defend any of his individual points. We were arguing about admitting women to Augusta National, I adduced the recent integration of the club, and he said "Racial discrimination is different from gender discrimination." I said "Oh? I didn't wake up one morning and say "Gosh, I think I'll be female"." And he changed the subject. He was prepared to lay down pronouncements, but he wasn't prepared to discuss them.

That's not what I want from an argument. "A is B". "No, A is C". "No, D is E" is boring. Contrast "A is B". "Actually, A is C and here's the proof." "Hmm, in that case, you can't treat A and B and C differently because they all share this characteristic." That's stimulating.

Julie ... yeah, I'm just getting the B&A eps on free-to-air TV, so I'm only up to where they are and I haven't seen any Firefly. I'm content to wait. :)

Fiona ... I only remember the BBC TV adaption of Day of the Triffids because it was so damn good and the novel is one of my all-time favourites.

Aussie Buffistas Note: New Buffy and Angel again next week! It appears I may have been right when I said they took a break to bring us all in line. :)

Channel Seven was really evil this week...not only no new Buffy or Angel, but no new 24 either!

...no new 24 either!

Hey, that's right but it wasn't just 7, there was no new CSI on 9 and a couple of other shows were repeats instead of new eps. Hmmm. I wonder what the real reason was for the pre-emptions.

Of course I want to get the last word! That's only human. Who doesn't?

In on-line converstation - a lot of people I think. Because, while having the last word might mean that your argument is so powerful it cannot be refuted, when I have the last word I always fear:

1)I was the last person to lose interest in that particular thread

2) I bored or irritated other people so much they opted out of the conversation.

But even if having the last word is your goal - looking like you are trying to discourage other people from replying to you is neither effective nor makes you look particularly good. The only way that will work is to make such devestatingly powerful arguments people can't come up with a good reply.

I felt I've listened to other viewpoints a lot--but isn't it possible to listen and go through the same thought processes and come to a different conclusion than yours?

That was kind of my point. I just want you to acknowledge the same thing: different people may intelligently and diligently come to different conclusion. Why insist that someone who disagrees with you is engaging in group think or hates america or has in any way different motives than you do? Paul J. - who I think is much more conservative on international relations than you are (and pardon me Paul if I've misjudged you) still manages to disagree without ever questioning the motives of people he talks to. He assumes they are wrong - not stupid or of bad character. (And on a couple of occasions I have seen people offended by things Paul said that IMO were not offensive - but he apologized o keep the peace.)

People with the more radical philiosophies are responsible for winning people over, not the more mainstream ones, I always thought.

Yup - but not responsible for proving their motives are good, nor responsible for winning people over without replying to statements they disagree with.

And now I have to go to work and won't be able to defend myself for 12 hours or so. Please bear that in mind.

This thread moves slowly enough you can reply when you return - by which time I won't be here. One of the nice points of on-line discussion is that you can have a conversation with someone whose schedule makes real-time discussion impossible.

Again I'm not objecting to your substance. (I disagree with your substance, but that is another matter.) I'm asking only two things -

1) that you stop looking character based explanations for why people disagee with you , and simply assume they are intelligent people who have (from your point of view) come to the wrong conclusion. In other words assume people who disagree with you are wrong (unless they prove otherwise to your satisfaction). Simply don't assume anything about their character or motive. (And if you don't assume such things, understand that terms like "groupthink" gives the strong impression that you do.)

2) that you avoid statements that look like you are trying to have the last word by discouraging people from replying to your statements. Not that you don't try to have the last word , if such is your pleasure.

("Everyone for what he likes: we like to be, heads down, tails up, dabbling free!" t /end completely gratitous Wind in the Willows quote)

But please avoid giving the impression that your method for trying to have the last word is to discourage others from replying to you.

And if you don't thats fine. On this board anyway, you are the boss of you. And it is not unbearably rude or anthing. It just makes discussing with you less pleasant than it would otherwise be, and makes you less listened to than you would otherwise be.

Hmmm. I wonder what the real reason was for the pre-emptions.

School holidays jimi. They often mess with programming because officially, it's a non-ratings period. (Unofficially, of course, the studios and their advertisers look at the figures for all fifty two weeks)