Originally posted by ramlambmoo
Oh boo hoo you get the sympathy vote in the arguement.
I don\'t care about sympathy votes. There is no need to imply that I\'m whining or whatever.
Originally posted by ramlambmoo
Seriously if hes so wrong then take him down.
I have, several times. His last post before me refusing to continue to pointlessly refute his arguments IMNSHO is so obviously wrong that it\'s not even required to refute it.
However, I am
not going to feed a troll, as this is just a waste of time. A troll will never give in, he will use tricks to keep the discussion going while never providing anything useful. In fact, it is common for trolls to post easily refutable claims that are made to anger people into replying to them, if possible without reading through the entire discussion.
I am not retreating in order to not have to admit defeat, nor am I convinced of having been wrong, nor have I become unsure of the validity of my claims. The only thing I am doing is to save myself the waste of time to feed a troll.
Originally posted by ramlambmoo
Did you ever think its a bit hypocritical to say \"hes not providing any links\" and then go on to accuse him of all this stuff without showing where or when he did it ? 
Something about that seems a bit strange to me...... lol
Actually, no, I did never think that and don\'t think that now. In fact, he was accusing me of not having researched his beloved Saphir Worf hypothesis, though I actually tried to. At the very moment I indicated that I couldn\'t find any more material on this, he would have had to enable me and any reader of this thread to do that research by providing links to the theory, which he obviously must have, since he is trying to make the impression to have done
extensive research on that topic. :rolleyes: Instead he kept using the hypothesis to \"refute\" my claims without quoting excerpts from his sources, therby denying me any chance of disproving him on his own grounds, while implying that that would be impossible for me, anyway.
Alright, so that everybody can see why I think that discussing with him has no merit whatsoever, I will analyse his last post before mine.
Originally posted by buddha
1. \"Thinking independantly, without letting the \"truths\" of established science blind me. \"
I love this one, it\'s like those people who claim \"Evolution is only a theory\". Can you guess the flaw? (Hint: gravity is only a theory as well.)
I was actually using his very own words here:
\"But I have also had moments where I did NOT accept standard practices and forced the establishment to re-think their assumptions. This is because I think differently than some others.\"
Furthermore, I never said something about theories in the relevant part of my post, therefore there is no benefit in dragging that in, except to dilute the actual point by trying to ridicule me for things I didn\'t even say. Even if taking into account that I obviously was referring to the Saphir Worf hypothesis, this isn\'t even important, because his statement, which implies that theories aren\'t facts, does in fact justify me not accepting it even more, instead of proving me wrong in doing so. I assume that this has been constructed for the purpose of making it look like I had said something horribly unsupportable or stupid. Without
actually saying so (but instead making it
look like that), he reserved the argument \"I was supporting your statement\", in case someone nailed him on that.
Originally posted by buddha
Perhaps you can take a moment to notice that I have provided counter-examples to your gross claims. That does not require citation.
The so-called counter-examples are like comparing apples and bananas. They are so different from the things they are meant to counter that no conclusion can be drawn from them regarding the original claims, as I will show later on.
Originally posted by buddha
2. \"Furthermore, linguistics tend to be full of assumptions that cannot be proven and also full of ambiguities. I have rarely seen a linguistic deduction that was unquestionable. Therefore, I indeed don\'t hold too much respect for that particular field of science.\"
First, exactly how many linguistic deductions have you seen? I\'m not defending the science, but you are making another broad statement. Can you please cite something here, since the bibliography is suddenly so important? Second, it\'s very easy to disregard other fields with which we are not familiar. That is a common academic mistake.
This isn\'t even countering my statement. He is, as usual, indulging himself in phrases like \"broad statement\". Additionally, he is now suddenly saying that he doesn\'t even support that hypothesis, and that he even thinks that it\'s wrong (thereby reserving the retreat of saying \"I always supported your view\", just in case someone would provide unquestionable proof to support my point of view).
Originally posted by buddha
3. \"It is quite nice to see how you imply that I don\'t have academic background, while you know absolutely nothing about me. \"
This is true. I inferred it. I could be wrong.
By saying this he creatres the illusion of actually discussing, by making it look as if he would actually reconsider anything. However, this point is unrelated to the discussion and therefore doesn\'t hurt his \"points\", and is an easy \"sacrifice\", done for tactical reasons.
Originally posted by buddha
4. Please don\'t mention Bush, he makes me very angry and to this point it\'s all been fun.
An absolutely irrelevant statement, meant only to distract from the actual discussion and to score sympathy points by implying that I supported Bush (without the implication actually being provable), designed to make me look bad.
Originally posted by buddha
5. I never supported nor detracted from the Saphir-Worf hypothesis. I mentioned it only to point out that many experts may disagree with you about the value of multiple languages. In fact, it is probably rubbish, but that is not my place to say.
This is typical for his style of argument: to cite things that he doesn\'t even support, but make it
look like he supports them and also like he has a great deal of proof to support them, and then retreating by saying \"I just mentioned it\". Obviously it\'s just meant to provoke, and to force the defendant (me, in this case) to waste time refuting claims that are of no importance to him, hoping that I\'ll make mistakes that he can then use against me, or that I\'ll forget important things that may support my claims.
Originally posted by buddha
6. You never prove that I don\'t have a invisible elephant friend.
This is what I was referring to when I said that his \"counter-examples\" have no connection to the claims they are meant to look like countering.
Comparing someones delusions to a scientific theory is total rubbish, for the simple fact that there will be no theory without some facts that can be interpreted to support it, whereas someones delusions obviously are without anything to support them, except mental dysfunction. He\'s comparing mental illness to science.
Originally posted by buddha
He talks to me and helps with my research.
Here we have again the \"I am a scientist\" reference. These are obviously meant to create the impression that he is knowing much more than he actually does, and to prevent people from trying to counter his statements, because they are supposed to think things like \"I think he\'s wrong, but probably I just don\'t know enough to see that he\'s correct\". This is typical for trolls.
Originally posted by buddha
All that is well and good, you don\'t have to believe me UNTIL I start demanding that you bring him food or something. Once I start making claims that influence your life, you will probably want to establish the existence of Frank (the invisible elephant, did I mention his name?). Now, the onus is suddenly upon ME to prove his existence, not upon you to DISPROVE his existence. If I make the claim, I must supply the proof.
Here he is taking my words out of context and mangling them to look like meaning something totally different. He\'s trying to circumvent the requirement to support one\'s claims.
Originally posted by buddha
You cannot prove that reindeer don\'t fly, not even by killing all of them by throwing them off the Empire State Building. You cannot, in general, prove a negative.
Again something that doesn\'t have anything to do with the argument, but is supposed to be funny in order to score sympathy points.
Originally posted by buddha
So why am I bringing poor Frank into this? Well, YOU are making claims that YOU are not supporting, often without even the courtesy \"this is my opinion\" disclaimer.
Again, \"funny\" thing to gain sympathy, followed by a nukelike \"you are a hypocrite\" claim, which isn\'t supported by anything other than his own, flawed, example. Additionally, he is now accusing me of not working scientifically, while it isn\'t even uncommon to post opinions without stating explicitly that they are, because that is what is done in discussions, whereas it is very common to post references to what one thinks is important but that might not be conveniently available to the discussion partner.
Originally posted by buddha
And the claims you make, about who should be able to speak which languages in an international game, may effect my game play.
In order to look like actually discussing, here are some snippets that, while they aren\'t actually important to the discussion, aren\'t incorrect. He\'s bloating them and their importance in order to make it look like I am missing important facts. Facts, in fact, that it is constructed to look like I wouldn\'t acknowledge, despite them being utterly obvious, in order to make me look like a total fool.
Originally posted by buddha
Your claims are vapid.
This is another example of his rhetoric of trying to distract the attention of the reader from the actual subject. Bland statements like this one are much more likely to stick in the mind of the reader than an actual argument. By enclosing his weak defenses in statements like these, he is hoping that the causal reader will either not question his points or not even read them as it looks like theyre fool-proof (\"otherwise he\'d not say something bold like that, would he?\").
Originally posted by buddha
7. \"Well, observation surely proves that communication works much better if both partners speak a common language, and also that there is way less overhead when there is only one single language at all. \"
This is a little blue, but I met an Hindu girl once, and, um, we did fine with a major language barrier...
Yet again, this \"counterexample\" isn\'t even applicable to the point it\'s made to look like countering. Additionally, he\'s indirectly emphasizing his manlyhood by making it look like that he had her.
Originally posted by buddha
Just another counterexample to a wild claim.
And, of yourse, the usual finishing line of the type \"I have infinitely more wisdom than you\", obfuscating the weakness of his claim.
Originally posted by buddha
I take issue with the word \"proves\" in the above statement.
A prime example of where he is using unrelated and totally irrelevant things to detract attention from the main subject, and also to weaken his \"discussion\" partner by forcing additional workload on them.
As you\'ll have noticed, I have not bothered to counter his claims, as this would have been a total waste of time, since I still am convinced that he is just trolling. If you see me ignoring him, not just on this thread but everywhere, this is why.
This may very well have actually have been my last post on this thread, since I believe to have said everything I had to anyway.
