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Bitch About Hitchens Here

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    #212
    sponsoredwalk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Holy ƒuck, this is either 100% pure trolling or the most outrageous example
    of bias I've ever seen on boards...


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    #213
    joseph brand
    Registered Users Posts: 4,537 ✭✭✭joseph brand


    If you like Hitchens, you'll love this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7aS7m3odqI


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    #214
    joseph brand
    Registered Users Posts: 4,537 ✭✭✭joseph brand


    Brown Bomber wrote: »
    I think they are ambiguous statements, yes.

    Now THAT'S funny. You're joking of course.


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    #215
    Brown Bomber
    Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    joseph brand wrote: »
    Now THAT'S funny. You're joking of course.
    No. Perhaps you'd like to show me the error of my ways? Hint: you'd do this by specifically demonstrating that they are equivocal statements.

    Edit: Nice youtube video title btw...


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    #216
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    This thread has been going in circles for something like two weeks.

    This thread will be closed later today unless (a) a few worthwhile posts appear; (b) some improbable synthesis arises from these opposing theses; or (c) a significant number of regular posters ask for it to be kept open.


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    #217
    amacachi
    Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    robindch wrote: »
    This thread has been going in circles for something like two weeks.

    This thread will be closed later today unless (a) a few worthwhile posts appear; (b) some improbable synthesis arises from these opposing theses; or (c) a significant number of regular posters ask for it to be kept open.

    Leave it open on the conditions that there's only one biting post allowed per trolling post. I'm not trying to fill your role, I just think that allowing one post showing the bull**** in others while leaving it open to questions and actual critiquing would be a good idea.


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    #218
    Joshua Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 246 ✭✭Joshua Jones


    I'm sure the irony will be lost due to not seeing the wood for the trees but A+A is turning into more of a cultish Jonestown than the forums they claim to counter. The amount of sycophants is astounding.


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    #219
    pH
    Registered Users Posts: 4,188 ✭✭✭pH


    Joshua Jones wrote: »
    I'm sure the irony will be lost due to not seeing the wood for the trees but A+A is turning into more of a cultish Jonestown than the forums they claim to counter. The amount of sycophants is astounding.

    You can tell that because some posters have taken time to refute some untruths that a troll is making up about Hitch?

    Also do you actually understand what irony is, or is that a word what you've seen smart people using and have decided to try and use it yourself?


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    #220
    Joshua Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 246 ✭✭Joshua Jones


    pH wrote: »
    You can tell that because some posters have taken time to refute some untruths that a troll is making up about Hitch?

    Also do you actually understand what irony is, or is that a word what you've seen smart people using and have decided to try and use it yourself?

    Lol, you lose (or is it loose).


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    #221
    Penn
    Registered Users Posts: 33,240 ✭✭✭✭Penn


    For what it's worth BB, I don't think you are trolling, I just think you are wrong.

    You picked several quotes from Hitchens and said he seemed to be moreso questioning the legality of waterboarding rather than the morality. But surely even then, nothing is illegal unless it is immoral? Not everything which is immoral is illegal. If it were, there'd be more prisons than schools. But for something to be illegal, or for the legality to be brought into question, Surely it has to be an immoral act?

    As for Hitchens never saying, in the simplest terms, "Waterboarding is wrong", surely you can understand that Hitchens is widely regarded as an amazing writer and debater. He could have said "Waterboarding is wrong", but to me, he did everything but. He expressed that view in many different ways even if he didn't say it in such a black and white sentence.

    I really think that you are basing all this on your own opinions of him and would have come to the same conclusion regardless of what he wrote in the article. Let's face it, it would have been a short and uninteresting article if he just said "Here's what happened and this led me to believe that waterboarding is wrong." He's a writer, and quite a prominent and well-respected one at that (in terms of his writing ability, rather than content). For me, he did all but say "Waterboarding is wrong", yet from reading the article, that's what I took away from it, that Hitchens believes that waterboarding is wrong.


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    #222
    sponsoredwalk
    Registered Users Posts: 3,038 ✭✭✭sponsoredwalk


    Earlier in the thread you tell us "his opinion on whether anything is torture
    is largely irrelevant":
    Brown Bomber wrote: »
    Hitchens is not the arbitrator of what is torture so his opinion on whether anything is torture is largely irrelevant.

    then you chastize him for not giving his irrelevant opinion:
    Brown Bomber wrote: »
    (He had a perfect opportunity in this instance to give a clear indication on his thoughts on if waterboarding is torture as he was asked a yes/no question on if he considered waterboarding torture)

    You play coy about whether he wants to discontinue waterboarding for
    legal or moral reasons:
    Brown Bomber wrote: »
    More accurately on waterboarding. Again, why should it be discontinued? Legal reasons? Moral reasons? Effectiveness? His views are unclear

    yet two quotes above you discount a quote of Hitchens on
    waterboarding because he is talking from a moral standpoint:
    Brown Bomber wrote: »
    This is irrelevant. As you've just stated the issue here is "is waterboarding torture" not is torture immoral.

    He just can't win can he? This is why I think you're either trolling or
    extremely biased because nobody in their right mind could make such
    radically contradictory statements as the above with a straight face
    unless they were ridiculously biased...

    I'm not even going to get into what could be an honest misunderstanding
    of Hitchen's choice of vocabulary unless the above is miraculously
    explained in a satisfactory way...


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    #223
    Brown Bomber
    Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    Penn wrote: »
    For what it's worth BB, I don't think you are trolling, I just think you are wrong.

    You picked several quotes from Hitchens and said he seemed to be moreso questioning the legality of waterboarding rather than the morality. But surely even then, nothing is illegal unless it is immoral?

    I must say this is very strange statement for an avowed atheist to make in light of the fact that a great many peoples moral codes are based on religion. Morality is subjective and relative. Legality is not.

    By your reasoning the anti-Jewish legislation of the Third Reich was moral. Anti-Black legislation in apartheid South Africa was moral. The penal laws were moral. The driving ban on women in Saudi Arabia is moral and so on.

    I'm not suggesting for a second that you consider any of the above moral just that your statement required more consideration on your part.
    Penn wrote: »
    Not everything which is immoral is illegal. If it were, there'd be more prisoper than schools. But for something to be illegal, or for the legality to be brought into question, Surely it has to be an immoral act?
    No. Not at all. In a utopian society perhaps, but otherwise certainly not at all. For example, there is a bill that has just been passed through Congress making it a criminal offense for a US diplomat to carry out any kind of diplomacy with any Iranian official. Can you imagine if diplomacy was banned with the USSR during the Cuban Missile Crisis? None of us would be here. Quite clearly a law banning diplomacy is not moral.
    Penn wrote: »
    As for Hitchens never saying, in the simplest terms, "Waterboarding is wrong", surely you can understand that Hitchens is widely regarded as an amazing writer and debater. He could have said "Waterboarding is wrong", but to me, he did everything but. He expressed that view in many different ways even if he didn't say it in such a black and white sentence.
    If he was such an outstanding scribe he should then know the importance of equivocal statements to good communication.

    Does it not mean anything to you that he repeatedly dodges questions and answers in roundabout way when interviewers try to pin him down to give a direct answer?

    If not, The Harvard Business School can explain it - "conversational blindness".
    As you may have noticed in the recent electoral debates (but more likely didn't), there is something about our brain wiring that allows skilled orators to, well, slip us a fast one.

    According to recent research out of Harvard Business School, listeners can develop a "conversational blindness" that blocks our ability to detect discrepancies between the question asked and the answer delivered -- as long the wrong answer is delivered smoothly and confidently.
    "A successful dodge occurs when a speaker's answer to the wrong question is so compelling that the listener both forgets the right one and rates the dodger positively," write working paper authors Todd Rogers and Michael I. Norton, who both have backgrounds in psychology.
    But that's not all.
    "More troubling, listeners preferred speakers who answered the wrong question well over those who answered the right question poorly."
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-31540448/why-dodging-the-question-works-in-debates-and-job-interviews/?tag=bnetdomain

    All the boxes are ticked: skilled orator, question dodging and dodger rated positively.


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    #224
    Brown Bomber
    Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    sponsoredwalk wrote: »
    Earlier in the thread you tell us "his opinion on whether anything is torture
    Sorry for the confusion. My earlier point was that his own personal opinion on if waterboarding is torture is irrelevant to the question on his overall opinion on whether torture is moral or not.

    For example, I could be pro-torture in a war scenario and at the same time consider foot-tickling torture. Or I could be strongly anti-torture and at the same time consider sleep deprivation torture, for example. Therefore, with Hitchens, as with anyone else what they consider torture has zero relation to their moral standing on the use of torture.


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    #225
    Brown Bomber
    Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    robindch wrote: »
    This thread has been going in circles for something like two weeks.

    This thread will be closed later today unless (a) a few worthwhile posts appear; (b) some improbable synthesis arises from these opposing theses; or (c) a significant number of regular posters ask for it to be kept open.

    Should you close the thread I look forward to your hypocrisy whenever you oppose the Blasphemy Law in Ireland on the grounds of Freedom of Speech.


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    #226
    Brown Bomber
    Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    joseph brand wrote: »
    If you like Hitchens, you'll love this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7aS7m3odqI

    The Irony...


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    #227
    Brown Bomber
    Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    MagicMarker wrote: »
    Move in now move out
    Hands up now hands down
    Back up back up
    Tell me what you're gonna do now

    Breath in now breath out
    Hands up now hands down
    Back up back up
    Tell me what you're gonna do now

    Keep trollin' trollin' trollin' trollin' (x4)
    I made an honest attempt to address your post in good faith. I took the time to watch all the videos you posted and made comments on every quote that you shared.

    Your response to my act of good faith is song lyrics combined with a juvenile pun and accusations. Yet I'm the one trolling ...:rolleyes:


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    #228
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Brown Bomber wrote: »
    Should you close the thread I look forward to your hypocrisy whenever you oppose the Blasphemy Law in Ireland on the grounds of Freedom of Speech.
    Boards.ie is owned by an Irish-registered limited-liability company and, within certain limits, allows each forum to define its own policy as the moderators see fit. The policy for A+A is here, if you'd like to read it.

    You have no right to "free speech" on the private electronic property that belongs to boards.ie, any more than you have a right to show up in some stranger's front room and ignore their house rules.

    /thread


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