“Ad hominem arguments” are better than personal attacks (name calling, insults, etc.) The latter are off-topic distractions meant to emotionally manipulate the public, the former are an attempt to defend one’s position using arguments. I wish Sculptor had a habit of posting “ad hominem arguments”. But he doesn’t.
I don’t know what kind of reasoning is that. I’d rather have a ghost town than a town full of criminals (which is what this place currently is – kind of.) I’d understand that kind of reasoning – but would still be against it – if the owners of this forum were making money off this forum. But are they?
A well moderated philosophy forum, even if it only has a handful of members, attracts people interested in philosophical discourse. A badly moderator forum, on the other hand, attracts problematic types and repels logical types. Is that what you want?
Let’s take a look at some of Sculptor’s recent posts. This is merely scratching the surface. (He’s been known for being a problematic type for a very long time – for many many years. t’s certainly not something new.)
Here, he’s merely repeating his previously stated beliefs.
Here, he’s suggesting there’s something wrong with his interlocutor and he’s saying that his interlocutor is “unremittingly spewing” banal examples.
Here, he’s laughing at his interlocutor and calling him a moron.
In all three posts, no substance whatsoever, no positive contrubition whatsoever.
And most of his posts are like that if not worse (which makes him a bit more than just an average ad homer.)
What is the difference between ad hom and personal insult? Both seem to point to failure to achieve civil discourse. Fortunately, Sculptor can sometimes give decent, well-thought out posts. At other times he acts as the policeman for truth as he sees it. Nothing wrong with that so long as her does not consider those who disagree with him to be fools. I would not ban him, but I would like to see him take a course in polite conversation.
I think what they mean by “ad hominem arguments” are arguments that attempt to prove that what the opponent is saying is false by using as a premise that something about the opponent is such and such.
John has low IQ.
What low IQ people say is false.
John says that 2+2=4.
Therefore, 2+2=4 is false.
That is better than a simple insult. The argument might not be a good one but it is not an insult (or at the very least, it’s more than just an insult.)
Imagine if everyone assumed they are right and everyone else is wrong. Everyone would be a policeman for truth. Everyone would be doing everything they can to promote what they think is truth and demote what they think is falsehood. So instead of having a forum where people are trying to influence each other rationally, you’d have a forum full of nasty people fighting for “ad space”.
I like about Sculptor that he is an accurate representative of the current main stream’s unadulterated superego.
Every ban tarnishes this website, and its current state is largely due to having banned most of the interesting people along the way. So, in that sense, he is also a little bit of a karmic punishment.
Until we solve the underlying problems that produce Sculptor, we deserve Sculptor.
I still voted to ban, because there is just something satisfying about it, and the fact that more people have voted than I even thought were active here.
Say what you want about those guys, but dumb they ain’t.
They say things. They have the balls to make statements.
Again, this isn’t meant as an argument for a ban, but as a comment on our larger society.
Nobody knows how to think anymore. They just know what is the ‘right’ position and the ‘wrong’ position, and that everybody in the ‘wrong’ position must be fended off with extreme prejudice.
Get persecuted enough for admiring a Great Man and you become oversensitive about some things.
Like our friend above, I have been not only banned, but shadow banned, for saying things as innocuous as that Alireza Firouzja is a political exile, not an emigrant.
pedro did you get shadowbanned on twitter? you can get out of that shit it’s not hard. they did it to me once. like i gained a shit load of followers one time for talking a bunch of shit. then all of a sudden no one could see my tweets who didn’t follow me. and you couldn’t search my username like it couldn’t come up in as recommended. then, when i would reply, mine wouldn’t show unless you scrolled to the bottom and clicked, “view more replies”.
a full on shadowban bruh. but then it got lifted and then i started getting a lot more followers again. bout to hit 40k its hilarious.
It rarely works quite that way. Where they give you an exile order. But yes. He refused to refuse to play an Israeli and got banned from the Iranian chess association by order of the King God Ayatollah, which itself, dealing with Islamic Nazis, is reason to fear for your safety and your family and get the fuck out. Read up on it. If Google will show it.
He lives in France now, but doesn’t play under the French flag. If he had simply emigrated, why would he do that? He can’t play under the Iranian either, obviously, so he just flies the FIDE flag.