A Friendly Request from the Boot

LordSunhawk

Das BOOT (literally)
Owner
Administrator
Staff Member
Founder
OK folks, I know people are getting heated, things are going to hell in a handbasket, and emotions are running high.

I get it, I really do. I even agree with a great deal of it. But I am seeing an increase in personal animosity between posters rather than discussion of topics, even heated ones, without making it personal.

This is not a policy directive, nobody will be banned, infracted, or anything else because of it. This is just a pleas from me to please lower the temperature, assume that your fellow posters may be mistaken, but are not evil. A plea for people to be more charitable towards each other here.

Speaking broadly, I have always found that assuming that the person I am debating may be mistaken but not evil has allowed me to move the needle with many people, getting folks who would otherwise never credit my arguments at all to consider them and, in some cases, changing their own position.

Again, this is not policy. This is not me setting up some future purge or anything else.

Can we just please all assume that those we are arguing with, even when we disagree on fundamental issues, are still good people?
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Can we just please all assume that those we are arguing with, even when we disagree on fundamental issues, are still good people?
If you'd ask me that a few years ago, I'd be right there with you without hesitation; now though? The arguments are getting more heated, and grudges are become easier to form. I think we're all just really frustrated with what's been going on since the election; and while we agree that something should be done, not all of us agree on what that something ought to be, or if it's even possible to do anything about it.

That said, I'd like to think that most here are good people; at least in terms of their intentions, if nothing else.
 

Battlegrinder

Someday we will win, no matter what it takes.
Moderator
Staff Member
Founder
Obozny
I would also point out that, at the end of the day, this still just a bunch of people talking about things on the internet. You are not going to change the world or shift the Overton window if you crank up the hostility and force someone you disagree with into silence. You're not going to deliver a crushing blow to the ideology of [whatever] by yelling at people on the internet. You're not going to talk someone out of a sincerely held belief in the course of one thread, nor can you browbeat them into changing thier mind. The only thing hostility will do is make the forum a less pleasant environment for the rest of us.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top