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@Tarik
K_Michael: Either the Bible (or whatever informs your flavor of religion) has clear instructions on how you should live your life and you don't get to decide for yourself, or the Bible isn't the word of God.
Tarik: You can agree with something without it being your word.
K_Michael: If the Bible isn't the word of God, then what indication do you have that He agrees with it?
Tarik: I never said The Bible was or wasn’t the word of God, I simply made a general statement.
This was not a general statement in that it was made in the context of our discussion of the Bible, and while it might be generally applicable to other subjects and contexts, it would be disingenuous to claim that it is inapplicable to the Bible being the word of God. It is clear from your previous interactions in this thread (quoting scripture for things like whether God punishes nonbelievers) that you take the Bible to be a credible document that can accurately inform your religious beliefs. And if you believe the Bible, then you must believe that the Bible is truthful when it states
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.2 Timothy 3:16-17 - KJV
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@Tarik
You can agree with something without it being your word.
If the Bible isn't the word of God, then what indication do you have that He agrees with it?
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@TWS1405
I am talking about physical appearance....Idiots, drug addicts, future Dahmers, et al. need to be stopped.
I know plenty of attractive idiots. Dahmer was a normal looking guy. So are you talking about physical appearance or not?
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@TWS1405
I honestly don't remember why I decided to block you, so you are unblocked until further notice.
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@Tarik
so, FUNCTIONALLY each person needs to figure out FOR THEMSELVES what they believe is "right" and what is "wrong" ?Yes, if what they believe aligns with God.
In other words, I can believe whatever I want so long as God says it's right?
That's the equivalent of letting a child pick out a candy at the store except they only get the candy bar if they pick the one you decided they should choose. Either the Bible (or whatever informs your flavor of religion) has clear instructions on how you should live your life and you don't get to decide for yourself, or the Bible isn't the word of God.
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Receive 25 likes for a single forum post or a debate comment.
This is the current description for the gold-tier medal "Friend of the Crowd" but likes are not currently implemented for debate comments?
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@TWS1405
Intellectual cowards block others they still engage with, but cannot refute no matter how hard they try.
What have I not refuted here?
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@TWS1405
When you make post after post defending pedophilia, advocating that children be allowed to do what they want sexually with their bodies and with adults, that’s being a pedophile.
I disagree. One can defend a viewpoint without believing in it. And I don't think you can be 14 and a pedophile, unless you're attracted to <~10 (pre-pubescent)
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I would perhaps institute a two strikes policy on a per debate basis if you want to be generous; after first vote is removed, they get one chance to fix it or else lose voting privileges on that debate.
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@RationalMadman
You write that long a list without sorting me?
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@Shila
Most of your exchanges are with Polytheist _Witch.
Unfortunately, most of my exchanges are with YOU. So your magnet theory has some validity after all.
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@Shila
Are you a magnet for stupid people?
I don't think so, but feel free to let me know if you find out anything on the matter.
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@Shila
I'd be willing to bet the cows are.
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@Shila
The laws were only named after Jim Crow, some of the laws existed before then and all were merely racist and not motivated by any one depiction of blackface.
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@Shila
Calling DArt a haven implies that there is a larger concentration of stupid people here than the general population. As someone who has worked in retail and is currently attending college, I can assure you that there is plenty of stupid to go around. DArt is possibly more vocal about its beliefs, but is decidedly not less stupid.
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@zedvictor4
So, what's the difference between vegan food and carnivorous food.
Vitamin B12 is much more readily available in animal products than plants. If I recall correctly, most vegans either take supplements or use yeast-derived products.
I think that cutting down on meat consumption would be better overall for people, the environment, and unquestionably the animals.
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@Shila
Have you looked at your reflection, yet?
No, but I have a twin >:)
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@Shila
Jim Crow is a fictional character developed and popularized by Thomas Rice, and was most likely based on a black performer.
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@Shila
Would your opinions change if you did have a wife?After your exchange with Polytheist-Witch are you convinced Dart is some special haven for stupid people?
No to both.
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@Polytheist-Witch
1. I don't have a wife.
2. My SO doesn't like any old music so they would not care.
3. My point was that DArt isn't some special haven of "stupid" people, not that humanity is awful.
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@Polytheist-Witch
This is why this place is stupid.
I was just trying to preempt the inevitable "the Beatles were good/iconic/really popular back in the day" argument that I usually get when I bring up the Beatles. This happens to me in real life just as often as online. So if by "this place" you mean humanity, then I agree.
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3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 5:2 where A fills out MORE than 2x the rounds than B
The official Dart policy on forfeits:
"Repeated forfeitures waives the need to consider arguments (you still may, but by the choice of one side to miss at least 40% of the debate, the requirement ceases."
The requirement to consider arguments is waived, but a loss isn't a foregone conclusion. Theoretically if one had a knockdown argument in R1 and forfeited the rest, they could still win, albeit without Conduct points. I haven't personally seen this happen, but I have seen people lay down an argument in R1 that either never gets rebutted or was just too good to refute.
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@DebateArt.com
I think it would be nice to be able to filter banned users from the Leaderboards. And possibly also people who are super inactive (>1 years since last login)?
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The Beatles in general were OK. Most of their songs are kinda forgettable, there are a few I do like, but plenty of people were doing more interesting stuff at the time. I also prefer covers of their stuff cuz I just don't like their voices particularly. I'm not saying they shouldn't be remembered for what they did and how popular they were, but let's move on please.
Once again, they're not bad, just overrated.
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Boo hoo, they made a fictional character black. Sure, the original story was Danish or whatever, but mermaids definitionally don't live in Denmark, so they can be whatever ethnicity or mix of ethnicities the creators want. Its like complaining about having black Vulcans in Star Trek. There is no heritage or truth that's being "whitewashed" or "blackwashed."
Personally, I don't care either way. When Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall, I thought it was cool because Idris Elba is cool. When they cast Johnny Depp as Tanto, I thought it was fine because I like Johnny Depp as an actor. I love Hamilton, which famously casts POCs for many roles including Jefferson and Washington, but they're not pretending that Washington was black all along. In The Lone Ranger, Tanto is depicted as Native American. By comparison, the whitewashing of historical figures such as Jesus Christ is a lot more sinister, to the point that some Christians have used the claim that dark skin is the mark of Cain and/or the curse of Ham as a justification of the slave trade and white supremacy, while ignoring the fact that Jesus was Middle Eastern.
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@SkepticalOne
You can't have it both ways - either Jesus was born of a virgin or he had a biological father. Both cannot be true at the same time.
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@Shila
The issue is not that these categories don’t exist or are invalid, but that people apparently take issue at people describing themselves this way.
Correct again.
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@Shila
You are deliberately misunderstanding me. I am below average at football, not "skill, knowledge, and coordination" in general. I am well above average in intelligence and knowledge.
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@Lemming
I like it :)
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@Shila
If you consider gender as a description of sexual orientation, physical sex, and identify, there are a ton.
Correct.
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@Ehyeh
Humility in my eyes is only acceptable in defeat, not in any other part of your life as it will make you a complacent loser.
My apologies if it seemed like I was advocating for humility. At the bottom of my profile description you will find the phrase Tsuyoku naritai, which roughly translates to "I want to become stronger." Humility that limits your desire for improvement is abhorrent and should be destroyed. Pride that limits your desire for improvement is similarly abhorrent. Both can be destructive in this way, improper humility by thinking too little of yourself and believing that any effort on your part would be fruitless, and pride by thinking so much of yourself that you feel no attempt at improvement is necessary. The second doesn't necessarily apply to you, as your pride is in your ability to improve, so you are likely to continue seeking opportunities to do so. However, it's still really annoying to see some random guy on the Internet to declare himself "the best on the planet" at anything.
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@Ehyeh
What im really saying is in 10 years ill have the capacity to beat anyone on most topics.
I disagree based on the same reasons I outlined regarding reaching the top 10. I hope you continue to try to improve, regardless of my skepticism.
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@Shila
How would surrounding yourself with smarter people improve your lack of skill in football.
I have no desire to improve at football. I stopped playing after the second time I broke my glasses. Surrounding yourself with people smarter than you is highly motivating when it comes to intellectual development which I do desire to improve at.
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@Shila
So you believe there exist abnormalities that don't fit the regular XX and XY categories. These can result in all sorts of hormonal problems, irregular development of genitals and gonads, and irregularities in secondary sex characteristics. In short they are abnormalities.I am sure gays and LGBT do not consider their types abnormal. They would prefer to see that as sexual preferences.
I was not referring to sexual preference or any other aspect of the LGBTQ umbrella. I'm talking about genetic and karyotypic conditions such as
While there is likely at least some genetic influence on sexual preference, I have done little/no research on the topic, but it is very distinct from what I was clearly referencing.
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@Shila
Was showing humility your way of dealing with your below average in skill, knowledge, and coordination?
The point was that I applied humility before I actually knew how my skills compared, and I was still waaay off on how good I was. I am now well aware of my deficiencies in that field, and wouldn't define my current beliefs as humility, but honesty. I am quite proud of how intelligent I am, but surround myself by even smarter people wherever possible.
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@Ehyeh
You're a determinist Michael. Determinists will forever limit their potential.
I am not a determinist, at least not the way Google defines it.
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@Shila
I will tell you this exactly once. I do not condescend to respond to copy pasta. If you can't be bothered to actually respond to my points, then you might as well not exist from the viewpoint of intelligent debate. Do it again, and I will not respond.
Gender and sex are determined by a pair of chromosomes XX = Female. XY = Male.
You are about 40% right. Sex is determined by the expression of the sex chromosome pair, but as I pointed out in my previous post, there exist abnormalities that don't fit the regular XX and XY categories. These can result in all sorts of hormonal problems, irregular development of genitals and gonads, and irregularities in secondary sex characteristics.
Gender is a social construct that is often tied to physical characteristics related to sex, but is most importantly the things I said in my above post.
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I've said my mindset is better than most of humanities.
No. What you said was
my ability for evolution and growth is the best on the planet.
which sounds a lot more egotistical. And Dunning-Kruger doesn't just apply to intelligence, but any estimation of how your own skills/abilities/experiences compares to others. When I learned how to play football as a kid, I thought I was pretty good. My parents had spent a lot of time teaching me the importance of humility, so I modestly assigned myself as only the top 25% of kids my age. Then I went to middle school and realized that I was well below average in skill, knowledge, and coordination.
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I've seen KM and Mike for the most part.
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@Ehyeh
What's point? I don't care if I had 1000 losses and 2 wins. It doesn't change a thing, Shila. I know who I am. I know what I'm capable of and what I'm not. I'm not riddled with doubt, fear, and anxiety like most of humanity is.
Because of my mindset. I change my mind more than anyone else on this site. I actually learn things frequently from debates, i've come to notice this is a rare occurrence for most people.
Confidence is great, changing your mind is great, but neither are directly related to debate skill. I have no doubt that you will have improved in 10 years, as I have in the last ~3, but between base rates (~10/614, though you need to factor inactive users and any new people in the next 10 years) and your performance so far, it seems unlikely that you will ever break the top 10. I won my first 3 debates, and never dipped below a 50% win rate, but I put my own odds of making top 10 at less than half.
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Sex and gender are NOT synonyms. Stop conflating them. There are two regular biological sexes and several abnormalities often defined as intersex, but are more accurately defined as sex chromosome anomalies.
Gender is a social concept that varies from culture to culture and often determines stuff like social roles, sexual dominance, and pronouns. Pronouns are gendered, not sexed.
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@Shila
Why are Americans so fascinated by British classics?
What do you mean by that? Personally I find American "classics" by authors such as Fitzgerald, Salinger, and Steinbeck rather boring, alongside contemporary British authors such as Woolf or Forster. If we go further back to the 1800s, I actually vastly prefer Twain to Dickens, so I would say my bias is more American than otherwise. Rudyard Kipling was a favorite, but so was Jack London, who, despite the name, was an American. My preferences have much more to do with themes and genre than the nationality of the author, to the extent that I was only confident on about half of the above on from which country they hailed.
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@Avery
I'm glad you threw a funny hat into the air.
I didn't say I was a graduate. I'm literally studying this right now.
Tribes that were indifferent to rape would have a mixbag of genes.
That's a good thing. It's called genetic diversity.
Tribes that were against rape would have women select for favorable genes.
Once again, women don't select for genes, they select for attraction (which can correlate with genetic fitness but not reliably)
Over time, the selection of favorable genes will result in healthier, smarter and genetically fitter people.
Evolution doesn't select (directly) for intelligence or (after reproduction) even health. It selects for having the most offspring survive to have more offspring. That's why only 200 years ago people lived to 40 and had 7 kids on average.
This rape mentality fails the rapists in the long run, even if not immediately, because their bad genes aren't filtered out via female selection.
Evolution isn't capable of foresight. It works one generation at a time. So whatever has an evolutionary advantage in one generation will be promoted in the next, regardless of what's best in the long run. So once again, yes, rape has an evolutionary advantage as a reproductive strategy, similar to how to competing reproductive strategies exist for male cuttlefish. [1] And rape exists in other species, not just humans, though scientists like to call is sexual coercion instead. If there were an evolutionary advantage to use a different reproductive strategy, then rape would have ceased to exist.
But the proof is in the pudding anyway: we have intense feelings against rape; evolution has already selected against rapists. You're arguing against what is already established as fact.
Once again, anything with an evolutionary disadvantage doesn't stick around. The fact that rape has existed for all of recorded history and is shared by our closest relative, the chimpanzee, indicates that some amount of rape is able to meet a Nash equilibrium on reproductive fitness.
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@Avery
This [rape] hurts human evolution due to good and bad genes getting passed on, because women aren't selecting for the good genes. That's why people have moral aversions to rape -- it helps to select for the good genes.
You once again misunderstand what evolutionary advantage means. If your genes are more likely to be replicated than an alternative gene, then it has an evolutionary advantage. There are no good or bad genes from the perspective of evolution, only fit and unfit. If raping passes on your genes, then your genes have been promoted in fitness. If all babies born as a result from rape were killed, then the genes would be unfit, as they have an evolutionary disadvantage.
I'm a Biology major, so if you want to have this argument, we can.
women aren't selecting for the good genes.
Yes, attraction has a high correlation with genetic fitness. For instance, the reason men are more attracted to women with large hips is because they are more suitable for childbearing. However, it is only a correlation, not a perfect fit. Women aren't explicitly selecting for genes, otherwise people would care about sperm count more than penis length.
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@Avery
Rape is also evolutionary advantageous - it allows for one to expand their gene, which is the driving function of evolution.It's not evolutionarily advantageous. That's why people are shocked, disgusted and appalled by it. That's why you've used "rape" for its shock value to counter via Ad Absurdum, but it actually contradicts your argument.You are confusing these: (1) what is good for the individual, and (2) what is good evolutionarily speaking. I'm talking about (2), not (1). Rape may help the ugly, hopeless loser, but that doesn't help the gene pool in the long-run (hence, isn't evolutionarily advantageous).
You are correct that 1. what is good for the individual and 2. what is good evolutionarily speaking, are not the same things by definition. However, that doesn't mean that something can't be both. For instance, the concept of a family would fit both categories. If I am the mother of a family, I am personally benefited because I am able to receive help with child-rearing, from my spouse, parents, older children, or other extended family members. This benefits me directly, as well as the evolutionary advantage of the entire family, since our genetics are largely shared.
Assuming the most common variant of a male aggressor and a female victim (the pleasure part applies to all rape, but pregnancy is generally dependent on this scenario), rape definitely benefits an individual committing the act, as they receive sexual pleasure without the burden of marriage or child-rearing, but assuming the rape victim goes on to have a child from it, then rape has also served an evolutionary advantage by propagating the genetics of the rapist. Evolutionary advantage literally only cares about what contributes to the gene pool. It doesn't care if people are "shocked,
disgusted and appalled." If everyone was raping everyone, though, the advantage would be largely mitigated, as evidenced by the fact that some form of marriage has won out in most cultures. See Nash equilibrium.
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@Shila
Try not to get ahead of yourself.
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
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@Shila
I'd be first in line.
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