Re: Thanks, and a Brief Survey

[Philip Van Hoof <pvanhoof gnome org>]

On Tue, 2010-01-19 at 01:49 +0000, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-01-18 at 13:08 +0100, Emilio Pozuelo Monfort wrote:
> > On 15/01/10 17:31, Philip Van Hoof wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2010-01-15 at 10:47 -0500, john palmieri wrote:
> > >> You always seem to devolve into ad-hominem, personal attacks.
> > >
> > > When a person falsely accuses Lefty of putting bias in his surveys THEN
> > > you apparently don't need to respond with the ad-hominem bomb??!!
> > 
> > Huh? If I say "Lefty, you're an idiot", that's ad-hominem, but if I say "Lefty, 
> > your survey is biased" it's not.
> 
> technically, no; if you were to say "Lefty's survey is biased because
> he's an idiot" then *that* would be ad hominem attack; but saying
> "Lefty's survey is biased because of <point of bias>" is *not* an ad
> hominem attack.

Correct.

This is why I asked for an intellectual argument for <point of bias>. 

Furthermore is the context of this discussion intentional bias, not just
bias.                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^

My quotes, to ensure that we don't loose context. Reducing the context
seems to be a sport around here:

a. Pointing to Lefty for being guilty of intentionally creating
   ambiguity is nothing more than ...    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

b. I disrespect people who claim that this last survey has intentional
   bias. For me they are being intellectually dishonest.   ^^^^^^^^^^^

No such intellectual argumentation has so far been given by anyone.
Instead has everybody devolved into discussing what the meaning of
ad-hominem is.

My point is that it is an ad-hominem attack when a person accuses
somebody of something without giving an intellectual argument that
proves it.

And then I question why this is being ignored.

Honestly, I don't know why it is so important to continue this branch of
the thread. Unless somebody has an answer to that real question.

The answer can be given in private too, by the way.

> and, though I feel moderately stupid[0] to even have to point this out:
> in no case an ad hominem attack on a person allows a third one to reply
> with an ad hominem attack.
> 
> ciao,
>  Emmanuele.
> 
> [0] obviously, I would feel entirely stupid doing so in a normal conses
> of people, but the medium does require some special hand-holding. The
> medium and some of the subscribers.

This is getting hilarious...

Your ethic is that in no case an ad hominem attack on a person allows a
third one to reply with an ad hominem attack.

And then you suggest that you need to lower to stupidity and do special
hand-holding for some of the subscribers. 

Meaning that you violate the very ethic that you are describing with it.

But then again, isn't it so that this discussion about what Philip said
ain't going anywhere?

Can this branch of the discussion thread now be closed? Or is it really
meaningful somehow? Because I don't see it.


Cheers,

Philip

-- 
Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer
home: me at pvanhoof dot be 
gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org 
http://pvanhoof.be/blog
http://codeminded.be