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0 pointsjanalsncm3d ago0 comments

For the record,

> Funny, but you could argue this is actively harmful to the web.

Was not followed by an actual argument that it is harmful to the web. The comment was an assertion, not an argument.

So we are left in the inconvenient position of rejecting hypothetical arguments, and others defending the philosophical possibility that a valid argument does exist.

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Eisenstein3d ago

Without the argument being explicit then there can be no retort to it, so closing your mind before hearing it demonstrates that the argument itself is irrelevant. One could thus conclude that the existence of a valid argument is not itself a condition for my question.

janalsncmOP3d ago

We also shouldn’t close our minds to the possibility of an eigen-retort, one which covers all possible arguments already made or argued in the future regarding the consequences of this website on the health of the Internet.

Someone who is aware of the eigen-retort would therefore not need to hear the argument.

Since I haven’t heard either the hypothetical argument or the hypothetical eigen-retort yet, I’ll withhold my judgement.

Eisenstein3d ago

I concede that the my question was loaded, but the assumptions behind it are grounded in practical experience. Regardless, I have not committed myself either to the existence of an argument, I just stated that its existence was not a condition for the validity of my question for SwellJoe. The statement which was made can mean a number of possible things, but we cannot know what unless the question is answered. So the existence of the retort is revealed by the question, and until that reveal we are limited to questions or assumptions.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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Eisenstein3d ago

janalsncmOP3d ago

Someone who is aware of the eigen-retort would therefore not need to hear the argument.

Since I haven’t heard either the hypothetical argument or the hypothetical eigen-retort yet, I’ll withhold my judgement.

Eisenstein3d ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse