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?
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?