Just wondering

Thoughts on this -skipping the last two frames-? Type these out before going any further. I don't care about the religious vs scientific view, it's the idea of letting people think what they want and realizing who it does and does not affect.

Now do not change your original opinion. I'm going to assume you find yourself saying 'yeah ok' to this. Yet as we continue to go about our lives, posting on a forum, I find there are two basic categories of threads that I commonly see -note there are others-: Discussions and Ice breaker games. Now, there are two sub categories in each, but I'm gonna skip the ice breakers. Under discussions, we have intelligent discussions that just sorta die and stupid arguments that either blow up or don't come to an end -s'pose I could call that three sub topics. The way I see it, neither of these are rather productive.

Now, think back to your last few discussions. Was one of them the type that degraded into a flame war? Perhaps you were presenting ideas, but the argument had become quite long and it was getting a bit beyond heated -ie you were actually getting mad about it. Whatever it may be, I see these threads quite a bit, where one disagreement post turns into a slew of responses that no one should really care about. It really makes me wonder why we post on forums, because either the arguments get out of hand or nothing comes from a discussion. Perhaps we aren't discussing the right things.

I'll be the first to admit I've gotten into many a flame war -sometimes the instigator/troll, other times the guy who jumped in, and still others the one who got mad, but as I read this comic, I really began to realize the futility of it all. The big question is "Someone is wrong/has a different opinion than I do on the internet. Why should I care?"

Now watch nothing come from this thread except a bunch of 'I agree.'s Maybe a few other takes on the idea. Take from this what you will. Now without any further adieu, post.

I know exctly what you're saying. Even though I would really like talking about some of the threads in SD, I'm rearely there anymore because it's just such a spam fest.

I believe in always looking at both sides of an argument. Because of this, I will often play devil's advocate in one sided discussions hoping that other people will consider it as well. But almost very time azll I get back is border line flaming saying I'm wrong, and how could I htink this. Of course that'll end up happening in any SD thread anyways these days.

The thing that really bugs me about all this arguing is that one or both sides is always arguing based on multiple fallacies, and it's usualy the one initiating it. Discussion would go much better if people would just breathe, think out a sound argument, and stopped getting pissed off because people do/don't have religious beliefs, opinions on a "good" game, or generaling disagring with them.

I think SuperDecimal sid it best in this post. I couldn't agree more with it. He's specifically talking about the thoerists, but it can easily be applied to any other section as well (except CC, since we al know that's the best section)

It's important to note that any discussion-whether in real life or on the internet-only functions when all members have mutual respect for each other and the others' opinions. This is why the mild debates do well in SD: too many people don't normally have this respect but don't see these as something to fight over. If you have ever been in a debate in which the other member(s) has/have no regard for why you see something to be correct, chaos is formed. (This happens in every single Darwinism or gay rights debate here and-forbid it must happen-any debate between two particular friends and me.)