Gordon wrote: [i]" I shall try to use less temperate language in the future, you son of a silly person. " [/i]
LOL! ;-) ... Gordon, I think perhaps you need some lessons if you are wanting compete in the kind of "Heated" which gets Peter (or me) really going! ;-)
"you son of a silly person" has at least a 50/50 chance of completely missing the mark.. any 'insult' carried in this comment applies only to the parent/s - and depending on the relationship, may actually be agreed with..
Changing the word order to "You silly son of a person" has a better chance of being a direct hit.. but even here, the word "silly" is unlikely to cause a strong reaction in most cases.. Words like stupid, arrogant, assenine, self-righteous, or even [b]religeos[/b] are more likely to do the trick! ;-)
But the real trick is to never use intemperate language, and still manage to [b]be so annoying [/b][i] (by using 'valid' arguments, or using dirty tactics which go unnoticed - like focussing on some irrelevant feature in your opponents posting and effectively changing the argument or emphasis to one you can win, or one which is extremely annoying to your opponent)[/i] [b]that you cause your opponent/s to use intemperate language[/b] - If you can do this, you have usually 'won'.
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[Perhaps I was a little too subtle in the above 'words you could use instead of silly'.. I know you deliberately picked 'silly' just to be silly ;-) .. I am demonstrating here how to pick a word in someones posting, deliberately twist it and / or assign something 'deeper' to it, and therebye be extremely annoying without saying anything 'objectionable' (I am absolutely sure you would have no difficulty finding a more intemperate word than silly, if you had wanted to.. ;-) - As you know, the word 'stupid' was recently the subject of deep interpretation elsewhere, which led to great annoyance..]
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Looking at the kind of 'insults' used on Levnet, and how these are dealt with, I strongly doubt that you could use intemperate enough words here on TW that would raise the temperature sufficiently without the excellent moderation of the TW staff pouring water on the fire long before it erupted.
Thank you, Jason and John, for keeping TW a Theremin site free from gross abuses and personal indulgence.. Yeah, it may not be so much fun for those of us who like playing this silly game, but it is certainly better for the majority who visit TW to discuss Theremin related issues.
Fred.
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In my view, the best debates are ones where all parties are passionate about, and have good understanding of the subject. If these people also have the desire to test their opinions, and the willingness / ability to change or modify their viewpoint in the light of valid arguments presented by other parties, then the whole process is mutually beneficial.. The debate is ended when arguments are exhausted, and all parties leave with better understanding of both their own positions and those of their competitors.. Everyone wins, whether they change their view or not.
