Which is most evil: Circumcision, Abortion, Gay Marriage, Americans, filosofers

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher
I dare you to live in a world where where was no standardized dictionary and all words mean something different based on whoever says it.

I take it your school has a particularly weak linguistics department?

OMG Asher Kuci is so pwning you. This is your chance to back away now!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
I dare you to live in a world where where was no standardized dictionary and all words mean something different based on whoever says it.

Done.

Now, I dare you to stop being an idiot and consider that just maybe "you used a word incorrectly!" isn't a strong rebuttal for a moral argument.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Now, I dare you to stop being an idiot and consider that just maybe "you used a word incorrectly!" isn't a strong rebuttal for a moral argument.

Dude, Kuci, in what world do you need "strong rebuttals" when making snipes?

The entire point of the post was to show he was using the word incorrectly. The entire argument thereafter was started by people who did not comprehend that.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
OMG Asher Kuci is so pwning you. This is your chance to back away now!

Kuci is but a boy in a man's world. He doesn't know what he's talking about, and now he's squirming himself (notice his use of "idiot" repeatedly).

And, change your avatar.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
Dude, Kuci, in what world do you need "strong rebuttals" when making snipes?

As long as you admit your argument had no weight, fine by me

The entire point of the post was to show he was using the word incorrectly.

The funny thing is, a huge proportion of the population would disagree with you.

Jesus, man, we aren't ****ing France. We don't have a central authority on our language. And even there, I'm sure "person" has shades of meaning including "a being that I believe should be accorded certain rights," a completely personal definition.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher
And, change your avatar.

Why, I like it. Ted can have it back when he returns.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The funny thing is, a huge proportion of the population would disagree with you.

>50% of the population in the "western" world does agree with me, which qualifies as "general consensus", which makes my snipe accurate and makes you an idiot for fighting me on it.

[Kuciwalker]

The statement that fetuses are people is nearly equivalent to the statement that you believe they [should] have rights.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
The statement that fetuses are people is nearly equivalent to the statement that you believe they [should] have rights.

You don't say?

It's almost like I was belittling a cause with my post by ignoring the morality and filosofical underpinning of everything and turning into a simple binary decision.

Yes, I'm the idiot here.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
>50% of the population in the "western" world does agree with me, which qualifies as "general consensus", which makes my snipe accurate and makes you an idiot for fighting me on it.

consensus
noun
agreement in the judgment or opinion reached by a group as a whole

Funny, that doesn't say a strict majority.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Spiffor
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ionLawsMap.png

Chile's lame.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
You don't say?

It's almost like I was belittling a cause with my post by ignoring the morality an filosofical underpinning of everything and turning into a simple binary decision.

Yes, I'm the idiot here.

More sophisticated and intelligent posters usually try not to argue something false even when sniping.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Funny, that doesn't say a strict majority.

The general consensus is a consensus is reached in a majority situation, see: political systems.

[Kuciwalker]

The other posters should have ignored your post like it deserved, but given that they attacked it and you defended it (squirming away as best you could), in the balance you've lost.

I find it amusing you retreated into another fatally flawed argument with Drake.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Spiffor seems to think that definitions are related to what people mean, and that a definition written down is a book isn't a particularly firm basis for a moral code.

Pretty much.

There's a big difference between something tangible, and the word we use to define it. Especially in daily life. People have different perceptions of the same word (sometimes those perceptions are just a nuance away - sometimes they are completely at odds, like the definition of "person").

This is why science takes painstaking steps to have an extremely rigorous language. So that scientists can be fairly confident, when they read the work of somebody else's, that they understand the same thing as what was written. So that the message is tranmitted as purely as possible despite the subjectivity of the author and the subjectivity of the reader.

In daily life, dictionaries contibute to give a common ground between people indeed, so that they agree on the basic meaning of words. However, these definitions don't have any inherent truth in them. And they're only authoritative as far as people choose to trust them.

For a controversial topic, such as what defines personhood, the dictionary is useless: either it lists the main opposing arguments (sentience, soul, individual dna...), or is biased toward one specifically, or avoids the controversy entirely.

As such, using definitions in an argument will only have argumentative value if the other wants to share the same definitions as you do. For example, if a fellow computer scientist misunderstood some concept and made false conclusions from them (which lead to bad results, which he wants corrected), then it will be useful to reaffirm the definition of the concept.

But on ethical matters? It's just as useful as arguing with Agathon against macs.