From: Martin Ling (martin@nodezero.org.uk)
Date: Thu May 18 2000 - 03:50:59 MDT
On Wed, May 17, 2000 at 10:56:32PM -0400, Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> I am beginning to question whether rational discussion can occur on a list
> such as this. How do we hold rational discussions with people who don't
> understand the basic rules of logic, debate, semantics or scientific method?
> How do we hold definitions and examples constant? How do we keep debates
> from evolving to back and forth banter that is so far removed from the
> original positions, that nobody even understands what is being discussed
> anymore?
Anonymous posting.
Set up a hotmail account and provide everyone here with the password.
One person posts a question or conjecture for discussion, from that
address. Following that, everyone who wishes to comment on it does so
from the same address, and doesn't sign their post. You will have to
watch out for your writing style if it is particularly distinctive.
I tried this once with some friends on another list. It was extremely
interesting and productive. We kept it up for quite some time, but
learned enough from doing it to be able to go back to posting ourselves.
In fact, here goes. I've arranged it on Yahoo:
Login at: http://mail.yahoo.com/
User: anon_extropian
Pass: extropian
I don't mean to insult anyone by doing this. But give it a try - it's an
interesting exercise.
Martin
-- +--------------------------------------------------------+ | Martin J. Ling Tel: +44 (0)20 8863 2948 | | martin@nodezero.org.uk Fax: +44 (0)20 8248 4025 | | http://www.nodezero.org.uk Mobile: +44 (0)7940 482675 | +--------------------------------------------------------+
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