From: Wei Dai (weidai@eskimo.com)
Date: Sat May 25 2002 - 02:48:16 MDT
On Thu, May 23, 2002 at 11:43:10PM -0700, Hal Finney wrote:
> It strikes me as bizarre that you would respond in your "open letter"
> to Gina in such a superficially friendly and open way, but completely
> ignore the main issue of contention between you. If you were actually
> feeling as friendly as your tone suggested, wouldn't it be honest to
> openly address the issues which Gina has raised above?
I have to say I'm more sympathetic to Lee Corbin's situation than you are.
What if you were in his shoes? Suppose you came to the conclusion that a
very popular philosophical position is incorrect. After explaining your
ideas on the Extropians mailing list, you're met with emotional responses
expressing revulsion and distress and calls for censorship, and trying to
defend your ideas only seems to cause more emotional distress. What would
you do?
I don't agree with Lee's ideas, but I don't think they deserve to be
buried under a barrage of emotional outbursts either. Let's just discuss
them calmly and rationally.
I would like to challenge everyone here to avoid phrases like "it churns
my stomach to consider ...", "I'm nauseated by the thought of ...", or "I
can't bear think that ...". I believe a simple "I strongly disagree with
you because ..." works much better to bring your ideas across.
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