From: Alex Ramonsky (alex@ramonsky.com)
Date: Fri Aug 16 2002 - 02:06:26 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> On Thursday, August 15, 2002, at 06:09 am, Alex Ramonsky wrote:
>
>> Yikes, that makes it difficult the other way round, too...Like if any
>> of us have an idea to discuss or a question, and if we ask it, we get
>> thought of as 'trolling' -_Especially_ if we come out of a debate
>> having changed our minds...
>
>
> That is not the complaint. Changing people's minds is one of the main
> reasons we debate on this list. Most people would be thrilled if
> their carefully crafted arguments changed the minds of other people.
Yeh, I get that, but I think sometimes we might forget to mention that
it's happened...I mean, my questions about being rude and protocol
changed my mind about a lot of things but I never bothered to say what
or how or even thankyou. People might assume I was playing with them
because I never concluded that...that's all I meant.
>
> The complaint is when someone says, "OK, I fooled you all. I never
> really believed what I claimed. I just wanted to see all the
> responses I could trigger. I'm not really going to debate any of your
> well-researched posts, since I really don't care about the position I
> claimed. You wasted your time researching and responding to me.
> Thanks for playing."
I can understand this from an amoral researcher's point of view...If I
want to do an experiment, say, on what percentage of people have a
knee-jerk reaction to, say, homophobia, I can't go through the streets
wearing a t shirt with 'all gays are sick' written on it to see those
reactions because I'll get my head kicked in; everybody will think I
mean it. But I can post that message on this list and count my
knee-jerkers and only _then_ can I tell everyone it was an
experiment...even if I warn you beforehand there was something
unspecified being tested, you lot are bright enough to guess what it
might be and spoil my results.
So what you are really objecting to is being used as a guinea-pig
without your consent...and this is a very nasty thing for anybody to do
to anybody, I agree. I'd shoot 'em. (JOKE! : ) )
>
>
> What's worse is when people argue that this is a useful technique and
> they plan to keep fooling us in the future. It makes me question
> whether I should put any effort into responding or not.
Well if they own up at least you know who's posts to doubt in future! I
think if their explanation was full and clear and they shared with all
participants the results of these so-called 'tests', I wouldn't mind at
all. Then we could _all_ learn something about ourselves. But I'm not
into the idea of anyone testing _my_ reactions / personality / emotional
control or whatever and doing a Craig Venter on me with the bloody
results. If you really think people are playing with you in this way I
should come right out with it in the open and talk it through. Anyone
acting from sound motives will have an honest and sensible explanation
for their actions.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:09 MST