More like asks a question with a bunch of easy answers, then decides to move the goalposts when he gets those answers.

Most everyone in this post has presented valid reasons for why the qualifier "rare" is included in that slogan. However, instead of accepting them as answers, Pooh has then decided to engage them as arguments rather than as responses. Sometimes he merely dismisses them on conservative ideological grounds, based on assumptions he makes about the real intentions or real thought processes of people that disagree with him.

This is really what frustrates me about this subculture of trying to engage in "debates" on the OT. The people doing so certainly aren't doing so out of a desire to actually learn or test their arguments- that's given away by the fact that they use this forum instead of venues that are much better suited to the task. Moreover, they opt to ask questions here in bad faith that they could easily get answers for through a simple Google search. Education requires effort on the part of the learner, and you clearly don't see that on the "debates" on this site.

Rather, Glam, Pooh, and the rest, who attempt to present the Warlight Off-topic forum as a legitimate value for debate and discussion, are basically the Internet versions of those pseudo-intellectuals that argue against incoherent college freshmen instead of their actual peers. They're not looking to learn or to honestly challenge beliefs. Rather, they come here with the misguided belief that they've unearthed some form of enlightenment that reveals the stupidity of the Other Side. This doesn't even raise any alarms in their head, because they live in a fantasy universe where it would make sense to them that everyone around them is stupid or delusional. So stupid and delusional, in fact, that the most basic, unresearched arguments could topple their entire worldview.

Pooh isn't here to get real answers. He's certainly not here to give away 1000 coins. Instead, he's here to give us a glimpse into his reality- a world where about half the population (or more) is some group of delusional morons and he (and other people with some variation of "common sense") have gleaned the most basic insights about some controversial topic that reveal the other side to be completely, irredeemably wrong. Notice how much effort he's put not into the actual debate itself but into framing it in such a way that he has to put in no effort to shut down responses- because it's not enough for him to just find a venue where people are unlikely to put real effort into their responses, he also has to make sure he's stacked the deck against them.

Pooh, like Glam and the rest of these types of people, is a pathetic man who doesn't quite realize how much of an intellectual lightweight he is. Or perhaps he does. In either case, he's spent a major part of his time at this juncture of his life finding Internet bubbles where he can feel like he actually is much smarter than everyone around him, that he's one of the few who see the light in a society that's been taken over by crazy liberalism or some other purported socio-political disorder.

This isn't a debate or a discussion or a contest. It's a parade. It's where Pooh comes to merely validate his fantasy worldview and get that dopamine hit. It's where he comes to pretend that he's educating people or destroying risibly flawed liberal viewpoints, and he goes out of his way to hide the reality that he's not really doing jack shit. This whole farce of a thread is structured in such a way that it probably won't reveal the contradictions in Pooh's understanding of how the world works or what he's accomplishing here. Pooh lives in Wonderland, and he's throwing us a party here with all the right decorations so he can keep pretending we're still in Wonderland.

Pooh's just doing this to get his kicks- the feeling of "being right" instead of all the effortful thought it entails. He might not even realize it, and yet here we're presented this comical shell of a man. He might even go through his whole life like this- or gravitate to even crazier viewpoints that he's confident are easy to defend (see any Tabby thread for examples). Inside his head is the limp corpse of what a human intellect could have achieved. This contradiction- between what Pooh really is and what Pooh thinks he is- is only going to escalate as time goes on. And so to hide it, he keeps coming back here to share with us some basic observation that he probably didn't even have the capacity to generate himself.

Edited 4/18/2018 22:34:14

#knyte, I appreciate your detailed response.

You're still wrong.

it seems like an attempt to hold women morally accountable but ofc we know thanks to modern feminism that this is sexist

the real answer is because the women who are getting abortions are aborting away their future voting bloc tbh

Okay, knyte, my previously terse reply was in jest as I was on my phone. Now that I'm in front of my computer, I will try to explain why your answers are not correct.

I'm also going to respond to you without personal attacks on you, something you have not extended the courtesy to me. Generally, when I'm being attacked like that, its because the person talking to me is a bit dumb, but I don't want to assume in this case... because we all know what happens when you assume.

I'll spill the beans. I really just want to understand the motivation of why someone would take the position that something should be safe and legal, yet still rationed.

You've provided 3 cases, and an idiot's description of opportunity cost. (Notice I didn't call you an idiot, just describing what you provided as something that an idiot would provide. I'm sure you could have come up with a better description, but chose not to.)

So, using your description of Opportunity Cost and applying it to each of the 3 examples you provided, every single one of them provides no value to the life that is being ended.

--Gilman --- a horrible experience for the mother and fetus. Yes, so horrible for the mother. Consider my wife just had the exact same procedure (the only difference was that the baby had already died of natural causes in utero, and was not hacked to pieces or sucked out with a vacuum by a doctor while it was alive) and I can tell you its really not that horrible of a procedure from a medical standpoint. 15 minutes, light anesthesia, soreness for 24 hours and heavy flow at the next cycle. A horrible experience for the fetus? Really, what part of being cut in pieces or sucked up with a vacuum is horrible? I do it all the time.

Here, I'm not advocating from a position of pro-life, I'm just saying, Gilman fully acknowledges that it may be 'awful' for the fetus, but when deciding between which steak to have at a proper Texas BBQ, he's choosing to eat the steak that someone shat on rather than one slightly overcooked on the grill. This is not a logically consistent position to have. Again, I ask, is Gillman that stupid that he doesn't realize how stupid of a position he is in?

And to further deconstruct your 'trauma' argument, the person with lung cancer either randomly got it due to dumb luck, or more likely increased his chances of having lung cancer by smoking. In one event, just dumb luck, and the other, they increased their chances of needing the surgery. In neither event, is an innocent third party brought into the world by the conscious act of another cut into pieces.

Moving to your 2nd reference. What sin is committed during an abortion? Presumably none, right? Now, I get that you can separate legal acts from moral acts. Yet, this argument seems to acknowledge that the person sinning (e.g., the lady that has a clump of cells growing in her, the MD) is actually doing something wrong. So, moving on to this safe and legal (but rare because its a sin) argument.

You seem to place a lot of stock into the free-will argument to support the 2nd positions. I posit its a morally bankrupt position to be. You first acknowledge a sin is being committed, but justify that sin because free-will is better than no sin. So, take the first part... as sin is committed... presumably murder. The very definition of murder is an unlawful premeditated taking of another person's life. (Note to Knyte:, I learned that in Law School, graduating with honors with all of the other intellectual lightweights). Dropping abortion into the 'lawful' bucket would technically take it out of the 'murder' category, but you're still talking about premeditated taking of another person's life in order to support this position that abortion is a sin, but free-will is more important.

So, to completely deconstruct the 2nd position, A religious person is advocating that one type of 'murder' should be legal because free will. Again, at the risk of setting up a strawman, I presume this person would not advocate knyte taking me to the doctor because I have an inferior intellect level. So, what is it about this one type of murder that allows it to be legalized? Once you've acknowledged you're committing a sin, you kinda sunk your own boat for promoting that this should be a legal procedure.

Now, to bury the hatchet into your 3rd position. This is the most honest one. She acknowledges that the only reason she would get an abortion is if her life were in danger. Here, we actually have an opportunity cost analysis that is on par with the taking of a life

Aside: I keep saying 'taking a life,' 'abortion kills a baby' and the like, not because I take the view that abortions are taking a life and kill babies. I say it because the position of having 'safe, legal, and rare' abortions is such a logically inconsistent position. Not to be repetitive, but if you're advocating for abortion rights, then you should think of an abortion as taking a big sh*t (credit to the plant masturbation expert for this analogy). If you think of it as anything other than removing a lump of cells (which you are free to do) then the only logical position to be (AND HENCE WHY I MADE THIS THREAD) was to find out what possible twisted contrition of logic would permit you to have this position. I would love to have it presented to me here, but you, Knyte, have failed and will NOT be getting 1000 gold coins. I'm also perfectly fine with you having the position (because its logically consistent at least in the fact that you are not qualifying that it should be rare) that abortions should be safe, legal, free, subsidized by tax payers, handed out for Halloween, etc. if you think that having an abortion is like taking a sh*t. This isn't to say that I'll have a separate debate with you about when life actually begins. I'll actually pay out 1200 coins to the person that has the right answer to that.

So, back to the opportunity cost analysis of your 3rd provided position. She presumes that it is her life or the babies life. Now, you actually have a true comparison. It reminds me a lot of the higher math that I did while getting a Mechanical Engineering degree, again with honors with a lot of other intellectual nincompoops). In those theories, we would have to determine relative values of certain equations as variables approached limits, like infinity. When comparing X^2 / 2*X, it would reduce to just X as it approaches infinity, not X/2. The 2 in the 2*X denominator was so inconsequential as compared to the X^2 in the numerator. Just like doing a comparison between being uncomfortable for 24 hours and needing an extra pad is inconsequential to being hacked in pieces while still alive.

So, the 3rd position starts out okay, comparing one life to another life. ("But but but one life is an actual life and the other is a potential life" I hear you snivel, let me cut it off with this. But for taking an action to end the potential life, the potential life would have proceeded through a natural course of events to become an actual life. You may have very thin ice to stand on with the potential life v. the actual life argument, but again, I don't think this is where the 3rd argument is derived from. Nor do I think its germane to the debate that I'm having (Yes, this is a debate in case you haven't noticed... you're not winning, but its a debate nonetheless))

This is a very good analysis. Is my life worth the life that could come to be that's growing inside me? Not all mothers will choose the same. It is very important to have free will to determine the outcome in such an event. So, here, you could qualify that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare because they are only permitted in the cases where the mother's life is actually at risk. This will be determined by an independent board of doctors appointed to verify the threat to the mother's life, because it is the government's job to protect life, liberty, and property, and that extends especially to the life that is about to be exterminated to support the mother's continued life. However, she doesn't stop there. She puts a stopper in the door from allowing it to completely close (saying its okay because life of the mother seems to be a viable exception) and then slams the door wide open, stating that other women may not share her values. This is a bankrupt position.


So Knyte, again, I do appreciate you taking time to attempt to put up good arguments of how someone could hold this position. Unlike you, I presume people are generally intelligent. (You do know what happens when you assume, like when you assumed I wasn't intelligent?)

I didn't accept the proposed answers because they are all BS. I find it hard to believe that many people would hold such a logically inconsistent position. However, I do suspect a lot of people's morals because I know there's a lot of sin, and that there is free will to choose to sin. Case in point, you have imputed a lot of bad things about me. I am trying to have a debate. Yet, you are attempting to shut me down by calling me stupid, saying I'm insincere, and the like. You could have put up your points and had a debate about it, but you choose to silence someone that has a different, (and as I've proved so far, more correct) point of view than you.

When I've been made the recipient of personal attacks detached from the issue, that's generally how I know I've made my point, even if the person spewing insults at me is too stupid to know it.

Edited 4/19/2018 19:28:02

Abortion is a backup method to contraception. Therefore, only planned pregnancies would exist. The ~1% is the contraception that did not work + non-consensual are the only not planned.

If one parent is carrier of a genetic defect, they can in theory create child artificially instead of rolling "the dice". Artificial insemination is usually carried for that end. It is faster than prenatal testing + abort + repeat method. Some genetic defects = disease, others are predispositions. There are maybe better ways to play with genetics or there will be in the future.

A planned pregnancy would not carry to term if there are spontaneous changes (relationships, money, fetal defects). In an ideal world, abortions would only have have to be carried on planned pregnancies.

In U.S., the rate of intended pregnancies is about 55%. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states

There are different politics around the world for + ( contraception ) and - ( unintended pregnancy ).


I also suppose that in life, it rarely goes as planned. If you have money problems, you can maybe give away child to relatives instead of abortion and waiting for better times.

Edited 4/19/2018 19:44:26

Like I said, I'm not here to debate you. I'm not going to be complicit in your attempt to prop up and maintain some illusion of intellectual, moral, and ideological superiority.

Those were not personal attacks but simply my assessment of what you're actually doing here. We both know- and I'm saying this without any speculation beyond mere deduction based on the venue and the effort you've put into framing this thread in certain ways- that this thread does not share the basic fundamental intent of education and discourse that characterizes debate.

I find it disconcerting, however, that you've doubled down on this facade by now pretending that the Other Side is merely here to insult you and spout bullshit arguments (+1 for "I'm not calling you an idiot, just saying you walk, talk, and quack like one"). You're propping yourself up as not only an intellectual (the sane man in a room of children) but as a reasonable person attempting to engage with a crazy society (simply "trying to understand" the other side, when we both know damn well that this is not anywhere close to what a sincere attempt at doing so would look like)- just another facet of the worldview you're trying to construct and maintain here. Doing so, of course, requires blindness, and here we see quite a bit of it. If you were the reasonable, sane man here to truly attempt to understand the Other Side and shatter its fundamentally, egregiously flawed understanding of the world- reminiscent of an Athenian attempting to co-opt Socrates' gadfly- then you would not be so desperate and transparent in focusing on characterizing the Other Side as depraved or stupid:

-Would they not have the intellectual capacity to acknowledge their own logical inconsistency?
-Are they trying to appease people from the other side rather than taking a principled stance?
-Are they just morally reprehensible people that deep down think that abortions are killing babies, but for political gain support having abortions?

This is the world you want to construct and impose, and so I'm only here to challenge that illusion rather than legitimize your idiotic attempt with the appearance of reasoned debate. I understand that you will not find these reasons convincing and that you will probably label even this with your favorite allegation of logical inconsistency. However, this is my stance and my explanation for why I do not wish to engage you here as if this really were an attempt at debate.

My first response will remain as the sole abortion-related post I make on this thread, and even that was not concerned so much with abortion as with your transparent dishonesty regarding your illusion of those who disagree with you on the abortion debate. You're not a debater or an intellectual, merely an illusionist- a cheap street magician who can't even master more than the basic tricks, a man who can only fool lightweights and himself while the crowd gazes on in awe not at your talent but at your woeful penchant for self-delusion and your pitiful belief and pretense that the magic is working, that somehow the world is really like what you present (and perhaps even believe) it to be.

You're even backed into a corner now, not even creative enough to do something other than exactly what I said you'd do- engage those three people's viewpoints as arguments, decry them as "morally bankrupt," and then pretend your own poorly-constructed response somehow makes it impossible for someone to sincerely hold those viewpoints. To reiterate, nearly everyone in this thread has presented you with valid reasons that someone could have for sincerely holding those viewpoints- but instead of acknowledging that, you're actually going around vicariously debating those third parties. Because that's the setup- your worldview is not secure enough for you to directly engage in debate on the topic, so you've created this game to validate it where you have degrees of separation. The actual pro-choice ("safe, legal, and rare") proponents aren't here making their own arguments- someone else is echoing them in this farce where you take the role of an authority figure with coins to throw at them. Moreover, they aren't even being presented or defended as arguments- rather as observations about the sincerely-held beliefs of other people. So you get those two degrees of separation, a nice little bullet-proof vest while you get to break the rules of your own set-up and directly engage in pretend-debate against opponents that are not here and arguments that aren't being argued.

This is just so fucking transparent, man. I know I've been using the word "pathetic" quite a bit in my responses to you, but I have to because that's what this is- just plain, fucking pathetic.

In short, I'm only here to piss you off. You'll probably read this and think that you've "won" some sort of (hollow) intellectual victory, like the kind you set you to feel when you made this thread. If so, go ahead and prance to celebrate that moment of dopamine and joy- it'll make that gnawing realization of your pathetic life feel that much less painful when the horror finally sets in.

Edited 4/19/2018 20:02:19

Pooh, like Glam and the rest of these types of people, is a pathetic man who doesn't quite realize how much of an intellectual lightweight he is.
-Knyte

Those were not personal attacks but simply my assessment of what you're actually doing here.
-also Knyte

If you want anyone to take you seriously, quit presenting yourself as an idiot.

You fail to show me a logically consistent position that supports advocating for safe, legal, and yet for some unexplained reason, rare, abortions.

I've given you enough chances to try for your 1000 coins. No further responses from you will be evaluated to redeem the 1000 coins.

Also, Hostile had the best answer.

I couldn't figure out how to get him 1000 coins (a $10 value) so I bought him a year membership ($15 value).

You know, I got a good job that makes a lot of money, along with all of the other intellectual lightweights I work with.

Thanks all for playing, even those that really never had a chance.

Wow! Any tips on how I could get the sort of elite job that would allow me to save up US$15? I'd also like to cultivate hobbies like validating myself and flexing my income through fake debates on a site that's somehow an even worse venue than Facebook.

Edited 4/19/2018 20:18:13

@knyte, the only reason you're calling it fake is because I've proved with logical reasons that you cannot refute, that you gave bad answers to my questions.

I paid out to Hostile because he made a good statement that was logically sufficient.

I pointed out that I paid Hostile to prove that this was a real question and that you were wrong.

I pointed out that I have a good job, with a requirement to be a bit smart to hold said job, to prove that you were wrong again.

Would you like to keep going on this crappier-than-Facebook venue, or have you had enough?

Also, I couldn't tell if those were supposed to be insults to me and Fizzer, or were you just 'debating' again? (FYI, there's no sarcasm font here, is there?)

You've sufficiently proven yourself unworthy of further response. 3 strikes, you're out.

Which is too bad. I would have loved to taken you up on your pro-abortion pro-extinction position. I'm SURE it would have been riveting.

(FOUND THE SARCASM FONT!!!!)

Edited 4/19/2018 20:29:30

This is actually hilariously ironic. You get called out on not doing this sincerely so you decide to dump $15 on Hostile (congrats). Plus you get to play the I'm-not-an-idiot-I-make-money card. Pretty smart move, right?

Except for this part:

I couldn't figure out how to get him 1000 coins

Nothing says serious intent like promising a prize that can't be given and then scrambling for an alternative. Sure made me eat crow there.

Don't forget to not respond to this, btw. This is the second or third time you've told me you'll be ignoring all future responses from me, and you sure seem like someone who's honest about his intentions. Plus a man of your intellect and smart-person income probably doesn't have time for this nonsense. :)

[REGL] Pooh,

There is a tradition in the West which dates back at least to the time of Augustine of Hippo, that there are times when a kingdom or civil government should tolerate acts which are morally wrong, because not doing so would bring about some greater evil. This argument was made explicit by the theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas,

Now human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2096.htm#article2

In the context of the question of whether it was proper to tolerate the practice of Judaism, which Thomas held to be proper, he famously quotes Augustine's assertion regarding prostitution. Augustine says (De Ordine ii, 4): "If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust."

I bring this up because this very argument was used by the former Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo. It should be noted that in doing so he was contradicting the statements of Catholic teaching on the subject of abortion and infanticide dating back at least to the second century. Nonetheless he did make this argument. It might grant his position more substance to note that it is not uncommon for those who hold something like the pro-life view to make an exception for women who have been raped, or in cases of incest. The argument in that case would be that, by forcing a women who had become pregnant because of rape to carry the child to term, one would be further depriving her of the freedom and autonomy which aught to be a birth rite for all people.

There are other situations where this line of reasoning is more compelling, as in the establishment of needle exchange facilities for those who use illegal drugs. By giving clean needles to the users of illegal drugs their unlawful acts are being encouraged, but at the same time the spread of deadly diseases is being thwarted. Mike Pence, at one time rejected the idea that needle exchange programs were good policy, until a massive outbreak of H.I.V. cases gave him cause to rethink his position.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/us/politics/mike-pence-needle-exchanges-indiana.html

Edited 4/20/2018 02:28:57

Hey man, I actually had the best answer. Leftists don't want to go around aborting black babies. The majority of white people don't believe their arguments so they have to exploit the will to plunder and the will to conquer of non whites. They want abortions (which disproportionately affect non whites) to be rare so that population can grow in size and win elections for the left.

Edited 4/20/2018 07:34:20

Knyte is upset that his title as most pretentious person on the forum has been challenged by pooh

I agree with abortion. /endargument

Abortion...the only thing I could think off about it is this sad reality from my country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770

Also this thing : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgZJ-IV8Et0 (it's worth watching)

more babies, more poor people, more manpower, more consumption, more money