Tag: Persuasion

  • Black Lightning: Worth Watching

    In my social circles, there’s a lot of fans of both Marvel and DC’s TV universe. The fans of Agent Carter, The Flash, Supergirl (and the rest) are legion. But no-one seems to be all that interested in Black Lightning. I’d like to talk a little about why I think this show is worth your…

  • Punching Nazis

    Due to the recent rebranding of white supremacists, fascists, and nazis as “the alt-right” and their subsequent resurgence, there has been much hand wringing about ‘punching nazis’ as an appropriate response against those who are moving to enact genocide. This hand wringing holds echoes of the “just ignore them and they’ll go away” nonsense that…

  • Objection to the George Wainborn Park Ireland Canada Monument

    It’s come to my attention that there’s an organization pushing for a monument to be raised here in Vancouver, in George Wainborn Park, “for the sole purpose of providing recognition to the significant contribution of Irish Canadians and Canadians of Irish descent to Canada”. I object to this (and yes, I’m Irish) for a number of…

  • The Writing of Philosophy

    I’ve been thinking about the writing of philosophy, whose writing I enjoy the most, whose style I most wish to emulate, and I think that there isn’t just one philosopher who’s style I love. (all of the names that follow will be white and male, as I’ve been slowly going beyond what was available in…

  • Koukl’s Anti-Abortion Nonsense

    [Note to reddit visitors from /r/prolife: I haven’t ‘run away’ from my attempt at discussion on your forum, your mods have simply decided that ye are too fragile to discuss this topic and have banned me. If you would like to continue the conversation, you’re welcome to comment below.] I recently made the tactical error…

  • Being an Effective Devil’s Advocate

    Scene: a coffee shop where two people are in a heated discussion over a complex topic. Galina: “So you can see that, generally speaking, this is predominantly the case!” Bob: “No! What about this one time, that thing happened! That shows that you’re completely wrong!” Galina, confused: “I don’t understand what that has to do…

  • Beliefs Don’t Change in “Real-Time”

    An acquaintance of mine sent me a link to a conversation between Dan Dennett and Sam Harris, wherein Dennett attempts to explain the holes in Harris’s puerile arguments against the concept of “free will”. In any case, this particular post isn’t about Harris, but a particular point he reiterates repeatedly: that we can (and should)…

  • A Discussion of GMOs

    I recorded a podcast on srslywrong, and it was released last night. I’m fairly pro-GMO (generally speaking), so I was asked to take the pro-GMO side of a debate. It turned into more of a discussion of GMOs rather than a debate, and I’m pretty happy with the results. I’m interested in feedback here, but…

  • Walls of Words

    [This essay is going to focus primarily on the skeptic/atheist community, as that’s the community I mostly interact with. I’m sure it holds true for others too, so don’t read this essay as me claiming that this is somehow unique to skeptics and/or atheists. Additionally, this essay only applies to people who want to discuss things…

  • Rhetoric and Context

    How we argue with people sends signals to those around us. We are socially signalling the kind of person we are, and giving them cues as to whether or not they want to engage with us. This is, I think, an important point in rhetoric and persuasion, and can determine how we approach an argument. We…