. It may also seem that I (perhaps) bounce around in my opinions. Lastly, I often throw in a lot of snark. This probably can come off as quite disrespectful, especially if my message is a bit trollish to begin with.I wanted to apologize for this if it gets on any of your nerves, first off. So if my posts are often more irritating than enlightening, sorry for souring the atmosphere. This board is an oasis in a desert of thoughtless internet drivel To the degree that my snark has pulled it down into the gutter, I am risking pushing away our best posters, and attracting more of the worst of others. If you've ever felt repelled out of a conversation by the way I banter, I really am sorry.
I can't completely explain my snarkitude, but I've adopted a bit of a framework that helps me think about subjects, and as I get better at it, I get more and more annoyed when others don't use it. As you all probably figure by now, I tend to appreciate logical consistency to the degree it can be applied, or at least to acknowledge if we think we are being inconsistent for some reason. I think there is a logical path at thinking through arguments, and that logical systems should be used in debates. So here goes. I hope this adequately explains where I'm coming from...
1) Establish simple facts
2) Establish likely cause/effect relationships
3) Establish preferred states
4) Use logic to come up with behavior conclusions based on premises established in #1, #2, and #3.
5) Maintain perspective to materiality and other preferred states
To summarize in more detail:
1) Come to a point of knowledge AND agreement on simple statements of fact:
It's hard enough arguing with a good set of data to work with. Let's at least take the time to get the pertinent facts sorted out, and find out where one of us might be incorrect about a historical or scientific fact. A few of these might be:
- Tax rates in 1960
- Timing of events bringing us into WWII
- Crime rates over time in a geographic areas
- The holocaust happening and its severity
- Executive orders issued by Barack Obama or Teddy Roosevelt or (insert president here)
These aren't opinions or value judgments. Just statements of fact that can help us discover further truths. How we use these is up to us, but we should at least try to work with a sound set of facts. But these shouldn't be too hard to argue most of the time. A simple google or Wikipedia search SHOULD get us to be able to agree on a LOT of facts out there. The hard part is connecting those into cause/effect relationships that are more difficult to PROVE...
2) Come to an accurate assessment of difficult-to-prove cause/effect relationships:
Cause/effect relationships are NOT a matter of opinion. They are a matter of fact. But they often occupy a zone of knowledge that FEELS more like an opinion, as often they are hard to prove in areas too large and complex to do controlled experiments on. Because we can't do controlled experiments in a lot of areas of cause & effect, we need to look at the limited historical empirical evidence we have. We know putting a flame below something causes it to get hot. It's a little more difficult to understand what causes a financial crisis or what causes a business owner to make a decision about investing his time.
But what we can do is look for evidence in our world that either aligns or mis-aligns with our thoughts on cause/effect. We may think, for some reason, that having a space program causes financial crises. There is little logical reason to believe this, and even less empirical evidence. Facts about history can help us determine some useful premises on how we THINK a cause/effect relationship develops. However, understanding how things are don't inform us of how things OUGHT to be. That involves developing preferred states...
3) Establish "preferred states" that create behavioral imperatives, whether subjective or supposedly objective:
If we're going to argue for one course of action vs another, we must have some sort of preferred state (or states) that we are trying to maximize. Clearly state what they are. They don't have to be proven (in fact I'd assert they can't be). But any conclusion about action we "ought" to take contains some preferred state, whether it be life, freedom, peace, happiness, security, functionality to some desired economic end, etc. Without a preferred state, all action is equal. It doesn't have to be morality. It just has to be a preference that can help us guide desired behavior. It can be as simple as preferring more wolves and less donkeys in the world. But state it clearly.
4) Use Facts from step 1 and cause/effect relationships fromstep 2 and preferences of step 3, to develop conclusions about behavior:
We want to develop OUGHTS that will develop a preferred state. Whether these oughts are circumstantial (do whatever maximizes my happiness at any given time) or naturally consistent (never initiate force on anyone), they are based, logically, in both our preferred states and the facts of nature that get us there.
Maintain consistency in application of these principles, all else being equal. If all things are NOT equal, develop a logical framework for competing action principles that need to be considered along-side the main principle we've just discovered, which brings us to the last part...
5) Always maintain perspective:
We may have certain principles that define and try to bring about preferred states, but there are a lot of different things that make up the collection of preferred states that we have. For instance, my subjective preferred state contains preferences about hunger, temperature, security, freedom, social interaction, physical well-being, liesure, economic abundance, etc. We can't forget about competing principles. None of our principles exists in a vacuum, for most people. I have a PRINCIPLE that tells me not to initiate force on others. But if I need to push someone out of my way to save a kid from drowning, I'll do it, because other principles override it when looking at the function of principles in terms of MATERIALITY. We develop simple principles surrounding our preferences, but our preferences aren't a switch that is either on or off. I'm not either fully free and content or a miserable slave. The principles I state might fool me into thinking that they are binary in nature, but they're really often just one sliding scale of preferred state that has to compete with all my other sliding scales of preferred states.
Often-times I see people arguing without following anything close to this framework (and perhaps I do it without noticing it quite often), and I feel like there's something missing. People stating facts that just aren't so. Or cause/effect relationships that empirical evidence doesn't back up. Or ought principles that don't clearly pose a preferred state, or don't logically get us to that preferred state, or aren't being consistently applied. Lastly, often, competing principles to the one we might be acting on are either ignored or poorly fleshed out.
I bug people on these points, not necessarily because I think "taxes should go up," or "government is great," but I just see so much poorly structured logic out there (or poorly-fleshed-out logic... perhaps it's great... I just can't SEE it in a lot of arguments). So if I don't see it structured in this order, I'll often go into what probably appears to be troll mode, and keep picking apart people's arguments. Not because I have one that is necessarily better, but because when I see what appears to be someone who is very certain of themselves on an opinion, or cause/effect relationship, I wish to find out if they've built that certainty on valid logic or are just being too confident.
To me, we need to make sure we know if we're disagreeing on #1 and #2 before we try to dive into #3 & #4. Or at least acknowledge where we disagree on a statement of fact or cause/effect relationship.
Especially when morality is involved, #3 can be very complex. Logic is fun in that (like PS does quite often), we can turn logical principles on and off for purposes of debate (as long as we're ACKNOWLEDGING that we're doing it, all in good faith). So from a SELFISH perspective (to the end of my own happiness), I might come to one behavior conclusion. From a utilitarian perspective to overall human happiness, I might come to another conclusion. From a rights-based perspective, yet another. From a pragmatic standpoint, another. However, in REAL life, pragmatism, utility, rights, and selfishness are ALWAYS competing with each other, and can muddle our thoughts about a topic if not properly identified. You may want to over-weigh one principal over another. Kshartle picks rights. Doodle is a utilitarianist (to certain aspects of human happiness). PS and Tenn tend to favor pragmatism quite often. I'm just a greedy accountant who wants the state to reinforce my career opportunities, so I operate on the principal of selfishness (under the guise of caring about all the leaches out there)
. JK on that last part. Also, different preferred states compete with each other, which are going to give us competing conclusions about what we OUGHT to do. I desire autonomy AND security. Sometimes, I come to selfish (and utilitarian) conclusions about what government OUGHT to do that COST me some autonomy but increase my security. Anyway, I hope you all feel completely comfortable calling me out if I'm not doing any of the above... or if it appears I'm not arguing in good faith. I also hope you all see why I sometimes debate the way I do. I'm not trying to be a troll. I'm trying to establish a logical process to coming to conclusions about how individuals or governments (errr... agents of government) should behave in different situations, which is so-often where we end up. We may not be able to PROVE every aspect of our arguments (aka, they might be unsound), but we can at least help reinforce their validity by building them thoughtfully, consistently, and openly.
Peace, brothas! Sorry for another painfully long post.
At least I can admit my own faults, right? 
