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[Duke 2.0]

You all probably thought this show was dead.

 It has arisen anew as a Vegas show that may be just as good.

 And Chip never had a chance.

[alway]

...Aren't all people, or at least a large majority, "technically" mentally ill?
Also, since I did not take the opportunity to say so before when you brought it up - I think what you did was a very brave thing. Opening myself up to people, especially in large groups, is something I cannot do at all. IRL, that is. Talking about my problems is a bit easier online, but there's still that nagging "guilty" feeling whenever I try to.
Anyway, you gain +10 admireity from me.

Ahh, thank you <3

Well, in my case it was to explain that I'd been saddled with something other than the usual depression/anxiety/paraphilia/whatever thing that the majority of the population falls/trips into--which is indeed quite problematic for me from time to time, but deal-withable.  The class was attempting to use the pejorative label of mental illness to write off the opinions of people that they didn't like.  So I basically let them know that unless they wanted to call me a flaming nutbag whose opinions didn't matter, they'd better argue on different grounds.

And, surprisingly enough, it worked.

IIRC, there was an episode of something on NPR when they were talking about biases. Essentially how the average person's response to people with different opinions went something like this:
If you know nothing about the person, you assume they are ignorant about the topic.
If you know they know about the topic, you assume they are misled by someone/something.
If you know they know about the topic and came to their own conclusions, you assume they are of lower intelligence than yourself.
If you know they know about the topic, came to their owns conclusions and are intelligent people, you assume they are insane and/or are unable to think reasonably.

Which is somewhat humorous in that the more you know about the other person's argument, the closer to flamewar status are your sentiments about them in order to preserve your own beliefs. As much as people like to think we are mostly rational in our thought processes, we really are pretty horrible at critical thinking when it comes to examining our own beliefs. Our brains are good at coming up with decent sets of belief, but are bad at sharing the reasoning behind them for proofreading.

[Tellemurius]

Very odd for me to type this on the phone but hell it works.

[Aqizzar]

Which is somewhat humorous in that the more you know about the other person's argument, the closer to flamewar status are your sentiments about them in order to preserve your own beliefs. As much as people like to think we are mostly rational in our thought processes, we really are pretty horrible at critical thinking when it comes to examining our own beliefs. Our brains are good at coming up with decent sets of belief, but are bad at sharing the reasoning behind them for proofreading.

Well, as someone who watches this process play out in political debate all the time, it does raise a good question.  Viewed from the outside, and assuming the same knowledge, it's entirely possible to get two well-informed and sane people who look at the same situation and set of variables, and come to radically different conclusions.  They each think the other is not one of those qualities, even though it's quite likely they apply to both of them.  What else is at work here?

Personally, I think it's that people can be equally well-informed and rational, but still place different weights on different factors and possibilities, and have different beliefs about objective outcomes, since no one's knowledge is ever perfect.

[Duke 2.0]

As much as people like to think we are mostly rational in our thought processes, we really are pretty horrible at critical thinking when it comes to examining our own beliefs.

I'm annoyed by this statement, but I'm not sure how to convey why. The assumption that a test on one subject would definitively show our jerkiness or perhaps that this applies to everywhere without giving hard numbers(Which would be pointless without a source, but we can't always be playing the source game).

[Sowelu]

There's pretty much two main types of debate.  Debate over fact, and debate over policy.  You can't debate fact--either something is true or it's not--and two different people can agree on the same fact while having different opinions.  (Whether to trust a fact or not is policy, and also pretty ugly).

Debate over policy is where personal feelings come into play.  "Some people abuse Social Security" is a fact, "X% of people do" is a fact (though hard to know for sure), but "I'm willing to waste $Y in order to help out Z people who need it" is policy for a varying amount of Y and Z.

Likewise, when two different studies present different contradictory facts, it's policy and not fact to determine which one you believe. 

[ein]

More rugby.
A little disappointing, though, because my leg cramped up, amongst other things, and I had to sit out halfway through. :b
Meanwhile, my custom picks arrived.

[blackmagechill]

Feeling pretty good about myself, a rare thing lately. Okay about my appearance I guess, I don't really care right now though. How can the way you look bother someone so fucking much!? I mean, it's a constant thing. I blame glamorization and Brad Pitt.

[freeformschooler]

This forum defaulting to chillmode and beginning to agree on things made me happy today.

[Gunner-Chan]

Yeah. It's a very nice change and I hope it stays like this. Though this is not saying we all have to agree on everything.

[fqllve]

This forum defaulting to chillmode and beginning to agree on things made me happy today.

Chillmode is the best. Chillmode is why I love these boards.

I had my first meatless dinner in a while tonight. Pea pods are the best thing really. Peas themselves are okay I guess but pea pods? Delicious.

[Sowelu]

I like chillmode.  :3  Every day should be chill day.

I have games and they are fun.

[Dr. D]

I have mastered my physics.

(I really do not like that program.)

[Aklyon]

This makes me happy and describes what I think of returned chillmode at the same time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Tellemurius]

Is that Hiro on the right?