I think ATS is making me Paranoid.

I am across an article "Arguing is Pointless" and it seems to me that it is saying that we should do what THE MAN says to do. However maybe it is just saying "Turn the other cheek or pick your battles". Before ATS I would blow off articles like this one to common sense. Now it seems that they make my blood boil. Am I too sensitive or just thinking too much? Are these articles as innocent as they appear to be to the public or is it all conditioning?

That's only because you interpreted the article that way. What I read would suggest that arguing is pointless because you only make matters worse and more tensed when you do so. Rarely does anyone come away a victor.

You don't have to follow the advice at all. You have a choice.

If you counter this with a disagreeing point then we will be arguing and we both know that's pointless.

Interesting.

I think the article, in a round about way, is trying to point out the difference between argument and debate, or anger over calm rationality.

Usually the first person to get angry losses any debate.

reply to post by BlackOops


Actually you were already paranoid before you got here, the paranoia is what led you here. This is the IV tube that keeps that paranoia alive.
Every media outlet and electronic device is now a beacon of Orwellian magnitude, at least here you have a chance of discovering something that wasn't paid for in advance.

I can't argue with anything anyone said so far.

reply to post by BlackOops


Although the NSA has a system that monitors ALL ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION ON EARTH...as well as having Networked Super Computing that can take into account not only Flagged Words using voice recognition but also...Keystroke Recognition as a persons style of typing can be determined, cataloged, cross referenced and compared to past, real time and future web interaction as a way to determine if a specific person is the same person using different computers, phones and their locations.

Also...the NSA has the capability to determine Verbal Inflections that once analyzed can determine a persons intent of a possible action being Violent or Covert even if no words spoken would lead anyone listening to gather this. A person will speak in a manner such as hesitating, speeding up speech, placing emphasis upon specific words or beginning or ends of words or sentences as well as the Computers ability to find repeated Key Words that can be determined as to their meaning by repetitive use within multiple sentences.

For you to worry about using you right of Free Speech is SILLY! These stories you hear about usually are targeting real Persons of Interests and although mistakes have been made...if you are the average person you have nothing to fear. Even people detained by the Patriot Act which I do not agree with but do know that even those who were detained without proof...we up to something as you just do not get picked up because you were minding your own business.

If you are talking on a phone to a Mosque based in the U.S. which is known to collect funds and use them to pay for the running of Madrassas....and you are talking about donating $100,000...you are up to something! Same thing if you are buying 50 AK-47's legally in the U.S. and at the same time you are on a Website that details how to convert them to FULL AUTOMATIC....as well as you are also on the phone to a Fertilizer Plant and are asking for a deal on 7 Tons of the stuff and you do not own a Farm!

You most likely have NOTHING to worry about. Split Infinity

Maybe it was the fact the writer used law enforcement as the example. I think if the example didn't use a power distance between the parties it would of been better.

Paranoid Hell
Be Scared! Very Scared!

Originally posted by BlackOops
I can't argue with anything anyone said so far.

Yes you can. You just choose not to.

I think argument is good, because it usually implies a free society.

Yeah sure, people can argue for the sake of it too - I'm sure that even in the most wretched prisons people were reduced to arguing about scraps of food or a match-stick.

Arguing is very human, and it can lead to creative solutions, but fore-mostly it wards off real violence.

Whoever holds the power can also end all arguments, and become a dictator.

When people argue in a country with freedom of speech, then surely this is a good thing.
Behind the rhetoric they will both know that they are exercising a right and hard-won tradition.

To paraphrase a E.B. Hall on Voltaire: I might not like what you say, but I will defend your right to say it.

I recall a time in South Africa when arguing was very curtailed.
It is again, in some different ways.

Arguing is the music of what happens.

If it should stop ... then my blood would run cold.

reply to post by halfoldman
You have a philisophical way of presenting an argument for arguing that I can not argue against.