This is a great list of 15 ways to detect nonsense. Some of my personal favorites (because I see them a lot) are 3, 5, 8, 12 and 15 – not to take away from the rest of them, of course.
Monthly Archives: August 2013
So, I wrote another book
Well, to be more accurate, it’s a short story not really a full book. The basic concept behind it is, “what would you do if God let you change the world to make it better?” Imagine a dead Atheist being told he could change whatever he wanted about the world. What would you change? Would it actually make things better?
Amazon Kindle requires a minimum 99 cent pricetag so I hope that doesn’t break the bank for anybody. I actually intended it to be free but I guess you can’t do that with Kindle. It’s at the link below, if you think it might be worth the investment.
Daniel H. Cohen: For Argument’s Sake
This is a fascinating little video. He spends the majority of time explaining the “argument is war” view of arguing, shows how it is a bad way of understanding what an argument is, and then he offers a little bit of insight into one way of changing the paradigm. I wasn’t overly impressed with his suggestion, not because it wasn’t a good idea, but because after a great lecture in which he successfully took abstract ideas and presented them in an easy-to-understand form, he ends off with a rather abstract solution to the problem that is hard to understand how it would work out in a practical manner.
Still, I’d say the video is worth the ten minutes it takes to hear him out.
Give Wisdom Time to Work: S-P-I-R
This brief article contains some very good advice about slowing down and thinking as a means of avoiding saying things that are either stupid or mean.
http://www.johnstackhouse.com/2013/07/28/give-wisdom-time-to-work-s-p-i-r/
Least Mockable Unit – interesting concept
I’m not sure the title works quite like the author intended, but the concept behind this article is spot on. When considering what somebody else has said make it a point not to snipe at sideline issues that could be easily corrected to come in line with the primary point; focus on the primary point. Give them the benefit of the doubt.
Arguing With Friends 