It's this level of armchair debate snobbery that astounds me, without fail, each and every time I see it.

They're so wrapped up in finding anything non-American that's "progressive" that they are actually fully willing to accept the idea that Islam is a more tolerant religion than it really is.

Any diet that makes you lose hundreds of millions of pounds in a few short years is a real keeper, I say

You can sit there and argue technicalities all you want, but the victim (the father) was absolutely threatened at knife-point by the assailant (the thief). Regardless of the assailant's "intent," the fact of the matter is that there was a factual threat to the safety of the victim. To suppose that the victim needs to be some cold, rational machine capable of every de-escalation tactic in the book (or at least, be capable of algorithmically determining what the "legal" course of action is) demonstrates no understanding of the human psyche, and I have no hope for a fair legal system to be built on such a callous mentality.

I must have missed the part where we list the adjectives after the noun we wish to describe. I'm such a boy silly.

Literacy? In MY soccer mom suburban area!?

Well, it's not like I strictly need to be invited, but it's just easier for me to be happy if the reason for my participation is as emotionally detached as I hope to be from my own arguments.

I mean, I'm usually willing to give people the benefit of the doubt that they're not actually trying to be disingenuous. It just happens to be that whatever they're trying to argue, they're either too emotionally invested in their ideas or they've been indoctrinated by a malevolent ideology. But either way, I'm not getting paid to counter them, so I won't bother unless someone (politely) asks me to comment on those arguments.
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Although, sometimes I do come uninvited and pop in with just a question. If I don't get a genuine answer, that's about when I choose to leave stage left. That way, I keep my sneakers squeaky clean, despite the... mess.

I'll be totally honest. At some point in time, I gave up with trying to find reason with people on the Internet. Either the person I engage with presents themselves clearly, or I stop taking them seriously. It's so easy for people to feel right and honestly, good for them. It's not my responsibility to teach people the basics of argumentation, much less how to separate emotion from logic. Nowadays, I just sit back and laugh unless the other person actually is trying to learn how to argue better. lol

It can't be worse than a snowstorm. I'll just wander out in my sneakers.

We can use thought experiments to justify any range of things, up to and including the idea that we live in a computer simulation. The real pudding I want is data.

Well, in any case... how does Atwood's depiction of a fundamentalist Christian society correlate with the actual perceptions of real people? I would genuinely enjoy some solid evidence in favor of the idea that religious conservatives are more likely to see women as "birthing cows." Conflating reality with media does not seem to be the best course of action, because I guarantee you that we can find any piece of media and claim that it is "evidence" of some depraved weirdness. Like using "The Night of the Hunter" to suggest that non-clergy Christian preachers are "more likely" to be completely deranged.

Do socks and/or slippers count? I find those much more homely than shoes.

5MB of storage for photos used to be the biggest you could ever hope for in a digital camera.

I can't leave at the door what I don't have B)