Opinion Has anyone ever admitted to being wrong, or changed their views in this forum?

Beat me to it.
Holocaust denial, bone-deep racism, lies when confronted about being a presuppositional apologist for Christianity, lies about other people's arguments every time, etc.
 
I don't remember @Jack V Savage ever having a high opinion of Bernie Sanders. He's
always had a thing for Hillary Clinton.

I liked Bernie and Clinton about the same (I had different things I liked and disliked about them) and said that I would have expected similar results from them.
 
I remember @InternetHero being a very partisan and unpleasant right winger, then he disappeared and returned recently as quite an odd but interesting poster. I quite like his posts now.

@sub_thug is a good one. @PainIsLIfe hasn't stood out to me yet, maybe we just frequent different sorts of threads.

@Zankou is actually the guy who made me confront my doubts about my religion. Excellent poster but doesn't really post here anymore so I don't really consider him a WRer anymore, which is a shame because he added a lot when he did frequent this place.

I agree on alanb, he's a net positive in terms of contributions to the forum because of his expertise but he has some woefully misguided views outside that. I remember he made an egregious comment once that I hounded him over for a while.

RKD knows his shit when it came to Russian politics and I always appreciated that he offered a counter balance to the Putin worship that was really bad here a few years ago. Lecter was very knowledgeable in computer science and I learned a thing or two from him so I'll always appreciate that. Plus he was willing to criticize and satirize other right wingers so he gets points for that from me and when he did criticize the left it was usually not baseless from what I remember

Cuauhtemoc definitely strikes me as a right winger, he's just a fairly lucid one who attempts to, and usually does, understand why leftists believe what they do and won't just engage in partisan pot shots or strawman arguments
Tend to be somewhere between you and fawlty.

InternetHero is a better poster in his second coming. He's still prone to melodramatic posting and sophistry, but far less so than before, and he makes lots of good posts. sub_thug is solid, didn't notice him until recently. Zankou has been mixed when he steps in lately, but still head and shoulders above 95% of posters.

alanb has posted some great stuff and some absolutely terrible stuff (My first exposure was a post where he was quoting lyrics with racist subtext from a supremacist band and claimed to not know what they were about. It was in a race-thread, so that wasn't believable. And he's consistently done stuff to reinforce that, like the africa-natural-disaster post you're referencing, and a more recent post linking to a Golden Dawn video).

Rex and Lecter can be great posters when they want to be. Lecter's sneaky mocking of Pwent and thestruggle was incredible, though the best posts that I can remember seem to have been in a deleted thread.

PiL has consistently been a good contributor. A great example tends to come in North/South threads. Some posters attack the south by noting that the south tends to have more teen pregnancy than other parts of the country. The hacks tend to excuse this and other social ills by blaming it on black people. He'll do things like point out that marriage after highschool is still pretty common in the south, and that results in a lot of 18-19 year olds getting pregnant. He's also well-read, generally respectful without being saccharine, and willing to criticize across the spectrum.

TheGreatA makes a lot of good posts, but he also engages in a lot of sophistry when he tries to present as much more moderate than he is. His praise of trolls in one thread exposed him on that, I think.

Tend to agree with fawlty's characterization of dontsnitch. He had a lot of posts about being respectful and getting along, but largely used that as a way to attack liberal posters with while liking absolutely vile posts by rightwingers.
 
Yeah, the mature adults in this forum that don't think they are the epitome of knowledge and are Gods gift to the internet.
 
I try to be wrong every single day.

The best lessons are learned from being wrong, and then having the wisdom to see what was wrong.

Those who are wise in their own eyes and overly self assured about their view of the world will never see how other people live, love, or prosper.

Not through time, not through history, not their ancestors, and not their lives, or those of their children's. Those committed to being foolish may be foolish for all time.
 
Some posters here can very easily say "my bad I was wrong" and move on.

Then you have some posters who would literally edit their thread title and OP and play pretend after finding out they were completely wrong.

It's pretty amazing that fingers in the ears and essentially going "lalalalala I can't hear you!" for pages is easier for them then "my bad" and moving on.
 
TheGreatA makes a lot of good posts, but he also engages in a lot of sophistry when he tries to present as much more moderate than he is. His praise of trolls in one thread exposed him on that, I think.

I don't think I've ever tried to present myself as moderate. I don't think I've represented myself as anything particular, to be honest. I criticize all sides of the spectrum equally, and points out flawed ideological patterns wherever I observe them. Right, left, center, wherever.

I don't operate within the limited sphere of binary American politics, and cannot be constrained within those restrictions.

My "praise of trolls" was an attempt to humour a conversation that other people ultimately seemed to be incapable of having, about the nature of the internet, anonymousness, and the exchange of unfiltered, often destructively creative ideas, unrestricted by the required "civility" and rigidness of real-life interactions. That we do not see its unregulated, often brutishly blunt nature as a "necessary evil" of the internet, is madness to me, considering most of the people I conversed with, were people who themselves came to the internet to hold conversations that they were incapable of having in real life situations.
 
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Seems to me like there is nothing that can change anyone's mind. If someone is in fact proven wrong, they don't respond, they'll go into hiding and try to find another thread to discuss their (wrong) ideas.

I've admitted I was wrong a few times and I've changed my positions on a lot of issues.

I was strongly anti ssm and thought the ACA was too expensive to deal with for the small amount of people it helped.

I changed my views on both issues; not a total 180 - still wish ssm was called something different, but I support their right to live their life with all the benefits of hetero marriage. I still think they could have come up with a better option on ACA, but I've seen the people it helps and I support it.
 
He's still very unpleasant and he always seems to be shrieking. He also does the DS thing where he hides his bias but isn't unbiased. Definitely smarter and better-educated than most right-wingers here, though.
I don't know if shriek is fair, he usually has these weird posts and its not always clear what he means. More like he stops by to post some stream of consciousness post and then leaves. But sometimes I find his posts interesting and in a way that's unique to him. I see what you're saying about his kind of vague POV which doesn't really make clear what he's getting at and feels kind of non-committal but I haven't pressed him to find out if he'd be more clear when confronted on it so I give him the benefit of the doubt.
I thought his relationship with Thuriasz was very telling. That guy is plain sick. One of the nastiest dudes here and with a very ugly set of beliefs, but DS would always "like" his posts and would list him as his favorite poster. So DS presented fake civility but seemed to admire Thuriasz's freedom from that kind of constraint.
That's that Christian solidarity I was talking about. Thurisaz could say some racist shit and DS' defense would be "well at least he's consistent, unlike BLM!" He never could seem to bring himself to criticize other Christian posters which is why I resented him claiming I'm the same with Islam. Yeah I do go at it with the critics of Islam more often than defenders but that's mainly because the former are more common here than the latter and when I do see bad arguments in defense of Islam I'll push back against those too.
 
Yeah, the mature adults in this forum that don't think they are the epitome of knowledge and are Gods gift to the internet.
1. I'm not a mature adult.
2. I can, and have, admitted being wrong here.
3. I am the epitome of knowledge.
4. I am God's gift to the internet.
5. ...
6. Profit.
 
Sherdoggers are never wrong. They all bang 10/10s and make 7 figures plus. All of them could beat Conor McGregor with their superior wrestling.
 
Yeah, the mature adults in this forum that don't think they are the epitome of knowledge and are Gods gift to the internet.
Your name sounds like poopy. Heh.
 
I don't think I've ever tried to present myself as moderate. I don't think I've represented myself as anything particular, to be honest. I criticize all sides of the spectrum equally, and points out flawed ideological patterns wherever I observe them. Right, left, center, wherever.

I don't operate within the limited sphere of binary American politics, and cannot be constrained within those restrictions.
Come on man, pick a side!

I know you don't neatly fit into the standard American mold but that's because you're not American so you're closer to the European right.

Speaking of Europe, you and I did once have an interesting conversation that did lead me to not necessarily change my mind but consider things differently. We were talking about Europe and its tradition and I had assumed that you simply defaulted to the classic "Muh Judaeo-Christian values!" line but in fact you didn't and you made the argument that European Civilization is more than that and its key features predate Christianity.

Our disagreement at the time was IIRC regarding the constructed vs organic nature of the European identity and I think we still have disagreements there but I think your point about Europe being more than simply the so called Judaeo-Christian tradition has a lot of merit. I've come to believe the Greco-Roman tradition is far more relevant to Western success than so called Judaeo-Christian values.
My "praise of trolls" was an attempt to humour a conversation that other people ultimately seemed to be incapable of having, about the nature of the internet, anonymousness, and the exchange of unfiltered, often destructively creative ideas, unrestricted by the required "civility" and rigidness of real-life interactions. That we do not see its unregulated, often brutishly blunt nature as a "necessary evil" of the internet, is madness to me, considering most of the people I conversed with, were people who themselves came to the internet to hold conversations that they were incapable of having in real life situations.
On that we probably do agree.
I've admitted I was wrong a few times and I've changed my positions on a lot of issues.

I was strongly anti ssm and thought the ACA was too expensive to deal with for the small amount of people it helped.

I changed my views on both issues; not a total 180 - still wish ssm was called something different, but I support their right to live their life with all the benefits of hetero marriage. I still think they could have come up with a better option on ACA, but I've seen the people it helps and I support it.
I had kind of the opposite trajectory when it comes to SSM and homosexuality in general. Used to be a standard liberal on those issues in that I strongly supported them and thought all conservative opposition to it was baseless bigotry coming from mouth-breathers. There is a lot of baseless bigotry from the right on these issues, especially from American politicians and preachers, but I think I've come to understand some of the conservative objections to homosexuality throughout my time here.

In practice I'm still a liberal on these issues because I think the LGBT cat is out of the bag and there's no going back and at this point I think the left is better on these issues so like you its not a full 180, far from it. But I'm more willing to consider potential negative aspects to homosexuality and unintended consequences of the seismic cultural shift on the issue. Specifically I think there might be merit to the idea that men and women are generally speaking complimentary and that homosexual relationships might have unique problems resulting from the deviation from the complimentary model of heterosexual relationships.
 
Sometimes. I know that my views on individual politicians have shifted in part to things I've seen in these forums. I don't think there are many aboutfaces. I think @Gandhi 's views have shifted meaningfully over time, and he has attributed that a bit to conversations here.

Guess I went from a "it's my party too" republican to a "it's not my party anymore". When Obama took office and the Rs went nuts during the GFC, the quackery / ugliness just turned me away. I was always a social liberal and believed that positive govt action was needed to fix social programs, I just had a thing for market based programs, like vouchers and savings plans. In some ways I was buying into a lot of libertarianish silliness. I would agree that posting here helped me shape my thoughts.


I accept that as a plausible argument and I don't even have a problem with it. My feeling is that the rise of "Independents" and the catastrophe of radical, sorta-fascism caused by gerrymandering is a wave all its own. You have to be a nut job to win a primary now. The country is moving in exactly the direction the Republicans have been pushing for over 30 years- and successfully now on the back of a spineless Executive. So, I can't separate the causal relationships in all of this. Remove money from politics and it might be even more radical. Remove Trump and somebody might actually have the balls to say "no" to a Republican.

tl/dr I think CU is theoretically unsound but I see no strong evidence that's the case.

I agree with this - well said
 
I liked Bernie and Clinton about the same (I had different things I liked and disliked about them) and said that I would have expected similar results from them.

You like Clinton more, you sandbagging centrist sumbitch. Hell, you even inspired the rigidly principled Exception to reevaluate Sanders based on your recommendation to the contrary.

I think the expectations argument is a bit difficult to speculate on, though. And I think how the two would fare is actually diametrical to common sense.

If we were just talking about policy/ideology, I would expect that Clinton would fare better with an opposition-held Congress. But, as we know from the Obama and Clinton eras, it's less about policy and more about what traction you can get from refusing to be bipartisan. So, because Clinton has become such a lightning rod for GOP fearmongering, I would think that she would actually inspire less coalition building than Sanders. Sanders, meanwhile, invokes less partisan hostility and has more populist support, so the downsides for GOP Congresspeople to cross the partisan line would be less steep.

As far as how the two would fare with Democratic-controlled Congresses, I would guess Clinton, despite being less progressive, would be more adept at whipping Democratic colleagues into line.
 
Seems to me like there is nothing that can change anyone's mind. If someone is in fact proven wrong, they don't respond, they'll go into hiding and try to find another thread to discuss their (wrong) ideas.

I hated @Madmick and then eventually started respecting him. Thats pretty much it. Its not like a post on sherdog is going to make me not agree with the 2nd amendment
 
You have strange taste in people. Don't know what to say to some of those...I'll say Rex is a lot of fun to post with as long as it's not anything remotely to do with politics.

Besides the obvious half dozen or so high quality right wingers, I'd say sub thug is an excellent poster who flies under the radar. PainIsLife is generally quite a good contributor too. InternetHero has been a little strange since his return but he's highly intelligent/well educated, and he seems to be on the right, on balance. btw where do you peg Zank these days? He seems to have gone full blow nihilist but i dunno lol.

bonus one: AlanB takes the crown for low tide/high tide imo. His posts where he's weighing in with expertise or isn't biased are excellent, but the posts where he is biased are some of the worst posts in the WR, bar none.

The little I have seen from Zankou suggested to me that he was an apolitical hobbyist: highly intelligent, no doubt, but hardly definable as a right-winger.

I only peg InternetHero as a right-winger so that I can feign bipartisanship by claiming that there's a right winger who is intelligent and whose posts I enjoy. I've only seen sub thug shitpost.

You are so deliciously spot-on about Alan. I would wager that, if his life/upbringing were different, he'd be center-left at the very least.
 
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