[ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy

[giancarlos]

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Stefano Vaj
> To: ExI chat list
> Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 12:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Ideological Differences in Transhumanist Italy
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 10:21 AM, estropico <estropico at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  From: "Stefano Vaj" <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
>>  At the same time, I am surprised that, while the usual couple of
>>  Italian supporters of Mr. Bush's crusades...
>
> Too easy and not very original... (have you noticed how these days if
> you want to damage somebody politically this has become the standard
> tactic?)
>
> (...)
>
> OK, from now on, in spite of some useful work you may have done in the 
> past
> for the spreading of H+ texts in Italy, I do consider you as a stalker and 
> a
> troll on the same level as your friend here,

Fabio, I think that it's quite evident that Stefano doesn't want (isn't 
able) to reply to the factual claims and comments we reported, and prefers 
to launch personal attacks (stalker, troll, psychopath, etc) in order to 
sidetrack the issue.

>From wikipedia, again: "a personal attack is committed when a person 
substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's 
claims or comments. It is considered a personal attack when a person starts 
referencing a supposed flaw or weakness in an individual's personality, 
beliefs, lifestyle, convictions or principles, and use it as a debate tactic 
or as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness the 
person's statement. It works on the reasoning that, by discrediting the 
source of a logical argument, namely the person making it, the argument 
itself can be weakened. (...) On the other hand, illuminating real character 
flaws and inconsistencies in the position of an opponent are a vital part of 
the public political process and of the adversarial judicial process. Use of 
a personal attack in a logical argument constitutes a formal fallacy called 
ad hominem, a term that comes from a Latin phrase meaning "toward the man" 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_attacks).

At this point, think it's appropriate to stop the discussion: those who 
weren't and aren't interested with good reason could get impatient and 
bored, while those who showed interested have now enough elements to form 
their own personal opinion.

Giancarlo
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stile