{"id":817,"date":"2009-04-13T07:15:11","date_gmt":"2009-04-13T12:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/blog\/?p=817"},"modified":"2009-04-12T21:52:43","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T02:52:43","slug":"laws-of-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/sweet-nothings\/laws-of-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Laws of E-Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many years ago, so the story goes, Newton was bopped on the head by  a falling apple and immediately came up with several Laws of Physics.  Years later, Einstein was bopped in the head with Time and came up with  the Law of Relativity. On the Internet forum I participate in, I have  been verbally bopped enough times to unearth the Laws Of E-Debate which  are just as foundational to any Laws of Thermodynamics and probably  just as provable. Maybe on your jaunts through message forums and  online debates you will find these Laws coming to the fore.<\/p>\n<p>Now what you may find is that these Laws might have some proper  applicability in some scenarios\u2014yet you may also realize that  sometimes, they\u2019re just embarrassing refusals to engage the opposing  position properly.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Benford\u2019s Law of Controversy:<\/strong><br \/>\nFrom the 1980 Novel Timescape, this Law states that <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gregory_Benford\">Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information&#8230;<\/a>.  So the less one (or more) knows about any specific subject the more  likely it is for there to be a strong amount of passion regarding that  subject.<\/p>\n<p><em>Controversy (c) = Passion (k) \/ Real Information (i)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(c) = (k)\/(i)<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Example:<\/strong>Of course five billion angels dance on the head of a pin! You  would be a fool to think otherwise when you consider the nature of  angels! It&#8217;s AWESOME!!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Example:<\/strong> God <em>must<\/em> first be Holy over Loving\u2014to say otherwise is to commit an abject heresy of the first order!<\/li>\n<li><strong>Example:<\/strong> Don&#8217;t be a fool, Thanos is easily better than Anti-Monitor; look at his outfit!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Law of Inverted Pliability:<\/strong><br \/>\nTake any position and locate a person who is adamantly against the  position (even if they don\u2019t know why). This person will be repelled by  the stated position and will remain rigid (non-pliable) against it. Now  take any position, no matter how ridiculous and put it on the other  side of the person. The individual will bend over backwards to embrace  any position, except the stated position before them. This Law is  related to Benford\u2019s Law of Controversy in that passion is affected but  it takes the datum of the stated position as the motivator towards any  other position or variable.<\/p>\n<p><em>Pliability (yes)= Passion(k) (Random Position(x)) in opposition to (Stated Position(p))<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(yes) = (k)(x) &gt; (p)<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Example:<\/strong> Resurrection from the dead? I think it makes more sense that Jesus had a twin brother separated at birth.<\/li>\n<li> <strong> Example:<\/strong> I would rather have a pedophile lead our local church than think there&#8217;s different roles for men or women<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Example:<\/strong> Of course the Universe isn&#8217;t created. It makes more sense to  think that the Universe always existed or that it came from Nothing  than believe an Intelligent Designer was involved.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Law of Inverted Counter-Respective Reciprocity:<br \/>\n<\/strong>Often seen in conjunction with the Law of Inverted Pliability is  this interesting phenomenon which occurs in the unique situation where  the individual (against the stated position) finds someone who agrees  with him or her\u2026perhaps at a more intelligent level. The individual in  question sees that the other individual is also in direct opposition to  the stated proposition and as such they congratulate the astuteness,  clear-headedness and cogent thinking of that individual. The more  abhorrent the stated position the more the praise between the parties  who are countering the position. This has sometimes (in war) been  summed up with the phrase \u201cthe enemy of my enemy is my friend\u201d. It can  be further explained by saying \u201cand my friend is pretty darned smart,  good looking and incisive because of this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em> (yes) + (new individual) = [(k)(x) &gt; (p)<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Example:<\/strong> Oh I agree! The fact, dear sister, that you said that  against such traditional thinking as the one stated in this thread  illustrates how beautiful, God fearing, wondrous and a token example of  a True Christian you are. I pray and applaud you: God bless you and  keep you!<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Example:<\/strong>You, dear friend, are totally right and obviously well learned  on this subject. I pray that these brutes around us will realize your  intelligence, your brilliance and finally turn from their pithy  ignorance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Law of Temporal Deniability<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>An individual personally comes to an opinion and holds it for an  hour. Offer a second opinion to that same individual and he or she is  more likely to combat the second opinion because it is in opposition to  his or her own previously achieved opinion. The second opinion winds up  being a personal attack because of this. The reaction against the  second opinion is harsher the longer the first opinion has been held.  Now here is where the Law is fully employed. Take the individual and  have him hold an opinion out of random callousness (be it because he or  she doesn\u2019t have time to formulate an opinion in said area or it hasn\u2019t  been important enough to deal with an opinion in said area) and take a  second opinion which has been arrived at with time and focus. The first  adherent, based on Time, will deny the second for any various reasons  except for the reasons of the second opinion.<\/p>\n<p><em>(opinion-b)(time-t) &gt; (opinion-y)[(time-t)\/(number-n)]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(b)(t) &gt; (y)(t\/n)<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Example:<\/strong> Open Theism has never been taught in the church for 1800 years therefore it can\u2019t be right.<\/li>\n<li> <strong> Example: <\/strong>You do know that what you\u2019re doing is being thrown  about by the very waves of liberalism, scholasticism and the  enlightenment period?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Law of Pharisaical Insurability: <\/strong>This Law <em>(developed by Char, Harry, Kevin and Rey ScottN )<\/em> is a modification of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Godwin%27s_Law\">Godwin\u2019s Law<\/a> (where the longer a thread goes the closer it comes to invoking Hitler). Within Christian circles <em>reducto ad pharisaum<\/em> is usually one of the strongest fallacies to lay against the opponents  attack, but this Law doesn\u2019t focus on the fallacy but on the  mathematics of the likelihood of the fallacy appearing. Therefore this  Law states that the longer a thread goes whereby the Law of Temporal  Deniability is tangentially related the higher the probability of a  comparison involving the Pharisees approaches one.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> <strong>Example:<\/strong> You do know that the Pharisees were the ones who were attacked by Jesus for focusing so heavily on the letter over love&#8230;<\/li>\n<li> <strong>Example:<\/strong> Jesus preached love you know; it was the hardline conservatives that killed him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Law of the Internet-Troll: <\/strong>This law states that upon tangential mention of any controversy  the higher the likelihood that e-Trolls will appear. Now Trolls should  be noted as being controversial, irrelevant, disruptive, but sometimes  very intelligent in their phraseology. This is tangentially related to  the other two Laws which are a subset of this one:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>The Law of Anti-Xism Supporter<\/strong> X being whatever doctrine  that the Supporter does not hold to. So if the topic is one that  tangentially touches on The Trinity or Dispensationalism or Calvinism,  this will generate a Supporter who will automatically attack.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Law of E-Calvinist Acolytes<\/strong> Hyper-Calvinists are usually  defined as Any Individual More Calvinistic Than Me but this Law is not  looking at Hyper-Calvinists, per se. This Law points out the likelihood  of E-Calvinists (who are sometimes hyper but are almost always trying  to get people to convert to Calvinism) appearing in any thread that  touches on various topics (but specifically those that deal with  depravity, election, atonement, grace, faith, ultimate salvation,  sovereignty of God, responsibility of men and anything dealing with  Luther or Calvin or Arminus). E-Calvinist Acolytes can be noted by  their reference to James White, their reliance on Spurgeon quotes, an  RSS Reader that links to both Tim Challies and the Pyromaniacs , abject  hatred of anything that smells Arminian and the penchant to invoke the  solas or the Westminster Confession at whim (with hotlinks to  Monergism.com)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Example: <\/strong><strong><\/strong>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it amazing that God created the world?&#8221;\n<p>&#8220;Yes, in 6 days and no more.&#8221; or &#8220;Yes, in billions of years and littered with death.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Example: <\/strong><strong><\/strong>&#8220;Man, what a glorious day!&#8221;\n<p>&#8220;No! Soli Deo Gloria! What do you, oh worthless Pot, know about Glory?&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Law of the Overbearing Opinion<\/strong> or <strong>The Law of the Obnoxious Opposer: <\/strong>The Law would state web-kindness is inversely proportional to the  surety of opinion by the e-debating parties. In other words, the more  sure of something is an e-debater the less kind would that e-debater be  against people who hold an opposing position.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Example: <\/strong>This IS my body. You are either blind or deaf or unregenerate but in all cases you&#8217;re wrong.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many years ago, so the story goes, Newton was bopped on the head by a falling apple and immediately came up with several Laws of Physics. Years later, Einstein was bopped in the head with Time and came up with the Law of Relativity. On the Internet forum I participate in, I have been verbally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,12,1],"tags":[248,173,298],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-rants","category-story","category-sweet-nothings","tag-debate","tag-logic","tag-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":820,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rreynoso.com\/reysapoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}