> If you don't think that debate is still important, you are essentially conceding it to the half the country you disagree with
No I'm not. The debate was over 100 years ago, the ignorant just haven't figured it out yet. They simply get laughed at now for trying to argue the case. Mockery is not concession.
> there simply is not enough data on the usefulness of central banking to the prosperity of the nation.
Not what I was referring to. I was referring to this, " For better or worse, most of the latent ambiguities in the Constitution were resolved in favor of the interpretation espoused by Hamilton and the Federalists."
You can't ignore 200 years of judicial interpretation and case law simply because you prefer to interpret the text differently, that was his point and he's correct. That debate is over.
If half the population becomes slightly over than half the population out of random chance (or say, the "ignorant" having a few more babies as they are wont to do), mockery would be political concession.
It's far better to convince who you deem ignorant of your own views. This means treating their arguments seriously in the fashion of http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html .
Mockery is unlikely to succeed (as are downvotes), and pretty much fails pg's 1st test.
Your next claim, that "200 years of judicial interpretation and case law" ends the debate fails pg's second test. It's an ad hominem attack, that any disagreement with legal precedent (admittedly strong in this case) should be ignored.
By the same token, legal precedent prior to the civil war dictated that human beings could be property. I presume you are glad that some individuals within that society begged to differ.
Debates should be conducted on first principles and supported by objective evidence. I myself agree with Rayiner in that there is no constitutional dictate either way, only saying that the debate is valid on the grounds of 1st principle regardless of how old the arguments are.
Keep your idol worship to yourself; pg is not the authority on how disagreement should work, he's a VC for tech companies, not the authoritative source on how things should be. I happen to agree with the Hitchens approach of mocking religious ignorance and don't give a crap about being reasonable about it. I don't care about pg's tests. Debate is not relevant and only lends status to non-sense. Mockery is the appropriate response to evolution deniers, not reasoned debate. You cannot reason someone out a position they were not reasoned into.
I don't think you have a clue about Christopher Hitchens (who I actually quoted in this thread: "don't take refuge in the false security of consensus").
Perhaps you should read more of what he wrote, and watch the dozens of debates he conducted with priests, rabbis etc. Of course, you can use ridicule in an argument, but you cannot put yourself above the debate (or you will lose).
Perhaps it's you who don't have a clue. Perhaps you should read more of what he wrote, and watch the dozens of debates he conducted with priests, rabbis etc, because I already have. Listen to the man himself[1] on the importance of mocking religion.
"No I'm not. The debate was over 100 years ago, the ignorant just haven't figured it out yet. They simply get laughed at now for trying to argue the case. Mockery is not concession."
If it's actually half the country, and they actually think it's substantially more important than the other half the country, there's an argument that it's effective concession. But, at the risk of putting words in your mouth, I more understood you to be saying that having the argument wasn't important - conveying the understanding behind your "your side" of that argument you might consider quite a bit more important.
There never was a debate. Having a debate presumes that it is possible for one side to concede. The public discussion between Bill Nye and Religiousguy Whatsisface showed that one side is not debating; they're just baiting. Bill Nye said all it would take to change his mind is just one piece of real evidence. The other guy said that nothing anyone could ever say or do would change his mind.
On hearing that, it becomes obvious. There is no quest for truth or spirit of inquiry in the opposition. They are simply obstacles to progress that must be routed around. The debate is not over; it never took place, and it never will.
If you can't get someone to support rational argumentation by means of rational arguments, you're better off talking to someone--anyone--else.
There are some people who claim to be beyond convincing. There are probably some people who are beyond convincing - and there's probably some overlap between those two groups. It's just not the case that either of these sets includes everyone who doesn't "believe in" evolution.
You can't have a reasoned debate about evolution; reasonable people already know it's a fact and don't dispute it. Only unreasonable people are still disputing a basic fact of the world discovered well over 100 years ago.
You're presuming a lot about people's exposure to various ideas. A reasonable person surrounded by unreasonable people, who has - of course - encountered talk of evolution but almost exclusively absurd caricatures isn't going to "already know it's a fact".
If they graduated high school, they were exposed to the facts regardless of who they're around. Anyone who doesn't know evolution is reality is not a person of reason.
No I'm not. The debate was over 100 years ago, the ignorant just haven't figured it out yet. They simply get laughed at now for trying to argue the case. Mockery is not concession.
> there simply is not enough data on the usefulness of central banking to the prosperity of the nation.
Not what I was referring to. I was referring to this, " For better or worse, most of the latent ambiguities in the Constitution were resolved in favor of the interpretation espoused by Hamilton and the Federalists."
You can't ignore 200 years of judicial interpretation and case law simply because you prefer to interpret the text differently, that was his point and he's correct. That debate is over.