The poster who asks if I'd trust a surgeon or a manufacturer of surgeons tools to perform surgery on me, wasn't persisting in my "straw man" I worked out: the usage of "Smokey" refers to your evasiveness.

You clearly take an approach that tries to "win" an argument. All that approach does though is entrench your "opponent" further into their original viewpoint.
If you would try questioning (which requires the honest and direct answering of questions in response) you would do a better. Well, "better" depends on what your aim is.

Just check back on how this one started and where we helped Damo set his expectations.

actually i never actually asked you that either. Maybe fully reading what I actually put would have solved the problems you are having?

No, but you asked an equivalent question.

You misuse the term "straw man" by the way.

A "straw man" argument involves building a false view of your opponents (and that's the only description to use in this circumstance, because it isn't an approach that comes to an agreement) position and then discrediting that.
Examples of a straw man argument could be:
- Misrepresenting those arguing for a freer economy as proposing an economy entirely without rules and regulations that would allow crime as a business: i.e. holding a gun to someone's head and demanding payment, and treating that as an agreed transaction.
- Asking if someone would prefer surgery/prescription from a surgeon/doctor or a surgical instrument manufacturer/prescription drug manufacturer. As such building the "straw man" that your opponent is proposing manufacturing business perform surgery/medicine prescription.

Do those scenarios seem familiar at all to you?

i didnt misrepresent your argument at all. I simply argued against it. I never argued that you had said you wanted an entirely free market, i said that your 'freer' market was a myth. You can either be a free market, or you can be regulated. I didnt misrepresent your views at all, i simply argued against them.

In your other example i gave a specific example where the 'straw man' was actually in effect happening. I said this was a consequence of applying free market principles to that market. At no stage did I say that was your idea.

A better example of a straw man would be your response to this statement

I am however still, as i assume you and everyone else on this board is, far closer to bottom end of that scale than the very top.

being

Do you really believe, that if we put the world population in a line, ordered richest to poorest, you would be towards the poor end of that line?

that was your attempt to misrepresent the statement i made.

So if you weren't trying to suggest I was proposing an entirely free market that allowed crime as a business, why did you describe the scenario of crime as a business and ask if I thought it was valid?
On my scale of wealth statement, go back to the start of that and see who was misrepresenting what.

I can see I've brought you around on viewpoints (although in saying this now I realise I'll reverse that and entrench you back to your prior viewpoint) and your evasion and misrepresentation confirms that.

You're in an awkward position now, presenting yourself as:
- A "forum wars" player who evades questions and misrepresents. I see even Starbug is getting fed up with it, and you getting a little abusive in response.
- Genuinely unable to understand, or remember far enough back in a thread, both your own and other contributors posts.

Neither makes you a poster worth discussing with. I see Sal gave you a few responses, but suspect he'll get fed up with your approach too, if he hasn't already. Then who will you engage with on the boards?

Because you argued free market principles could be applied. I argued they couldnt. I also said that your 'freer' market was a myth. I gave examples of where free market principles in a regulated market failed. I didnt at any stage say you wanted an entirely free market, simply that you couldnt have a market which was both free and regulated.


no you wont, i made an unequivical statement, i made it numerous times, you didnt like it so you changed it.

The irony in here is pretty funny. I haven’t misrepresented anything you said. I haven’t evaded any question, I simply didn’t indulge in your misrepresentation of what I said. I was steadfastly consistent in what I said. I just didn’t say what you wanted me to. That is your problem and why you are trying to paint yourself as hard done by.

I in no way misrepresented what you said, nor changed what I said. The fact that Starbug is playing silly buggers and pretending to not know that St Helens and Salford are in new stadiums, that HKR have gone through a huge stadium refurbishment, and even Wakefield have spent hundreds of thousands improving their stadium isn’t relevant of anything.

I also dont need to remember anything anyone said in this thread, fortunately enough it stays there and can be read again, for instance we could trace the entire communication











that is our conversation up to the point you decided i was indulging in forum wars. Perhaps you would like to point out which question (besides your aforementioned attempted misrepresentation of what i said) i avoided or where i misrepresented your statements or views?

This is quite possibly the most enthralling pi55ing contest in the history of the written word. One pedantic nitpick, if I am honest I am not sure it is 100% relevant to the Duggan verdict but you lads crack on.

I think Smokey has broken his own record there.

It's all Damo's fault.

Is. It. Over. Yet?