Arguments can be extremely useful tools for strengthening each other's understanding. They can become unproductive when the parties involved are more interested in avoiding concessions than advancing, but there is nothing wrong with arguments themselves. Both you and onpon4 have been arguing, and that's fine. She just acknowledges that that's what it is.
If what you meant is indeed that these conversations are not advancing because others are indeed more interested in avoiding concessions, I would have to say that while any of us can be guilty of that at times, I seen some of this coming from your end as well. In general I think more benefit comes from assuming good faith, and I do not wish to offend you and risk you discontinuing the valuable information you have been providing about web browsers. However, it seems that there is one topic in which you end of going in circles with everyone with whom you discuss it. I think breaking down why this is happening will save time and energy for all of us. The general format is as follows: (1) You make a comment implying that the free software movement is impractical/naive/hypocritical/etc. (2) Someone explains why, although free software is imperfect, it is more trustworthy than proprietary software. (3) You understandbly feel misunderstood, because you had not claimed that proprietary software was better. You clarify that while freedom 1 allows us as a community to study some code that we use, we cannot study all of it, and that it is impossible at this point to avoid all proprietary software. (4) Someone notes that protecting yourself from some threats is better than accepting them, and that your only other option is to avoid all software. (5) You evade (4) by either (5a) generalizing with philosophical discussion to avoid specifics (5b) saying that mitigation is not good enough and we need some "new" system (5c) acccusing the other person of not understanding you or being disengenuous (6) They respond by (6a) getting caught up in the philosophical discussions, derailing the conversation (6b) saying that we would use a better system if we had it but don't at this time (6c) getting defenseive, derailing the conversation (7b) You urge us to help come up with a better system, as if we aren't already thinking and wouldn't have already shared better ideas if we had them. (8bi) In one instance this led to you creating a troll lounge thread that seemed interesting. I haven't checked back on it since my initial response but will get around to it. I'm not on the troll lounge mailing list so it's harder for me to keep track of threads there than with the main list. (8bii) In most other circumstances, you have returned to step (5), dreailing the discussion. (9) The discussion has been derailed. (10) Repeat, either in the same thread or in a different thread on this forum. I'm sure that you would frame this cycle a little differently. I don't claim to be perfectly objective. No one is. I certainly don't want to put all them blame on you. You must find steps (2), (4), amd (6) must be very frustrating. However, I think we can agree that some cycle resembling the above has taken place, and that we will just keep getting frustrated unless we break out of it or let it go for the time being. Personally, I do not think we will break out of it unless you refute or concede (4) without going to (5) or (7b). (7b) is asking us to refute (4) for you, and I would if I could. I hope you are right that there is a better way. While I think if you could refute (4) right now you would have already, I hope that eventually you or someone else can. Until then, I would prefer to focus on the information you have been providing about browsers, and I think this would be a better use of your time as well. In the absence of a perfect solution for web browsing, the information you provide about our current options is much appreciated. I'm sorry that I haven't contributed more by replicating your tests yet. In fact, I'll accept blame for feeding the above cycle by spending more time responding to your posts that I disagree with without contributing anything new than I have responding to your more constructive posts, while hypocritically telling you to focus on the constructive ones. I've been following and valuing your tests, but have been waiting until I have a chance to contribute my own to respond in detail. Honestly, I probably could have learned how to run your tests in the time I've spent writing long and redundant posts. My bad. I hope to get around to it by next weekend. Best, Mason
