The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central What has the political forum done for me lately?

"My tactics" is realization that ultimately it is pointless trying to convince someone on any topic concerning politics or religion. You can present all the fact in the world, cite all the studies and debunk any myth but people will simple hear what they want to hear and ignore what you said. As such, there is no way to "win" political argument if you debate cleanly. Best you could hope is agree to disagree, but that is when everyone behaves, and that rarely happens even if you act like a saint.

I use this forum as a test platform to see what are typical positions and opinions for various people (and we have great sample from all kinds of demographics) and more importantly at what point each sees red and start acting truly deranged. It is also important to realize your own limitations, but surprisingly nobody here have pushed me into red territory.

Immediate benefit for me - I have out-there conservative relatives that I don't want to cut all social ties with. At the same time I don't really want to nod and agree with the drivel they pass for informed opinions. As such, I used experience acquired on these forums to push back, but not enough so it created social rift.

Only in here brother, and only cause I know you do it on purpose :)

There is another reason for this though. We have no idea who/how many other people are reading the back and forth while trying to make up their minds.

I don't subscribe to this 'silent majority' theory. Aside from Red, I don't think anyone who isn't positing would be reading any of this. Gun thread alone would make sure they run away screaming.

This is a good example of you deliberately misconstruing what someone says so that you can respond to an issue that was not raised.

I clearly didn't say anything about a "silent majority." In fact I specifically said we don't know who or how many might be reading. In this day and age you are on camera the second you walk out your front door (never mind what Kurzweil and Google are doing with your phone and Samsung with your TVs). Someone is watching everything you do. No reason to believe that the same isn't true here.

We do. Registered KGB Oracle members can read this forum when they are logged in. Otherwise, this forum is private (to keep Internet crazy out, we have plenty of our own).

Thank you for the informative post. Having participated in the deliberations that lead to the decision to make this forum private, like everyone else who participates here, I had no idea that was the case.

Troll la la loll la la la loll

Actually we only limit write access to those that ask. This is read only to all registered Oracle members.