- cross-posted to:
- health
- cross-posted to:
- health
Bayer’s Monsanto was ordered to pay more than $1.5 billion Friday over claims its patented weed-killer, Roundup, was linked to users’ cancer, Bloomberg reported.
James Draeger, Valerie Gunther and Dan Anderson were each awarded a total of $61.1 million in actual damages and $500 million each in punitive damages by jurors in state court in Jefferson City, Missouri.
The three people alleged that their non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas — a type of cancer that begins in your lymphatic system, part of the body’s immune system — were caused by years of using Roundup while gardening.
Teaching you fundamentals of argumentation and rhetoric to me is worth a little bit of my time. It is, of course, not your decision to decide what is and isn’t worth my time.
Bear in mind that my original comment wasn’t intended to mount an anti-glyphosate position; for I’ve very little interest in divesting the time into that at the moment (been there, done that). I was simply ranting out loud about a negative experience I had with vitriolic brigaders who openly admitted to shilling and taking a paycheck from the very company in question; a notable conflict of interest that would taint anyone’s perception in matters of controversy that might jeopardize their very own paycheck. After all, we saw precisely the same behavior from Tobacco companies for decades until they were thoroughly eviscerated. Anyways, that’s not really an argument I need to defend; it’s merely an observation from a personal experience I’m throwing out in the void, which evidently, many others here shared a similar experience. The user who volunteered to defend glyphosate mounted a point utterly tangential to the original subject-matter at hand, which is why I think it was down-voted. I thought their defense was very amateur, argumentative-wise — especially if they’re a scientist in that field. I’d expect better. So if that’s the starting-point, I’m very skeptical over it being worth investing further time. Sorry, take it or leave it.
Meanwhile observe how your own cognitive bias taints your perspective, here. You came to the user’s defense and yet absent of any compelling argument — for which you openly admitted yourself — did you advise they provide a source? Of course you didn’t.
When you start doing this, lmk, because at this point you’ve not done anything that could even remotely be considered teaching anyone anything about argumentation and rhetoric.
Nor did I say it was. I was just pointing how what you think is worth your time exposes strange priorities.
This is exactly what I pointed out: you provided an empty position, the other person made an argument. . .and that poster was piled on (while hilariously other people were whining about being “piled on”).
This is an extremely subjective statement as no argument in a non-formal setting really needs to be defended. But if you are making factual claims of subs filled with shills, and shills descending on you whenever you made a point, then you are making statement of facts that can be cited or supported, so to turn around and whine that other people aren’t making strong arguments because they didn’t source their facts. . .well, it’s terribly hypocritical.
The submission is literally about a lawsuit over glyphosate causing cancer. Posting about shill-brigades piling on is actually “utterly tangential” to the actual point. And they were all upvoted. Someone actually talked about the topic, whether it actually causes cancer, and you’re claiming the reason they were downvoted was for being off topic. Wow. It’s like every accusation is an admission.
You are the one who brought up the fact that their position is weak because it was unsourced, all I did was point out the hypocrisy of this. I understand that this is an informal debate setting and that people aren’t going to generally cite every claim they make. So you’re right, of course I didn’t, because they weren’t the ones hypocritically demanding sources.
First Lesson: Don’t hold double-standards.
You accused me of being the exact same as those mentioned in my original comment. You deflected this, despite (1) I make no money. (2) I don’t operate out of some sub. (3) I have literally no horse in this race. And you have zero evidence of any 3 of these actions – which makes your callous accusation odd, and certainly not a story from your past as was my case – and for which others openly corrorborated experiencing for themselves. So “Point out” my priorities all you want, strangely. I don’t particularly take high stock in vacuuous moral judgements from strangers if I’m being honest. I wouldn’t expect that from you either. This brings you no closer to proving I’m a shill equivalent to those whom I and others in this thread experienced.
You may or may not believe what I said, but you either have to accept that within the domain of discourse or you don’t. If you don’t, then we literally have nothing to discuss. You don’t believe me, and that’s fine. But relative to my domain where this is my reality, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Considering your counter-points hinge on taking my story at face-value, you kind of fork yourself.
Moreover there is a clear difference between sharing a personal story and seeing if others relate versus someone who literally goes directly from that to, "I am going to defend X. Here’s my case: " that is also tangential to the original subject-line. Both of these reasons are why they were down-voted and why this isn’t some case of “brigading” as you try to equate it to. Being down-voted isn’t what I really consider “piling on,” much less moving the goalpost from literal “brigading.” Forget the fact that the outcome of this court case in of itself goes counter to their own position they half-heartedly defend.
To be upset that this user was down-voted because they provided an unsubstantiated argument consisting of telling people to drink shit and that “lube” is probably safe just isn’t a compelling argument and in my view is worthless. Again, take it or leave it.
Furthermore I think it’s a little amusing that for the person whom you defend, no sources = okay. For me, no sources = “bad! Shill!” Are you not seeing the double-standard, here? For my original comment you refer to it as an, “empty position,” but they provided… a “weak position” – and yet, you come to their defense and not mine when I already proved the two comments couldn’t be more different? You’re upset that the user is down-voted after mounting a couple-sentence unsourced argument about a considerably complex topic that would take literally thousands upon thousands of words and countless references to legitimately unpack? I mean, Really…?
It’s not my job to coddle others and guide them to the process of sourcing. So if you hide behind the fact that this isn’t “formal” debate, then why do you act like down-votes on a public forum is some atrocity and proof of shilling on its own? Again, a double-standard.
Second Lesson: Don’t seek to “win” the argument out of egoism, but mutually pursue truth, cooperatively.
I freely admit I’m not perfect at this, but it’s all too common. I’ve already been able to admit when I was wrong. I first cast their comment aside as a non-argument, but after review from your response I agreed it was. A poor one, but an argument nonetheless. To your credit you seemed to admit that their argument was poor and unsubstantiated, too.
In my view you seem heavily-fixed on accusing me of hypocrisy. Looking at it from your perspective I guess I could see that on the surface. To me it’s completely different because I’m not linking this thread to bury this user; I’m not using keyword searches; I’m not even brigading the user with gish-gallop of my own as I discussed in my story. I did quite literally nothing I referenced in my original comment.
You are trying very very hard to equate my story with their defense of a position, and therein lies a massive disconnect in your accusation of hypocrisy. This to me is the root of a lot of our differences.
Finally, while you were writing this yesterday, the other user and I pretty much squared our differences, ended on fairly good terms, and they openly agree that it “probably” causes cancer within context of farmers with chronic use.
Third Lesson: End an argument that lives past its usefulness, ideally on the best terms possible.
I don’t see more coming out of this discussion that bears fruit. I’ll oblige you with the last word and go from there. Have a nice day.