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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (90340)	10/16/2008 2:21:58 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541922

I've learned something on this thread that I wouldn't have learned if BearCatBob hadn't been around. I first met Tim maybe ten years ago on a long defunct thread when we went back and forth over abortion. It took several go 'rounds before I finally came to understand that the humanity of an embryo is not just for believers in religious fairy tales. While I didn't change my mind on the political issue, my hostility toward pro-lifers evaporated and I have ever since been more respectful of them. Don't want them to make abortion illegal any more than I ever did, but I can oppose now without being hostile. That, I think, was my first SI awakening. There have been many more. Not as many as there might have been had this venue and its participants been more conducive to it, but quite a few.

To: Cogito who wrote (90340)	10/16/2008 2:29:27 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 541922

But here's a concrete example of how I've learned something on this thread that I wouldn't have learned if BearCatBob hadn't been around. I've learned that proposals to build dozens of new nuclear power plants in the next few years sound like a good idea, on many levels, but are unworkable. My experience as well, Allen. I've found two things going on. One, the sort of thing you are talking about, in which I do some research to counter an argument and it takes me deep into stuff I didn't know and wouldn't have studied without that prompting. The other is that, more often than I like, I find that rethinking a position in order to talk with someone, it gets much clearer or I discover stuff I thought I understood but didn't. Big help either way.