I don't see any links in your first edit.

* The idea of justice is stupid, flawed, and leads everyone to think in odd ways in the first place.

So what should happen to someone who burned down a store? What should happen to the store keeper?

Alright, I accept rrrrr's apology through proxy. lol.

And I think when the thread reaches a point where the sole discussion is about refs giving people the business, any remnants of bitterness are long gone.

The ref was really getting into it lmao. If he did it for any longer he would be smacking the grass.

I suppose it does. On Hubski, are cat pictures an acceptable form of diffusing situations, or is some other furry creature required?

Oh god... strange guys giving me the business never ended well.

Am I allowed to bring KY Jelly?

Glad to hear it. This seems like a good community, I'm glad I found it.

Haha, that's a helluva welcome. Is this standard initiation, or did I just get special treatment?

Because of the nature of rrrrr's rebuttal, it's safe to assume he started reading the comment, didn't care to finish, and jumped to the conclusion that I'm some asshole who hates anyone that doesn't have the same opinion as me. So I decided to put something that might make him take a second look at my comment. But there's no point in doing that if he's just going to ignore that too, so I formatted the first line identical to his in an attempt to catch his attention.

Granted, calling the author of the link retarded isn't the best way to open an honest critique of his argument, but high profile bloggers who post flawed arguments with long words and sensationalized phrases irk me.

Thanks for reading past sentence one before writing me off. I don't have any remote problem with anyone who holds the moral facts stance. I personally don't agree with it, but I won't insult someone simply for having different thoughts than me.

However, it does irritate me when writers for high profile publications post awful arguments, and everyone hails them as a genius without stopping to think 'Maybe this person isn't infallible.' It's frustrating to watch people lose their critical thinking abilities when they read something that looks official.

> Sigh, I had posted this to Hubski hoping for a debate a cut above what was going on at Reddit.

Christ, I had commented this to Hubski hoping for fellow posters who aren't PC hypersensitive and actually pay attention to the argument I present.

If you would have read my post in full, and not just the first sentence that you love so much, you would see that I don't think he's retarded because of the opinion itself, I think he's retarded because the points he make are awful.

The author was correct in that the subject isn't that simple, and that educators should make an effort to get their students to critically think about the world around them. I believe that philosophical debate should be integrated into high school curriculum.

However, sitting down a group of seven year olds, lecturing them about morality and relativism, then telling them to engage in ethical discourse and debate over the concepts of moral realism versus antirealism would come to a grinding halt very quickly.

Ok, I admit that my scenario was a bit extreme, but I stand by the fact that these things come in steps. These kids can barely write their entire name, and their brains' are just now becoming physically capable of complex thoughts. Have you talked to a 2nd grader recently? It's not very stimulating.

The human mind is very malleable until the early 20's, so this process neither should be nor needs to be rushed. Let the kid live a little before he contemplates the abstract thoughts and questions about life.

> And I don't know what you mean by "Plus those are the actual definitions" of fact and opinion. Whose definitions? Who's the authority on this? Maybe they're accepted definitions in US educational institutions, but the point of the article is to question them.

I stated in my reply that they were simplified. Most definitions for kids that age are pretty simple as well, they don't have full their full cognitive processing abilities yet. The definition was written for a premature mind, it was written so that the children would be able to relate to it and then understand the meaning. Like nearly all subjects, the concept was planted so that they would be able to later build on that concept.

I'll elaborate on my math analogy. First you learn addition: 3+2=4. Then you learn multiplication: 3x2=6. Then you learn algebraic substitution: 3xA=6, therefore A=2. If before he was taught any of the steps, the kid was thrown 3xA=6, A=_?, it would confuse the hell out of him.

Just because I point out awful supporting points, don't assume that I'll write off an entire debate, and don't assume I'll write anyone with an opposing mindset off as an idiot. You present any position that I agree with, but if it's poorly thought out and full of holes, expect it to be written off.

Exactly, the author of the article is retarded.

>When I went to visit my son’s second grade open house, I found a troubling pair of signs hanging over the bulletin board. They read:

>Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.

>Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.

>Hoping that this set of definitions was a one-off mistake, I went home and Googled “fact vs. opinion.” The definitions I found online were substantially the same as the one in my son’s classroom. As it turns out, the Common Core standards used by a majority of K-12 programs in the country require that students be able to “distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.”

I'm glad they teach that, it opens the mind to critical thinking skills. Plus those are the actual definitions. Sure it's simplified, but that's because it's target audience is seven year olds. If I went into Algebra 1, and the teacher was writing calculus equations all over the board, I'd be pissed.

> The inconsistency in this curriculum is obvious. For example, at the outset of the school year, my son brought home a list of student rights and responsibilities. Had he already read the lesson on fact vs. opinion, he might have noted that the supposed rights of other students were based on no more than opinions. According to the school’s curriculum, it certainly wasn’t true that his classmates deserved to be treated a particular way — that would make it a fact.

Alright, let's say that the rights the author is talking about is a right to not be bullied, for the sake of argument. The school, at some point, received complaints about students being bullied. The school looked into the complaints, and began to notice that, compared to non-bullied kids, the bullied kids had worse grades, lower self-esteem, and XYZ. After discussions with other authority figures, teachers who have seen the effects first hand, and bullied students, they came to the conclusion that bullying was very closely followed by upset and harmed students. They then decided to make bullying against the rules so other students wouldn't be harmed.

True, this was based off of opinions, such as the the opinion of the teacher the the student was doing poorly after being bullied, and the authority figure's opinion that kids shouldn't be bullied in a place of learning. However, bullying is far too closely correlated with those negative effects, to risk placing the student's ability to learn and grow in jeopardy. The classmates deserve to not get bullied, not because it's a moral fact, but because the risks of potential side effects towards bullied students could have very far reaching consequences.

> Similarly, it wasn’t really true that he had any responsibilities — that would be to make a value claim a truth. It should not be a surprise that there is rampant cheating on college campuses: If we’ve taught our students for 12 years that there is no fact of the matter as to whether cheating is wrong, we can’t very well blame them for doing so later on.

Cheating is against the rules because if everyone cheated, then students would lose the motivation to learn material, and school would be pointless.

How is this dude writing for the Times?