Anybody change their mind?

This^. And even Tasvir has his uses, as a cautionary tale, if nothing else.

Before this Internet thing came along, I did meet a number of folks from overseas and all over the States through my work, but contact was sporadic and, while most of us met face-to-face, that didn't happen often enough, so having the ability to converse instantaneously with anyone anywhere in the world makes a huge difference.

Have I changed my mind about some things? Yes, primarily in terms of understanding the why behind people's beliefs and actions. Call it a Johnny Carson "I did not know that" moment. The main issue? Guns as regional/cultural artifacts, not something I was even aware of until it was explained to me.

I agreed with the War on Iraq in 2003 till about 2007. Not sure what the fuck was wrong with me.

Disagreed with gay marriage all through high school. WF and a friend of mine from Washington State who argued with me non-stop for about 3 years that pot should be legal really opened my eyes as to what should be legal/illegal.

I'm still pretty much a redneck though. Its all about where you come from. Some people on here probably don't understand guns, or why people want them or use them or have them, but I grew up with them and to me they're normal. The whole 'small town' thing.

That's what I'm talking about.

I used to think Corvettes were cool...but now they seem to be driven by douchenozels and old guys.

I used to think Northern California was pretty crappy. Now I just think it's mildly crappy.

Since your ankle monitor goes off if you walk more than 20 minutes from your house don't you, too, technically live in a small town?

Did you just inadvertently post a client email on WF?

Gosh no. I'm just trying to keep interactions between you and the LAPD to a minimum.

That's how I've felt about motorcycles.

All bikes, or just choppers?

Cuz, I'll agree with you on choppers.

If you're speaking of C-1/3 Corvettes, I beg to differ. If you are referring to C-4 and newer Corvettes, you're absolutely right.

My nieces and nephews race Corvettes, so the rule can't be 100% true. Their father, though (my sister's ex) IS both a douchenozzle and an old guy, so...

I've changed my views on quite a lot, doubtless influenced by Wordforge. When you're having your views challenged it certainly refines them at the very least. I'd say I've become more pragmatic of late in general.

I'm not for the death penalty in practice anymore (thanks, Texas) though I think it's still fine in theory.

I'm no longer in favor of humanitarian-motivated military intervention.

Can't think of anything else that's changed.

Oh right, the death penalty.

I still remember that post by Flow saying the government shouldn't have the right to kill its own citizens. That really opened my eyes.

I've changed a lot.

Used to be far-right conservative and now I'm some undefined ball of crap that doesn't fit any of the labels...lol.

My understanding of God has changed a great deal, also at least in part because of people here.

And even with ideas I don't embrace, I feel WF has helped me learn why people believe things they do and the constant challenging of ideas here just keeps a person evaluating their own thoughts.

This is not a BBS where you can just skate by and not be called on it by someone. No one here hesitates to call on others to prove their statements or provide evidence to back up their claims.

I used to be pro-death penalty and now I am staunchly against it. I was against gay marriage and now am for it. I was woefully ignorant about trans issues and now know a ton about it (Thanks, Nova!)..oh just lots of stuff! Probably could be here all day trying to figure out all the areas WF interaction has influenced.

But, for me, one of the biggest things has been the support and caring people have given me during the darkest and scariest times of my life. While that isn't knowledge based changes, just knowing I have a place to be myself is awesome. :lovelovelove:

I've actually changed my views about global warming. I went from "It exists and it might be that we're contributing to it" to "We're almost certainly causing most of it".

Coals to Newcastle.

Oh yes, one more thing: I used to be pro-gay-marriage, now I'm just anti-marriage-as-a-state-function.

I'm sorry. You've confused me with someone British.

Which is also pointless.

My wife tells me I need to change my mind more often, 'cause it's always dirty.

I think I'm going to take the Blue Ribbon on this one


Seriously. I'm going to date this for about 10 years because that gets me back before even TNZ and also before the scales started to fall off my eyes on my own personal condition.

On that major point - at that time I was, being a typical right-wing conservative Christian, committed to the idea that LGBT people were operating solely on personal choice (just as, say, the adulterer would be) and that the power of faith was more than sufficient to change that. I had already begun to move away from believing it was true in faith to NEEDING it to be true so that I wouldn't have to remain a "freak" (as i would have defined it then) but I had a firm grip on the position whatever the motivation.

And thus, complaints about inequality fell short to me.

Abortion - went from "life at conception no exceptions never" to the middle-ground position i now stand in (life begins - legally - at the same medical/scientific point life ends legally)

Death penalty - had no problem with it at all, now I think it should at a minimum be reserved for cases of notorious acts in which the guilt is self evident (such as the Colorado Shooter)

Economics - from a supply-sider loyalist to more of a "who the fuck really knows?" position.

War - was not a big war-hawk but thought the case for STARTING in Iraq was reasonable. Totally against protracted actions where there's no clear and present threat. Not an isolationist but think that in most cases any action should be very quick and limited if we MUST act at all. Particularly in light of budget concerns.

Government - always small government in thesis, much more willing to be consistent in the practice of it, which is where the growing libertarianism comes from.

I'm sure there's a great many other things, but leaving aside an issue list this one thing I must point out:

Other than accepting my condition and reacting to it's reality, the one biggest thing to me has been the change in approach.

I think most of you who've experienced it would agree that "General Chang" and most of the history of "Shep" were, for lack of a better comparison, "apostle-esque" - albeit with a much stronger streak of "I'll argue with you until you give up and call that a win"

I don't think this can be said of my behavior over the last 4-5 years. And less so as time goes on. While i still enjoy the arena of ideas, I'm no longer letting myself get so obsessed with "winning" and, in fact, I am still a bit embarrassed to get sucked into an argument so easily. I don't really like that part of myself very much and have been specifically choosing to just "let it go" most of the time.
I like myself much better when I'm not so competitive.

But is that because you really don't enjoy the arguing or because you see arguing to win as a masculine trait and you want to be rid of any and all masculine traits? Because it really isn't, you know.

In fact, I think men are more apt to give in and let it go to keep the peace than a woman is.

It's interesting to see how many people have changed their mind on capital punishment. I wish I had seen Flow's thread on this, because that's essentially the view I've always held, that we can't trust government with such a power. But I've never really felt that the argument grabbed many people who were insistent that it was a just punishment. I think this one probably surprises me the most of what people have said.

Apology accepted, Captain Needa.

I'd forgotten about that one, but it's definitely a big one. I'm not sure that I deserve a lot of credit for it, as it was a pretty big mind change for me as well.

Like O2C said, it works in theory, not in practice. Oklahoma had a guy starting wildfires in the middle of a drought last week, I'd perfectly fine with some frontier justice in that case.

Well, to me - and admittedly one can never completely be pure of motive - all that seems like a feature of the mask.

As I said, I still enjoy the vigorous exchange of ideas, and i still get too much satisfaction when someone changes their mind based on my argument. i still pride myself on making my arguments well or, at least, illustrating where other arguments have been poorly made.

But this is when it really hit me in the eyes - I went back to a forum I posted at back in those days pretty regularly, and I looked up my old user-name and read through several pages of that persons posts - and i was horrified.
I was on the verge of tears thinking I could have ever acted like that (and being how the board was populated entirely by professed Christians...ugh). I was just like "how could anyone have ever liked that guy?"

I sure didn't like him (based on that behavior).

It's not so much about being a "masculine" thing, other than the latent competitiveness, as it was being an aggressive, sort of "dominant" thing - which, feminine or not, is not how i see myself.

Having strong opinions IS part of me - I have several friends who have directly complimented me on the advice I'd given or the case i'd made for some point or whatever. But there's a difference in strongly held views, or clear thinking - and arguing someone into submission to your views.

Not at all. You're simply too ignorant to know what the expression means, and too lazy to look it up.

Holy fuck! I clued you in to what the expression means in the very post you just quoted and cropped.

You do have a tendency to take credit for things that have nothing to do with you.