Can BRTD ever see a conflict from a different point of view?

[SPC]

No. I have yet to see one argument where BRTD does not take a completely one-sided approach.

[Keystone Phil]

BRTD's always right. Always. Never found a situation when he's admitted to be wrong. Never. It's always his one way and everyone else is obviously incorrect and evil.

[Eraserhead]

... might as well stop being BRTD if he did.

[Torie]

BRTD just likes to stir it up.  The dirty little secret is that he is perfectly rational and sane.  That does not mean he doesn't have his little aesthetic predilections,  but hey we all do. SUV's for example are the road slugs of the highway,  and disgusting.

[Хahar 🤔]

He wouldn't be the BRTD we know and love if he was any different.

[Associate Justice PiT]

BRTD just likes to stir it up.  The dirty little secret is that he is perfectly rational and sane.  That does not mean he doesn't have his little aesthetic predilections,  but hey we all do. SUV's for example are the road slugs of the highway,  and disgusting.

     This. He & opebo just put on airs for their own amusement. Difference is that BRTD occasionally says things that make total sense.

[Smid]

I very rarely agree with BRTD, he often frustrates me with his simplified black/white/no.shades.of.grey arguments (particularly when my position is black to his white), but I would seriously miss him if he left. He's a real character on here and contributes and we'd be vastly different if he left... different in a diminished, less than what we are kind of a way. I think he sometimes says things with the intention of causing offence (stir things up, as other posters have suggested), but he strikes me as a really bright guy who can really think things through - take a look at that analysis he did of Minnesota's vote, for example, or his county-by-county predictions.

I voted "no" on this poll - but I think that he probably does actually see things from other points of view as well, he just discards those points of view as being wrong.

Sure, some of his ideas wouldn't work in real life, but his idealism reminds us that pragmatism is not necessarily a virtue if it leads us to only support what can be done or what is popular rather than what we genuinely believe is right.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD's always right. Always. Never found a situation when he's admitted to be wrong. Never. It's always his one way and everyone else is obviously incorrect and evil.

Incorrect. I have admitted to being wrong before, (such as with Hugo Chavez.)

I think Torie is onto something Alcon figured out awhile ago. I'll be Al/SamSpade-esque vague on that for now. I'll just say though there's a difference between the way I argue and the way I ANALYZE things, the latter being very important at my job especially after I got promoted, where I often find myself enforcing and/or defending company policy I don't necessarily like or agree with (sure I can sometimes bend the rules but you never have as much freedom as you wish) or doing favors for customers/other departments I find kind of silly at first though. My job has got rather interesting lately actually.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I honestly have to say no, probably not.

[Gustaf]

If he does he never lets it on. He is clearly able to think logically and analyze on a high level. He is also, given his views, one of the people here best at separating what he would like to be true from what is true.

But he also takes ridiculous positions based on nothing and then argue them agressively and one-sidedly. I've noted though that he relatively rarely takes obviously incorrect, empirically verifiable positions. Most of the time when he's wrong he's making some kind of judgement call or value proposition that is absurd.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hmmm, just found this again.

I can't believe last time I didn't make note of the ridiculousness of this considering the poster, who basically just dismisses and any attacks anything he doesn't like as "statist/socialist big government tyranny" or something along those lines.

[Torie]

Absolutely. The thing is, is that his agreement that you may have a point is kept close to his vest sometimes. I mean why give aid and comfort to your interlocutor? 

[Countess Anya of the North Parish]

well if he can that is great for him. It is hard for a lot of ppl to do that because you would have to not be heated and you would also have to be open to another approach. Since we have opinions when we look at something we just make it black or white. We usually don't think about it the other way because we already made a decision.

Anyone who can do that would be good at keeping there calm.

[GMantis]

Hmmm, just found this again.

I can't believe last time I didn't make note of the ridiculousness of this considering the poster, who basically just dismisses and any attacks anything he doesn't like as "statist/socialist big government tyranny" or something along those lines.

But he's telling the truth.

[War on Want]

BRTD has changed a few of his opinions before.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hmmm, just found this again.

I can't believe last time I didn't make note of the ridiculousness of this considering the poster, who basically just dismisses and any attacks anything he doesn't like as "statist/socialist big government tyranny" or something along those lines.

But he's telling the truth.

While what EMD has said is true, most of the topics discussed on this forum are things I'm unlikely to change my views on, being either hot button topics done to death a million times (abortion, Iraq War, etc.) or simply inane (jmfcst's Bible verse quotation fests, J. J.'s Bradley Effect nonsense, etc.)

[JSojourner]

BRTD's always right. Always. Never found a situation when he's admitted to be wrong. Never. It's always his one way and everyone else is obviously incorrect and evil.

Probably true.  And true of many people here, regardless of party affiliation.   

I very often agree with BRTD on issues, but I can see why people dislike this about him...and why they are troubled with what sometimes seems like an obsession on his part with Ben or other posters.  But again -- he is hardly the only Atlasian with such tendancies.  He may, however, be the most adroit and creative of them.

[Sewer]

Seeing a conflict from a different point of view=Moderate Heroism.

[Rowan]

A person who changes their values and views based on an internet forum does not have any real beliefs to begin with.

[Fritz]

I voted no on the poll.  BRTD is a left-wing hack with strong convictions, many of which I agree with- but I myself try to at least understand the opposing point of view.  But I do respect him,  I'd love to sit down and have a drink with him someday, but he doesn't go to the same bars I do (I frequent the Saloon on 9th & Hennepin).  Maybe someday we will have a chat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I voted no on the poll.  BRTD is a left-wing hack with strong convictions, many of which I agree with- but I myself try to at least understand the opposing point of view.  But I do respect him,  I'd love to sit down and have a drink with him someday, but he doesn't go to the same bars I do (I frequent the Saloon on 9th & Hennepin).  Maybe someday we will have a chat.

Maybe sometime we should hit it up.

[Lunar]

I voted no on the poll.  BRTD is a left-wing hack with strong convictions, many of which I agree with- but I myself try to at least understand the opposing point of view.  But I do respect him,  I'd love to sit down and have a drink with him someday, but he doesn't go to the same bars I do (I frequent the Saloon on 9th & Hennepin).  Maybe someday we will have a chat.

That's perfect, a quick Google map search tells me that there are at least seven strip clubs on Hennepin!  Meet at one of those! 

[Nym90]

I'll be down in Minneapolis sometime this summer. Maybe we can all go out for drinks.

I actually don't dislike BRTD as much as I let on. Yeah, he's extremely annoying, but he's a good analyst when he wants to be. I do think he's more over the top on here than he probably is in real life (which as has been pointed out, a lot of us are).

I personally see the ability to acknowledge and see the shades of grey as a virtue, but it seems like much of society doesn't agree with me on that. If he'd at least back off of the "I have no ing clue how anyone in the world could not like the things I like and like the things I don't like" he'd be ok. Well, that and the harassment of certain people; it's pretty immature. Real men know how to be the better person and maintain their dignity without stooping to the other fellow's level, see. I'm sure he'll grow out of it, eventually.....

[Fritz]

I voted no on the poll.  BRTD is a left-wing hack with strong convictions, many of which I agree with- but I myself try to at least understand the opposing point of view.  But I do respect him,  I'd love to sit down and have a drink with him someday, but he doesn't go to the same bars I do (I frequent the Saloon on 9th & Hennepin).  Maybe someday we will have a chat.

That's perfect, a quick Google map search tells me that there are at least seven strip clubs on Hennepin!  Meet at one of those! 

I don't know if anyone caught the reference- the Saloon is a gay bar.  Maybe BRTD would be willing to have a drink in a gay bar, I don't know.  I don't mind visiting straight bars, but I am definitely not going to a strip club (unless the strippers are guys). 

[Keystone Phil]

Maybe BRTD would be willing to have a drink in a gay bar, I don't know. 

Oh, he won't mind. He'll keep talking to everyone about Harvey Milk, as if that's the only subject they understand and care about.