That's it. I'm moving when I get my degree.

[Woodsprite]

I agree that this has gone way too far off-topic, so I'm gong to reply to your most-recent, and then I'll give you the last word.

Originally Posted by Icu

This applies just as well to your claim earlier that "Experience trumps conviction in all cases." If you need A and B and C to form an opinion, then how can you claim that having A, which itself is insufficient, automatically makes you have a better opinion than someone with conviction based on B and/or C?

Now it looks like you're saying "Experience and everything else" is better than "Experience". Well duh. But this is a different claim entirely. And even then, all you have to do is consider my cases from two posts ago to see that a whole lot of A with a little bit of B and C may not be enough to form as good an opinion as a whole lot of B and C and no A.

Look at it this way: Someone has played many war/shooter games that involve killing people on a mass scale. Sometimes this is actually done in training for the actual U.S. army (I believe I read this somewhere; forgot where). This is known as "investigation." Now, let's say this person has looked into the files and research concerning battles, traumatic stories from others, and seeing what can happen to one while fighting. This is known as "appealing to the facts."

Now we come to the good part: experience. Before then, all the person had was investigation and knowledge of facts. But this is the real deal: he's actually on the field, shooting real people with real bullets, sustaining wounds, and watching people die. That's experience. Without it, investigation and fact-checking really don't compare. You can watch war movies and read books and argue your position on the whole idea of it from now 'till the cows come home, but your arguments on warfare violence as compared with a person who's actually experienced combat pale in comparison.

I could give other examples, like the astronauts going to the moon, doctors performing their first surgery, a psychologist treating his/her first patient, a person like the Natalie Keener character from "Up in the Air," etc. But I'll stop at combat.

EDIT IN: Just want to clarify that an empirical proposition can only exist with all three, meaning that experience alone does not qualify a more valid assertion than one who has fact-checked. If the person has experience, but hasn't really investigated into his idea or fact-checked it, it's not much of an argument. Someone may have experience with mowing the lawn, but if he's just been doing it ever since he was a kid without actually looking into the methods he was using to do it, his experience may mean nothing as compared to someone who's looked into various ways of mowing. The experienced one may have been mowing the lawn for 20 years... and for all those 20 years he was doing it wrong.

I'm assuming this^ is what you mean?

Originally Posted by Icu

Basically, you can't dismiss everyone else in the thread just because they don't have experience because their other knowledge in the area might be so profound that it's more valuable than experience anyway.

I don't dismiss everyone else in a thread just because they don't have experience. Most threads concerning a subject are on things I don't have much experience on at all, if any. The tying factor is that no one else does either most of the time.

The thing about this discussion is, I'm just saying that my opinion is a lot more valid than someone who hasn't been in my position. I'm not stopping anyone from giving their arguments. Many good questions and responses are posed. But I'm just against it when someone says, "I respect rights of women, and you don't..." etc. etc., or something along the lines of assuming a position where experience is obviously needed to make such a claim instead of just fact-checking. This makes me annoyed because it just isn't true in cases that I've known, and the arguer makes it sound like his/her argument is somehow completely logical because they say it is.

Now, I'm not saying my arguments are reflective of every woman out there (obviously not), and I'm not saying that I wish to impose my views on anyone here just by claiming I have experience. I'm not doing that. What I'm doing is simply stating that I have more validity concerning my opinion, and that it should be considered.