World Bank calls on countries to take urgent steps to protect 'natural capital'

[kristopher]

27. Yep, definately crab apples.

You are (still) more than welcome to support your "call" with reason and data. As I've posted several times in this thread "You have every right to treasure the beliefs you come to the table with. However when you seek to defend or promote that view with the use of factually inaccurate evidence then it seems natural to me that the evidence is subject to challenge."

I'm glad you understand that "people might be coming from a place that you don't know anything about"; that is what is meant by "values" and "beliefs". And while it may have been a revelation to you, to some of us the diversity of the world is something we are deeply steeped in and very accustomed to dealing with. But we all started somewhere so I hope you understand that personal growth is a process.

However, personal opinion is not something that should be used to hide behind Xemasab, although that is often a strategy used by someone who can't reasonably defend their beliefs. Take the right to marriage discussion going on right now. Those who oppose gay marriage have a set of norms, values and beliefs that they are acting on. In order to defend the validity of their norms and the actual consequences of the choices they make to impose their will on others they must rely on reasonably connecting them to the real world. IMO the reason public opinion is shifting towards favoring the equal right of marriage for all people is that the attempts at defending the values and beliefs behind the norms of the righties are batshit crazy and cannot be logically connected to the real world. They simply cannot present cogent, reasoned argument supported by legitimate data in order to justify the norms they want all of society to live by because they are operating on false beliefs.

Their favorite tactic when they are exposed as having no basis for their positions is to hide behind a supposed "right" to their opinion. To which I say "You have every right to treasure the beliefs you come to the table with. However when you seek to defend or promote that view with the use of factually inaccurate evidence then it seems natural to me that the evidence is subject to challenge."