Evan Urquhart

How can a self interested, defensive individual reliably tell if others are engaging in "moral grandstanding" vs hurt and upset bc they've engaged in racism, sexism, sexual harassment, or transphobia?

Generally, the difference is they can and will answer questions with specific answers instead of chanting tautologies at you.

Who, exactly? We all live in this online environment where people will come out of the woodwork to chant a tautology and disappear. If you discount every argument that has even a single tautology-chanter associated with it, you'll end up discount every argument.

Good point, but the people you refer to don't want a good faith debate. I love a debate. If I could be paid to do nothing but debate all day, I'd love it. And by "debate" I mean "consider both sides of the argument and work towards a solution." I don't argue for the sake of it.

Hey, same. For me the key has been to find the smartest person on the other side of the argument, and ignore anyone who isn't adding anything. Whereas I think Mounk and Rauch are in a mode of ignoring the other side if some people on it aren't meeting their standards.

Perhaps. I give them the benefit of the doubt, mostly because they haven't told me off for discussing The Subject That Must Not Be Named. Mind you, I daresay it's because I'm not being horrible to anyone.

You're talking about transgender rights? A topic I have discussed fruitfully countless times, and often even convinced people on the other side to change some of their thinking around, but which apparently is impossible to have a civil conversation about.

Eh, I like being civil. What I don't like is being told that safeguarding is transphobic and that women shouldn't have personal boundaries. Them's fightin' words.