Bandit LOAF said:
The Brazilian twins not understanding what the word arbitrary means was one of the most intelligent comments you've read on this forum? Adorable.
Now, go back and read the thread: it's Delance and Filho playing their normal idiotic game. They think it's incredily endearing to say something dumb and then to get together and defend it on incredibly shakey semantic games until they've completely lost sight of whatever their original point was. Just look at post 44 -- sure, Filho says, our *point* is wrong, but we could still be *technically* correct under one tiny condition (you are not - the first set of masses was almost certainly the fighters, which are based on the masses of modern day aircraft)! Kudos to Chris for yelling at them this early in the game.
You know, Loaf, the only argument you came up with that meant anything at all is "the first set of masses was almost certainly the fighters, which are based on the masses of modern day aircraft", which is a guess, it might even be right, who knows.
BTW, you both displayed your ignorance of etymology, because arbitrary is derived from a latin word, and therefore is more "native" from latin tongues than English. It is very foolish to think that the use of "arbitrary" has anything to do with speaking english at all. Not to mention that in my studies of linguistics I've both used and read this term with the precise meaing I tried to convey. Go read Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure, not to mention Umberto Eco. The idiotic semantics game is on you.
Chris also missed entirely the irony of my Xilitron post, which is sad. Chris, shouting at other people about how great and wise your friend is makes up a very poor argument. It only makes you look bad. Here, read a bit about it:
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html
And everytime I have some valid point, all you guys do is twist semantics to make it weaker, the accuse ME of doing that. Dude, I KNOW which one of the aceptions of the word I used. Funny how that happens again and again and again. When I don't concede to the silliness, you just try to debase me with childish insults. That is really bad form and poor sportsmanship.
And the saddest part is that if I try to treat you guys like you guys treat me, I get banned. Debates are completely unfair, unbalanced and arbitrary, whenever I disagree with LOAF. And yeah, "arbitrary" here has another meaning! Gasp!
PS: My grasp and understanding of the English language must not be as bad as you convey, considering how I get payed by publishers to review books written in english, and advise if they should be translated or not. I even got to translate a philosophy book to Portuguese. Mere wild chance, perhaps...
EDIT: Holy crap, I sincerely had no idea delance was posting the above. Great minds think alike, ehehehe.