Fella said:
I still can't figure out for the life of me what atkinson was thinking
about when he invited you, of all people, to such a debate.
No need to figure -- JA told us explicitly in advance of the debate what his
goals were. The "subjective vs. objective" component was just
window-dressing.
You should be able to find JA's post in Google. I'll make it easy for you:
Ok, that sheds a bit of a light on things. But still, he knew that Arny
is bereft of any and all human virtue, he DOES NOT give onto ceasar what
is ceasars's, never. Even writing such a thing about him is absurd,
being so obvious. He believes in his own lies, all the while knowing
that they are lies. These are all so obvious points. My point is that
atkinson knew all this as much as anyone else and still gave him the
recognition that he is man enough to sit down and have a debate with. He
actually gave substance to this character. He also knew that in the
aftermath of the debate arny would just go on with his demogogy, his
cop-outs, that he would take cheap shots left and right, and simply deny
and deny and deny and that nothing would change.
Yes, I think you’re right about all of this. And JA probably agres.
Plus, the five-six points he puts forth are not enough to explain why he
specifically chose arny to defend the objectivist viewpoint. Any cause
arny fights for, suffers.
JA’s real objective was stated in the last point in his post: He wanted Turdy to
say, in person, those slanderous things he’s been saying on Usenet. Such as, to
give a few examples, that JA is a “fraud”, that Stereophile is a criminal
enterprise, that JA “interfered” with Turdborg’s “business”, and that JA emailed
kiddie porn to Mr. ****.
I think he should have confronted Mr. **** directly with those things. JA
probably hoped that after meeting Turdy in person, a détente would result. This
is normal when people who have disagreed come together to find a common ground
and resolve their differences. However, Krooger is too far gone to be interested
in such an outcome, so JA’s decision to keep the actual “debate” on the topics
of “ob. vs. sub” and “testing” may have been just cutting his losses.