Travis Calvert

Series Description:

This is a series of articles containing argumentative discussions I have with Redditors.

Some people may perceive the encounters documented within this page to be petty argumentation and a waste of time.

These petty arguments provide me occasions to sharpen my own critical thinking and communication skills. Therefore, I will post my arguments below for people interested in communicating with precision to study for their own benefit.
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Reddit Description:

Reddit holds the slogan "The front page of the internet". It is a website which claims to have over fifty-two million daily active users, over one hundred thousand communities, and over fifty billion monthly views. Upon visiting the website, it is clear that it is indeed a website made popular by a wide range of people around the world.
 
Consider Reddit as a website that hosts multiple forums. These forums are called "sub-reddits", and there are apparently thousands of them. Each sub-reddit has a unique nametag, thus no two subreddits are exactly alike. If a sub-reddit has the nametag "DebateAnAtheist", i.e., "debate an atheist", then it should be a forum about debating atheists. Likewise, if a sub-reddit has the nametag "dogs", then it should be a forum about dogs. There are even bizarre sub-reddits, such as "BreadStapledToTrees", where people discuss and post pictures of bread, (usually the sliced variant), stapled to trees.

Some sub-reddits have very active communities with dedicated members. Sub-reddits operate similar to traditional forums, as they contain threads, and threads contain discussions. Suppose the sub-reddit "dogs" has three threads. The titles might be, "How do I train my dog?", "How many dog breeds exist?", and "My neighbor's dog acts more mature than my neighbor". The point is, threads generally ought to hold specific subjects that are relevant to the sub-reddit description. If there is a fourth thread, titled "Help, I just got abducted by aliens", then it probably does not belong in sub-reddit "dogs", perhaps unless the thread contains information about dogs. 
 
Members of Reddit are called "Redditors". Similar to sub-reddits, Redditors have unique names, thus no two Redditor accounts are exactly alike. One Redditor can make one comment in the sub-reddit "philosophy", then jump over to the sub-reddit "ScientificTheories" and make twenty-three comments there. That Redditor's profile will show a detailed comment history of that Redditor, along with other basic details.
 
One notable factor in a Redditor's account is scoring, referred to as "Karma". Every comment is subject to being upvoted and downvoted by every Redditor. This means that if someone goes to a science based subreddit and criticizes the scientific method, they could receive thousands of downvotes by the scientific community. Some Redditors have hundreds of thousands of karma points because they posted a cute picture of their dog, and other Redditors have a negative number of karma points because they unapologetically write about the truth where people do not want to hear it. Votes on your comments affect your overall account score. If your account has a negative karma score, then you might be given special restrictions, such as not being allowed to comment in certain sub-reddits, or being limited to how many comments your account can make per hour.
 
With this karma system, not only can it be easy to get an idea of what a specific community might think of certain comments as a whole, but it also enables aggressive morons to hinder activity from the accounts of reasonable people. You can be downvoted into silence. This especially happens when you carry an unlikable position. This especially happens to Christians. The world hates Christianity.

To summarize, Reddit is one of the most popular online communication platforms available to the public, and since it is operated by people, some areas are like pits full of vicious wolves, where being fair is almost never witnessed.
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Final Notes:

Upon creating an account on Reddit, I was asked to choose a username. I used the 'random username generator' provided by Reddit. It gave me "Additional_Goose_556". I chose it as my username, and this will be the profile I will use from now on until it gets banned, or hindered in some way.

There is an art to maintaining control over discussions. It can be difficult to keep a discussion on a clear track. Subjects often get thrown around by all people involved, to the point where everything can seem everywhere. Sometimes, the waters become so muddied, everyone walks away from the discussion frustrated, confused, and unsure of what to take away from it. My style of discussion may be rather basic, since I am coming into this project as an amateur. Hopefully as newer discussions get added, we will see them become sharper and cleaner overall.

Text may be slightly altered for spelling correction purposes.
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Articles:

[001] Hammering Uncertainty
[002] The Impossible Stone Argument
[003] Empty Accusation of Meaninglessness
[004] Scientific Evidence for Souls
[005] An Image of Ignorance
[006] Disguise Statements
[007] Understanding Falsifiability
[008] No Power Over Logic
[009] Struck Dead
[010] Affirming The Matrix

[011] Written in 1787
[012] Delusional Troll #1
[013] Presidential Qualms
[014] Maybe I'm a Conspiracy Theorist
[015] 5,000 Planets
[016] Are We Pawns?
[017] You Dropped Your Face
[018] Childish Spasms and Mysterious Wizardry
[019] Green Eggs and Ham