&gt; <i>But there&#x27;s also this balancing act, that we need to do, of not wanting to get into an argument of certain kinds.</i><p>Well, ok. It took me a while after I posted my responses to (sort-of) understand where &#x27;mikeash was going. I initially thought he was disputing the existence or possibility of those comments, so me and others were providing proofs and arguments that they in fact exist.<p>I think now that &#x27;mikeash wanted us to not accidentally fall from quoting some arguments to actually using and discussing them, but I also still think the <i>meta-level issue</i> is something worth thinking about. We all know general population will say stupid things, because GenPop always says stupid things in situations like that, and those calls will drown reasonable public discussion and they will shape public policy - so it is worth asking, what to do about it? How to prevent this situation from spiralling out of control?