[bobwaycott]

And the whole point of my question (re: arguing in fact) was that the parent was not arguing with facts, but was advancing suppositions with no provided factual basis. I was not rebutting any claims made.

To that end, and as I stated clearly, I did the same, offering guesses at what might be going on in the dealer opposition based on experience working with dealerships before. But, ultimately, even my surmising lacks evidence, and so neither of us are arguing with facts--we're simply not advancing a metaphor.

EDIT: Attempting to clarify that my comment was not intended to dispute anything the parent said, but to add another potential view. Apparently I misunderstood the parent's meaning of the phrase "argue in fact".

[ajross]

Good grief. I said "argue in fact", not "with facts". The point is to have a discussion about reality, using concepts from reality. Clearly you see the value in that becuase as shardling points out that's exactly what you did.

I don't see why you are willing to discuss the specifics of car dealership gamesmanship in Texas yet demand that I do so within the framework of an analogy to self-healing neural networks.

Basically: you're strawmaning like crazy. Stop it.

[bobwaycott]

Seriously? Strawmaning like crazy? How so and where? I've set up no straw man here.

Your phrasing "argue in fact" was ambiguous to my reading, which is why I asked what you meant. And yet I didn't dispute or oppose anything you said. All I did was point out that, just as I was about to do, you were making some guesses at bets/motivations as an outsider. Since I'm not refuting anything you say, how can I be proposing a straw man?

Relax, friend. I made no demands that you discuss anything within the framework of an analogy to a self-healing neural network. Moreover, I was replying to shardling's comments that there specific (implicitly factual) claims made that could be determined correct or not with some investigation if he cared--to which I simply pointed out there were no factual claims made, but that we were both positing potentialities and guesses, not factual claims.

Can we take a step back and see there was an apparent misunderstanding of intention? We were not having a disagreement.