Opposing viewpoints

I came across this today:
http://samsonblinded.org/blog/

Although I find the content disdainful, it does help to note that people have opposing viewpoints throughout the world.

As I read through the hateful posts, it occured to me how much prejudice and bias ruins an article. I know it's a personal blog, but the slant ruined any credibility that site might have had (at least with me).

Now I bring this up because we (or at least I do) sometimes rant and rave about direct revenue, inhoster, messenger plus, etc.
So what does that accomplish if the posts are so slanted that the average user gives the post no credibility?

Just a thought
wng

Fair comment !
But if the " average user " reads other posts here they can see that we rant about things that are spyware (even if you have agree to installing it) , plus the fact that most of the people here know what they are talking about

But that's like preaching to the choir. I'm sure everyone here knows that 'spyware is bad' etc.... What's the point of telling the anti-spyware community not to use direct revenue? We already know that.

Yes we know that but the rest of computer users might not
and if we rant about these programs, then they will get hits in search engines that will bring them here to see why we rant about them

We rant and rave because it is something we feel strongly about, and because we feel we are right.

We have seen, time and again, the damage and harm that malware can do not only to your computer, but to your life. I remember a victim I dealt with a couple of years ago who was frantic because a distasteful icon was on his desktop. His wife was threatening to divorce him because of it. I explained how the icon got there and agreed that he wouldn't have necessarily been surfing naughty sites to get it (he'd installed some 'freeware'!!)
We cleaned his machine up and he told me that he had shown his wife my posts and that things were ok between them now.

That is one of the reasons why I rant and rave about Malware and will continue to do so... everyone makes their own choices and forms their own opinions, if my ranting and raving helps them to stay a little safer and a little more protected then I'm happy.

Respect is also a factor, everyone here is a volunteer, and gives their time to help others for no financial gain. For the user who comes to boards such as this, they receive a service which will get their system clean - indeed a service they would pay for at a shop - and leave knowing their system is back to normal - and hopefully gained some knowledge about keeping their system secure in the future.

The consequence of this is an understanding by the user that the helpers on boards such as MR either are knowledgeable themselves, or can draw on experience and knowledge of others. The user puts their system into the helpers trusted care during the fix, and a relationship is built upon this trust, and the consequence is to trust the views expressed by helpers and bloggers involved in the anti-malware community.

Of course everyone formulates their own opinions, and that is completely one's own prerogative, but I believe it is important to voice opinions and comments to enable a productive discussion and share knowledge.

I would suggest the important aspect is a productive discussion, because this enables all parties, whatever their views, to understand and learn - and contemplate a different viewpoint - even if they do not necessarily agree with it.

I can't open the blog, but the title bar says, "A Machiavellian perspective on the Middle East Crisis", so maybe it's changed .... I get a blank window though.

Anyway.....

We all rant and rave about things we feel strongly about, and will often argue something to "guide" the audience down a particular way of thinking. It's inevitable, it's going to happen. I know I've done it, but I also know there are times when I have tried to be fair to the opposing viewpoint, and bring its arguments into the explanation. Not to debunk them, but to show that there is some validity in an argument that disagrees with my own viewpoint.

For me, I like hearing opposing viewpoints and being able to present mine as it creates good dialogue. Just before Christmas, I was talking to some people who REFUSED to listen to me .... they just kept cutting me off mid-sentence and shooting me down for a conclusion that I hadn't come to, and was never going to come to either. That .REALLY. annoys me! In this case, it was something serious I needed to understand but in the end I just had to create some way of winding the conversation down and changing the subject, because I was getting nowhere at all.

When it comes to spyware, we preach what we know about. We know what it does to people's PCs, both from a usability point of view and from a technical point of view. We can educate from this position of knowledge.

I heard a news story once of a child whose parents had sadly divorced. The child was visiting his father when all this nasty child porn was coming up on his PC ..... the child mentioned it to his mother who then reported it to the police, with the result that they came and visited the man to investigate. He had to get a computer expert to testify in court what the malware had done, and that he hda no control over the pop-ups. Thankfully, he got off any charges, but this could have ruined his life.