You (all of Vichy, not just you Ethan) do the same thing [claim to know what we're thinking] to us pro contacters.

Never at this level of detail, which makes it totally different. And I won't defend some of the others who may claim for instance that all you want to do is have sex with kids and that's why you believe what you do. I have said that apparent self-interest means society should take pro-legalization views with skepticism -- very far from saying any individual's views are influenced that way and not even saying those views are false.

False, but so what?

False beliefs about many subjects suggest you should by very skeptical about arguments a person makes about other subjects.

I'm almost as opposed as could be to his leftist economic views. And still I'm a pro contacter too.

I didn't say pro-contact arguments were false because Dissident is in favor of them. I explicitly said otherwise. I just said Dissident is deluded and if your beliefs rest in part on arguments he has made, better to reevaluate what other support remains.

As I recall his complaint with the USSR was that they just didn't do it right.
You didn't even understand his positions if you claim this.

I was only wrong in that he imagined progress beyond the socialist state to a stateless society, but the socialist state is the means of getting there. Getting a socialist state that functions well is a precondition for the next step, and the USSR didn't meet the precondition because they did it wrong. Maybe he'll correct me on his beliefs -- I said "As I recall".

Should I criticize your anti contact positions because you don't believe humankind is inevitably fallen and sinful?

If you felt that human depravity should be obvious to anyone, then you would be justified in not taking my other views as seriously.

Surely, he says, almost all of those millions of elite thinkers (let alone the other 99%) are acting only in their narrow self-interest because they don't want society to change.
And according to the elite thinker Ethan

I excluded myself from the class of elite thinkers, referring to those who are more elite than either Dissident or me.

self interest doesn't exist.

Dissident is saying there is 100% corruption from self-interest. I'm saying it's not 100%, and you're saying that means I think it's 0%. Major fail.

Snowflake

Dissident's arrogant treatment of me had some role in giving me the energy to write all this up, but has nothing to do with the content of my criticisms. It's his belief that he actually does know the workings of my mind that is deluded. The fact he says it is more just rudeness.