In view of your comments, I took the liberty of pinning a short note to my readers, so that those who want to debate their differences won’t waste any time reading what I have to say.
There are many reasons that people refuse to engage with others. Your intended insult (or is it reverse psychology) that it is intellectual cowardice is bullshit. If you think for one moment that accusing me of intellectual cowardice is going to make me ‘debate,’ you don’t know your woman. I couldn’t give two bits about your opinion or anyone else’s opinion. I make my own decisions about my own life.
However, in the days when I did debate with people who had strongly opposing opinions to my own, this is some of the feedback I received. I can assure you that at least half the people who wrote these things were vehement in their arguments against me. It would take me weeks to disprove what they said, but I did. The emotional distress is caused me wasn’t worth getting my point across. People can now believe all the bullshit they like. I no longer feel that I have a moral responsibility to respond to them.
http://bestebookstories.blogspot.com/2012/09/flattering-words.html
That said, I try to make sure that everything I say has been checked, and I provide links. The links are not trying to sell you anything. They are the sources from which I got the data.
Yes, I am fully aware that writers, these days, are trying to influence. It’s disgusting. I grew up with old school journalism.
You say “By doing so the writer also hides the whole thread that may have engaged readers on both sides. That’s not in the spirit of Medium and it is what we are paying to have access to – not just writers.”
I don’t know where you get the idea that there is a ‘spirit of Medium,’ and that is what everybody is paying for. That is bullarkey. Medium is a content site started by Ev Williams to see if he could find a model for publishing where advertising wasn’t used as a funding mechanism. I write on Medium in order to earn a living. The topics I write about are life-long convictions – I will be 70 in a few months.
It is apparent that my stream is not what you are looking for on Medium. Fortunately, there are some half a million writers on it, so you have an enormous number of writers to choose from. I wish you the very best in getting the most bang for your buck.
