i was reminded of this once again recently when i got into a debate in a totally unrelated sub (using different acct, i only use GGWAG for gun stuff) with a guy over tax policy.

This is relevent because?

the down and out was that he was basing all his arguments on nominal revenues (ie, projected at instantaneous time of rule change) whereas i prefer to calculate based on actual revenues collected over a recent several-year interval annual avg. a much sounder method i think.

That's nice but again, what does that matter? This is your MO and it's pretty intellectually dishonest in my opinion. There is an expression, brevity is the soul of wit. So far, you haven't actually made any points at all.

but, rather than speak to this methodological difference of ours, the other guy just said "cuz reasons, cuz [hand-waving]", and disappeared. this may have been "cuz ego", but i suspect it's larger/deeper problem than that. i think it's "cuz then established sources who also use my method would also then be wrong, and that's a bit more than i'm ready to process this afternoon, in this casual exchange."

Probaby because he was unwilling to enage in writing a book that meandered on and round, up the hill and though the dale to eventually, hopefully, maybe come to some sort of point.

strikes me that this is likely a similar thing that goes on in here, in rGP. i challenge basic dogma dogma all the time, and i rarely get responses which indicate BOTH acknowledgement of the mechanism of what i've just proposed, AND a decent rebuttal to that mechanism, which rises even roughly to the level of detail of my original objection to the particular point of gunner dogma in question.

You challange basic dogma as you put it, not by cutting to the heart of the issue but by taking countless nibbles around the edges and hoping you can confuse the issue enough to make the other person throw up their hands and move on, thus allowing your EGO to tell yourself that their position is somehow flawed because they were unwilling to wait for the grass to grow for you to finally get to your point. I'm still waiting to hear what your failings are, let alone mine since you've taken the space that could have resolved 4 or 5 different debates by nammering about how the grass in green and the sky is blue and oh look a squirrel.

There is no need to acknowledge whatever mechanisms you propose, the rebuttal is sufficent. Regardless of your judgement of said rebuttal, there is no need for any such to reach the level of detail you delude yourself into thinking you are providing since most of it doesn't cut to the heart of the matter but is instead the equivilent of you counting the pieces of lint in your navel.

this phenomenon becomes less and less surprising the more one sees it. and this is so because one comes to see that the level to which a person is married to a particular point of dogma is inversely proportional to the chances that he'll take a hard look at his own assumptions and pressure-test them very often.

Have you ever considered that you are a classic example of this very behavoir?

but you know, the difference between almost always having a nice clean orderly kitchen area at home, and usually having a disgusting disaster, can be slight.

So we've gone from movies to scientists to CEOs to kitchens and yet, you have still failed to make any type of point whatsoever. None. Zero. I'm sure you realize this. I've seen you get to the point in 3 sentences or less yet when you are faced against someone who is more than willing and able to turn your arguements on their face, you feel the need to write a book because it's the only way you can hide the fact that you have no point to make at all.

just the difference between routinely being willing to expend 1% more effort than is needed to clean what you just dirtied, and routinely having only 99% of the effort needed. net difference = only 2%. but over time, big disgusting difference!

Why would you expend 1% more effort to clean what you have just dirtied? Is it a race? Who are you competing against?

point here being,

Finally!

that if you get in the habit of back-checking your own stuff before responding or proceeding with an argument, then you'll rarely go wrong, and rarely look foolish.

You mean like, oh say, looking up what the definition of "bear" is before posting some idiotic drival about how Heller's statement about "usable" firearms have some bearing on wither it pertains to the "bear" part of the 2nd Amendment?

See how I cut to the point?

and, since you'll find that very very few people actually have developed this habit, this means that you'll have a nearly god-like advantage over just about all comers.

And yet, you don't because you don't have a "god-like advantage over just about all comers" because if you did, you wouldn't feel the need to block people to whom your "god-like" advantage means absolutely nothing? Like me for instance.

and it's not a god-like ability of course, far from it.

Indeed, esp not in your case.

it's merely a habit, which turns out to be a very usual one, which it turns out very few people have developed.