And your counter-proposal for untrapping yourself is? A stone at least breaks the glass at range, which lets you avoid the shards of glass from the initial break, and can be thrown from close enough distance that you can run through the broken area before the entire house starts collapsing, if it was a load-bearing window.

There's a saying that goes "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Okay. How about "Nobody should throw stones." That's crappy behavior. My policy is: "No stone throwing regardless of housing situation." Don't do it. There is one exception though. If you're trapped in a glass house, and you have a stone, then throw it. What are you, an idiot? So maybe it's "Only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped in the house with a stone." It's a little longer, but yeah.

---Demetri Martin, Person (2007)

I want this list posted in response to every "is there anything we should do" ever. Just all over the internet. I would give you more than one upvote just for that list if I could.

Let's check featured articles on the main page on 19 July 2014....and...there we go.

Imagine that the only way you could dig a trench was with a spoon. Imagine that you'd done that - that you'd got stronger, faster, tougher until you, digging with your spoon, could dig a deep trench several metres long.

Now imagine someone gives you a spade. You'd probably be able to divert a fairly large river.

General Case:

In an otherwise well-constructed discussion on a subject, the author says something that reveals a significant misunderstanding of the subject, casting doubt on the entire piece, and the ability of the author to think about it sensibly.

Motivating Example:

A few years ago, a lot of public libraries in the UK were closed under austerity measures. Author Philip Pullman (a highly-educated, eloquent and thoughtful man) gave a speech on the subject, which was transcribed and widely circulated online. It was about the non-pecuniary value of libraries, and their value as educational and community resources. It was a very strong speech, but at one point it put forward the proposition that the value of libraries are completely incalculable and beyond measure. This took the wind out of the speech's sails for me, and my takeaway was "you write and speak very well, but you clearly can't be trusted to think about this subject in any useful way".

I experience this quite a lot. I'll be reading something online, mentally nodding along, thinking "yeah, this makes sense", and then the author will undermine all their credibility, not by saying something radical or obnoxious or unworkable or ignorant, but by saying something that demonstrates they don't know how to think properly about the issue.

Scott Aaronson has posted a transcript of his "conversation" with Eugene Goostman.

Does the internet count as "the general population"? If so: identifying and shaming logical fallacies. Sure, people do it imperfectly, and a lot more readily for the opposing side than for themselves, arguments are soldiers etc. But it's still harder to get away with them, for an overall positive result on truth-seeking.

This is a clever idea. I'm stealing it.

Please include the cityin the meetup title, so that it's easily identifiable on the sidebar.