Personal pictures as avatars should be disallowed on debate.org.

"However you've contradicted that statement in the comments section of another debate." Not really. You and others seem to equate disapproval with an attack. This is a particular frightening symptom of our dominance culture. IE we've been trained that "respect" (Connor) and the like equal forms of submission. Assertion is not an insult. If I have to be rude to be honest, then manners are the problem, not my statement of my perception of reality. "I am simply disputing your negative." Ahhh. Fair enough. "Actually you can because you are but it is ineffective." You're right, but so is arguing for a massive change. Frankly I'm unaware of an effective way to change things in general, except to point out hidden advantages and disadvantages and hope greed does the hard work for me. "You have stated..." Yes I have. "I have already challenged your first claim with the argument that I took a simple picture of my face the way that it looks most of the time." And I refute that. Beyond the obvious nature of a still photograph not being an animated human face, there are impressions given by a photo that can wholly disagree with the person pictured. Here's where things are going to get complicated. The smile is popular because it's an evolution of a chimp shown of submission, baring the teeth to indicate non-threat. There is a lot of that still in a smile. A woman's smile is a symbol of a pleased woman (I know how that sounds, bear with me here, I have a point). A pleased woman is a symbol for a pliable or grateful woman, and that easily parlays into a sexual favor. Think of the infamous smile across a crowded room to see what I mean. Now obviously not all smiles mean that, not even the majority or even close in fact, but every smile in print or television advertising media does, to one extent or another, when it's staged and on the face a pretty actress or other representative. The message of every commercial is you're not good enough buy this. Good enough to what you ask? Meet you goals. And for a commercial to be effective is has to aim wide, has to be vague. So the goal, is usually sex, either getting it or keeping it or upgrading it. Sexual tension is the primary mechanism of control for government, business, and religion. (hmmm that's probably a good debate topic, but he'd have to remove character limits, I could do a thesis on that one.) So, a staged smile usually says. "Do what I'm asking and you'll get sexual pleasure." When it's with a product in hand the model becomes divorced from the sale. It's customer paying seller for sex from third party, (Guy buys Ferrari get laid at club.) But, since this mechanism is so pervasive, we start to think that's how people really are. Time for a great movie quote to illustrate my point! "We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness -- you maniacs! In God's name you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion." -- Howard Beale, as played by Peter Finch, during his live studio broadcast of the Network News Hour_ Network 1976 So girls start wearing these smiles, not realize that when they do it, because they are not on tv, and they are not selling something (usually) *they become the product.* Are you starting to see the problems this could cause? Now, women are allowed to sell themselves directly in all ways but one, sexually. So naturally, thanks to the forbidden fruit angle, scarcity, and a trillion dollar advertising push(to make sex super desirable, and complex to get, requiring mass sustained purchase). Sex is the first thing everyone thinks of, but of course if they frankly admit it they are perverts. Why? Because frankness short circuits the power feed. It gives women the power directly, rather than third parties. Why should I pay Kay diamonds to sleep with a girl when I could pay her directly? )This was originally the point of jewelry, gold and jewels WERE money in an era when women couldn't own property beyond what they wore. Now with the diamond resale market being annihilated, thanks to hording by diamond cartels and over mining and the abandonment of the gold standard, etc. that fall-back is gone, women are once again unable to own anything without direct government and business say so. So again I ask why can't I just pay the girl directly? Because government, business and church want a piece of that. Government says it's a crime, religion says it's a sin, and business (via their mouth, TV) says it's humiliating. When in fact it's none of these things. A date is a sidestep of this absurd puritanical prohibition, instead of giving the girl the money to spend, in the hopes of having a relationship with her (funny that relations is a term for sex), you spend it as per her instruction. In the past women didn't work, and had no bills, thanks to male dominance, so when they had money all the did with it was leisure, this is why traditional date activities are dinner and a movie etc. And here's where you come in. Your smile is also staged. Even if it was genuine at the time you choose to showcase it. And I believe you made this choice on a subconscious and perhaps even conscious level now that I've made you aware of it, for the same reasons they use pretty girls to sell everything under the sun. Power through sexual tension. This gets really complicated, and it can't be simplified. It's hard to imagine butter sales being linked with witch burning by monogamy, but they are. "I don't have to show anyone what is important to me" Is that how you operate? You only do what you have to? :( That honestly makes me sad, just the idea of it. It makes me think of the smile as submission, makes me think of objectified women, makes me think of you doing what you are told without even realizing it, and makes me think of your lost career as a cancer researcher. I'm honestly trying to help you and all those of your caste to free themselves and thus the rest of us. Seriously, are you ok with being lusted after being the real and dominate source for an esteem you receive online? If I were handsome, and even the chance of my face getting in the way of an honest appraisal of what people thought of me and my words, I'd hide my face in a flash. And all this is but one example of one's face being a serious distraction and attack on their ideas and individuality. There are several others. So I still say, just like race and gender, if they don't matter don't put them in the form. Hence my opinion that the option shouldn't be built in.