Of all the failed attempts i’ve made in starting threads on this site, the only one that ever really caught on is the one that was the most deliberately controversial. It seems self evident that we as a society love controversy. What is it about controversy that we find so appealing?
It excites within us the possibility that you have juicy, scandalous info about someone else. The exchange of gossip gets us gitty because sometimes it is very useful knowledge. “Avoid so and so.” “Don’t mention Sally around Bob.” “I hear Jose cheated on Marta.” “Ty is suicidal.” Etc.
It isn’t that it is appealing. People of today are disparate for any sign of a bit of satisfaction. They over react to potential threat (a deception being posted) and love to see anything they agree with, but don’t usually have anything to say regarding it.
If someone makes a statement with which you agree, you might, if bored enough, reply with some sign of agreement. But if someone makes a post to which you disagree, especially strongly disagree, you feel the urge to go correct the wrong, attack the enemy, defend the belief.
Negative emotions; anger, hate, fear all inspire immediate action, Conflict and Chaos.
Positive emotions; sympathy, love, discipline all inspire continuance with what is already there and require more thought, Peace and Harmony.
Normally Chaos is believed to produce more energy than harmony. In reality it is merely releasing energy that was trapped in the harmony that had already been established. In effect, using chaos is exactly the same as burning humans for fuel.
Normally Harmony conserves energy. And thus nothing gets released to a foreign entity (a governing body wishing to tax humanity). But Harmony, when arranged properly, can produce far more energy than Chaos could ever release. The problem is that those in influence haven’t a clue as to how to arrange Harmony into such a state. That state is the state of increasing momentum.
So in short, conflict inspires more immediate discourse in primitive societies because they do not know how to harmonize profitably.
{{and I had noticed exactly what you had noticed concerning you threads and suspected you were intentionally doing it}}
Well, for this site?
It’s a discussion site, you can’t have a discussion with someone if everything they say is right and shows logic that is flawless, and immediately makes sense.
You have to say something stupid, so we’ll all say, ‘‘that was stupid for the following reasons:…and my point is not stupid for these reasons:…’’. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the dynnamic of this site.
Sure, sometimes your post can elicit a tolerant response, when your post makes room for productive digression. In other words, when it raises issues that are not fully entertained in your post, that can be explored through a discussion, thus inviting response.
There’s advice, because to have that second effect rarely happens by accident, and usually takes practice.
It strikes me as though, whilst you aren’t so surprised, you are fairly surprised that your suspicions have been shown to be true.
It seems as though you almost expected controversy not to sell - or that somewhere in the back of your mind, you believe it ought not to sell. Perhaps there is a tint of disappointment now you have sufficiently proven that it does?
This is speculation, of course, but I am just trying to read between the lines.
If true, it is a result of what is now considered a “good upbringing”, where the “right” values have been instilled within you. But like with all virtue, it is simply a limited acceptance of the totality of reality. Those who are intentionally virtuous seem to be constantly disappointed that their values are so often not followed - they set themselves up for this bizarre way of existing - yet I think they would not have it any other way. If one can believe their value system is right, they create grounds for themselves to perpetually feel superior - usually because they cannot feel superior without clinging to a value system. But this kind of deliberate martyrdom is usually exclusive to the religious. Yet there is definitely a hint of it left in most modern secular ones, as though we are still cleaning up after the times when religion was everywhere.
Nowadays, even the secular have remnants of religious thinking left within them: they grow up with expectations about life, still thinking of reality as though it ought to be one way rather than another.
Personally I revel in controversy, like a shameless farm animal. This behaviour is looked down upon by those who still think in oughts and shoulds, and even more so by the deliberately virtuous. It is assumed that such a person is incapable of controlling themselves, and addicted to venting unsublimated rage and frustration - but this is so often so very far from the truth. Put simply, it’s just more fun. Me? - I like life. And not just the controversy part of it. I have a better time because I don’t restrict myself, but rather use discretion according to my mood and what outcome I want to get etc. Controversy sometimes results in more learning, sometimes agreement does - these things just have to be learnt through experimentation.
The irony of the virtuous one in their condemnation of the shameless ones - on the grounds that they aren’t able to be otherwise due to some problem or other - is that they themselves are the ones who show inability: inability to cope with this behaviour, whatever its motivation. If you can’t cope with controversy, you would do well to learn how - especially if this involves dropping the whole virtue act.
Not so say you are a virtuous one, I leave it up to you to know to what degree you are one though. It has little to do with me.
It has nothing to do with “feeling superior”. It is about what people see as sensible. A person with “virtues” sees or senses that those virtues are what makes sense and has trouble believing that others don’t see the same.
The natural mindset is;
“Isn’t it obvious that if we all believe and behave like me, the world would be better?”
Almost the entirety of conflict online is due to people thinking that others are seeing the same world with mostly the same education so it makes sense that people “ought” to see the same reasoning and thus the same morality as well. People are told that “we are all the same” and yet “being unique is good”. The reality is that their intelligence type and education is vastly divergent. The conflict is instilled in their fundamental mental programming and outlook.
When someone accuses another of acting superior it is only because the accuser saw the act as superior and preferred to believe it to be a mere act. Preference of belief strongly guides belief.
And btw, conflict also inspires the derailing of threads. 
And indeed, in this state of mind, one feels that acting sensibly is superior to acting otherwise! However could others deny the opportunity to be superior through restricting themselves to a “good” sensible life?
To the virtuous one, it is only possible to see the obviousness in life being better if everyone acted virtuously. However, this is more of a reflection on the size of the virtuous one’s life, being limited to mere “goodness”. Herein lies the trouble in believing that others don’t see the same.
If an act of superiority is widely bought, then indeed it is superior compared to if it was less popular. But it is not necessarily superior to another act. The potential superiority of a more limited way of life is undeniably less than the potential superiority of an unlimited way of life. The virtuous one is incapable of recognising this because their obedience to their virtue is so ingrained within them, that they take their virtue as self evident. Unable to see past this point, they fall forevermore in the face of one who is unrestricted and dominates the martyr on the grounds that he will not tread. The unrestricted one is “evil” purely for the reason that he can defeat the virtuous one!
Perhaps the martyr will succeed in another life, or so he believes: this is the very reason why the martyr clings to the notion of another life. So let them succeed in this other life! Be gone with him in this one!
One reason I enjoy conflict is because I can bring out the fighter within the self-proclaimed peaceful one, thereby reducing them to a laughing stock whilst relishing the opportunity to fight in the process. If they refuse to take part, they are are defenseless and lose too. They cannot win because they are restricted to rules, which, if they break them, refute their own cause just as much as if they don’t fight back. The martyr will always lose except in the eyes of other virtuous ones - who “win” only through blind denial staging victory in an alternate world… a hollow victory. Their protection is only within this small, closed state of mind - they give away their need for protection, and propensity to lose in reality, by the very act of needing virtue.
That is what “sensible” MEANS.
Yes, sensible means sensible. Your point?
Sensible is not synonymous with superior, however. Unless you’re restricting yourself to the grounds of sensibleness. In which case you are restricted and therefore inferior to acting unrestrictedly!
Why am I thinking that Nietzsche would be SO horribly embarrassed by that post. 
Perhaps because you care about what you imagine he would think?
Once you reach, I think it’s like 4000 posts you gain a feature called ‘character comment’ where you can put a comment, invisible to anyone under your post count, on a person. It shows up on all their posts and their profile page.
For some reason I see like 4 tags saying not to talk to you. So maybe that is the reason?
Gobbo,
Stop fostering the seeds of paranoia. That’s not nice. UPF will spend the next three days in Word Association to discover the truth.
Where the hell is that? Am I being shortchanged here? I demand my rights! There are more than just a few characters here I’d like to comment on… ummm, not anyone in this thread of course… :-"
I think Gobbo is trying to strike a mutiny.
Just trying to troll some controversy.
It didn’t work 
if i hadn’t read the rest of the thread i’d still be in word association trying to boost my post count . . .
well i wasn’t really trying to make a moral indictment of society by saying that it loves controversy - just observing - it sells to me as much as anyone else.
well, we all have values - but like i said, i wasn’t really speaking in moral terms
i think most people revel in controversy, even, if not particularly, those who think in oughts and shoulds -
i wouldn’t call myself “virtuous”, but i do have ideas about what virtue consists of