Don't feed a troll

Ecmandu · November 16, 2020, 4:48pm

I know you so well now. You think you’re a ‘trickster spirit’. I already know the game. Zero sum realities don’t work. You have no ability to trick me anymore. Your arguments against me are baseless.

iambiguous · November 16, 2020, 6:02pm

Ah, a troll as an intellectual contraption! No need to name names then.

As for specificity, lets go back to this:

“But if you come and say God says John Doe is a troll, or you have a logical proof (somehow) a secular one that proves John Doe is troll, I will not override my revulsion to that.”

If God tells us who the trolls are here, is that specific enough? If philosophers or scientists discover the whole rational truth about them, is that specific enough? Or does it always come down to his “visceral/intuitive/deep-down-inside-me” Self/Soul telling him who they are?

But think about it: he is so sure that he is right about trolls here, that even if God, science or philosophy was able to demonstrate otherwise, he would still fall back on his own rendition of the “real me”!!!

Karpel_Tunnel · November 16, 2020, 8:27pm

For example: on the beauty thread. Some people requested that one poster remain on topic. This degenerated first into a discussion of whether this actually happened, then into James Saint and how he handled the poster, then into disagreements over James Saint’s positions and personality.

And hey, been there myself. I get it.

But if you grab flypaper with one hand to pull off a fly…

hm, that metaphor doesn’t quite work.

Shit, you know what I mean.

I mean, maybe we just want a forum where everyone gets to finally say whatever they deep down wanted to people they dislike or whose positions they dislike.

Though I don’t think Magnus Andersson wanted that. I think he actually wanted to discuss some ideas related to beauty.

iambiguous · November 16, 2020, 10:07pm

I’ll take a wild ass guess here: he means me. And “some people” is Magnus. And I invite others here to go there and note the entirety of my exchange with him: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=196115

Decide for yourself if this justifies my being called a troll.

Also, decide for yourself who makes the most convincing arguments.

Also, where am I being a troll on these threads:

Oh, and when is he going to get around to responding to this:

He claims that in regard to his own value judgments, I am wrong to suggest that he is able to avoid feeling “fractured and fragmented” by inventing this “visceral/intuitive/deep-down-inside-me” Self that he grounds his own moral and political prejudices in.

Apparently it’s something else instead. He just won’t or can’t tell us what that is.

phyllo · November 16, 2020, 10:35pm

If it happened rarely, then you would get the benefit of the doubt.

But it’s a regular occurrence.

Consider this thread … you managed to squeeze value judgements and feeling “fractured and fragmented” into it.

iambiguous · November 16, 2020, 10:56pm

Again, for those who advocate not feeding the troll, the first thing they ought to do is to stop reading the troll.

And, if you do and respond to them, isn’t that feeding them?

At least Curly has enough integrity not to read and to respond to me. Or so he says.

MagsJ · November 16, 2020, 11:06pm

Oh no he doesn’t…

…thing is, he trolls the many threads, and not just the few.

Karpel_Tunnel · November 16, 2020, 11:11pm

As long as the dialogue with a troll has even as the slightest partial goal the acknowledgement of pretty much anything by the troll, that dialogue is not a dialogue. Because it is easy, especially online, to never acknowledge anything AND continued dialogue, irritation, attention is the opposed goal. Might as well argue with an echo or a bot.

It will not end. The attention WILL necessarily lead to more of the same behavior because getting the attention, especially if it is emotionally charged, is interpreted as winning.

A reduction in the behavior can only follow a reduction in attention. And, yes, it will likely not be a complete reduction, but this might prevent hijacking or at least reduce. Some more noise in threads, but the signals remain a higher percentage.

At some point the battered wife will hopefully decide she cannot change the batterer with more love and attention or logical argument.

Though is she wants to get the pattern going, well, that is her choice.

Karpel_Tunnel · November 16, 2020, 11:14pm

My suggestion then, if someone is a troll for you, is not to respond to him at all. Then you have less of what you consider a troll in your life. If the troll generally responds to your posts, especially your posts about or in reaction to your troll’s posts, then not responding will lead to less troll posts.

But if you enjoy increasing the number of what is for you a troll’s posts, then by all means keep responding.

iambiguous · November 16, 2020, 11:49pm

Note to Phyllo:

What he said.

MagsJ · November 17, 2020, 12:00am

I know… I’m trying, I’m trying… It amuses me so, though.

But my amusement is waning, and I intend to cease.

phyllo · November 17, 2020, 2:34am

Let me ask a few questions of the readers.

Should I ignore Iambiguous or should I continue to point out to him when he derails threads or tries to control threads or injects his particular interests into threads?

Which course of action is better for the community? Which course of action is better for him?

Am I being out of line?

( I realize that in the process of pointing out his behaviors, I’m also derailing the threads. Hopefully it’s a brief derailment.)

iambiguous · November 17, 2020, 2:55am

Note to others:

Starting now, please bring to our attention [on this thread] actual instances of me “derailing threads” or “controlling threads”.

From Larry’s point of view, there are so many instances of this, we should have no trouble quickly accumulating enough to examine in more detail exactly how I go about this.

As for injecting my own interest into threads, guilty as charged. My interest in philosophy is overwhelmingly focused on examining the existential relationship between “morality here and now” and immortality there and then."

Given the points that I raise in my signature threads. Fortunately, however, no one is actually required to read anything that I post. And anyone is free to “foe” me.

On the other hand, given the number of views I garner on just these threads alone…

…enough members here either don’t see me as a troll, or are willing to overlook it to read my posts.

Anyway, I challenge Larry to “foe” me. In other words, to stop bitching and moaning about someone it is all too easy to efface from his life.

Karpel_Tunnel · November 17, 2020, 8:44am

I am sure my position is clear already but since you asked…

I think it works better to ignore. Perhaps pointing out once that it is off topic and then not engaging. The problem is that it becomes a discussion of his behavior. You know that he does not cop to stuff. You know he has standard replies to any issue about his behavior - now you are making this about me. And of course if you are reacting to his behavior you are making it about him, because it is about him. And then there is also ‘the real reason you have problems with me is because you are an objectivist or are somehow triggered by his ideas’. He’s been there, he knows your reactions are like his. So he has a firewall to learning from your pointing out his behavior. And these firewalls go back more than a decade.

I don’t think you are out of line, by the way. And obviously I have been there myself and for a long period of time. It’s tantalizing. Perhaps this incredibly obvious point I am making with direct evidence in quotes form his post will finally get a tiny peep of an acknowledgement. How could it not, when a number of others are pointing out the same thing. But he has, so far, been utterly impervious. For all his anxiety about how dasein can change one’s beliefs and who knows what tomorrow will bring, he’s extremely stable.

So what happens is pointing out his behavior leads to more of his posts in a thread. At least, that’s my take.

Perhaps you could try just pointing it out and not engage further. One post, then back on topic. But once it becomes a discussion I think this functions just as he wants. It’s an invitation to raise his issues and also to frustrate you even more.

Perhaps you have found success somewhere that I missed. I mean, that he acknowledged your point or changed behavior, stopped derailing a thread. If so, let me know and a link would be wonderful.

Of course it really would help if mostly everyone did that. People could respond when he is on topic and continue dialogue when he responds to what one wrote and not to what one didn’t write. When he responds and doesn’t merely dismiss or label.

And those who want to talk about his issues, the way he wants them to be talked about, can do that also, obviously.

Karpel_Tunnel · November 17, 2020, 8:59am

There is also, at the same time one has to deal with trolls, the problem of people who want to treat any disagreement as 'the other person is utterly opposed to me and my values and is betraying reality, the founders, humanity, global health…'So nearly any discussion instantly has labels whipped out, then accusations, and very little actual arguing of points. The very idea that there might be a spectrum of positions or that people could actually learn anything at all from each other is not on the table. Once you draw this utterly binary line in the sand and have called out the other as a moronic, traitorous inhuman, it’s not likely one will concede even the most trivial point.

So trolls wandering into that kind of environment are harder to see.

Maybe we should call ILP I love Catharsis. Come here and vomit your bile on your enemies.

MagsJ · November 17, 2020, 12:11pm

_
There’s:
Arguing from emotion
Arguing from projection
Arguing from a place of ignorance
Arguing from a lack of prior knowledge of an argument
Arguing from prior disagreements
Arguing from a pre-conceived expectation

All these are hindering to the knowledge seeker, and one sometimes wonders, if it’s sometimes done on purpose, by some… probably yes. But then those, with an ability to research and understand, need not worry about that.

phyllo · November 17, 2020, 12:22pm

You can research and understand on your own or some other place where you’re not going to be called a liar or moron by a bunch of closed-minded egoists.

A lot of the threads are not even discussions … it’s somebody on a soapbox. And often someone full of hostility.

Ecmandu · November 17, 2020, 4:15pm

Everyone who disagrees that nobody wants their consent violated now or ever is trolling LIFE ITSELF!

Not just ILP.

Yes, I’ll call you a moron for stating you want your consent violated. Actually, I’ll also call bullshit.

I’m not full of this magnitude of shit like many ILPers here.

You are the trolls, not me. I’m trying to herd trolls (like herding cats)… pretty fucking silly, but I do it anyways.

Carleas · November 17, 2020, 4:25pm

I feel like this is a good place to plug the “Friends and Foes” feature, which will hide by default posts from anyone on your foes list. If the end is not to feed the trolls, and the means is not to read the trolls, it’s a good tool to have.

Ecmandu · November 17, 2020, 4:29pm

I somewhat agree. I’ve never ignored someone in over 20 years on the net. I look down on people who do this personally.

I always have an open proposition: it’s been standing for years now.

Debate me in the debate forums. If I lose, I’m permabanned, if you lose, nothing happens to you.

Fair trade. What do people do with my offer? Cower.

I’m not the troll here Carleas. I mean what I say to that regard.