What I notice is that the majority of individuals engage in petty trolling. That is – trolling and then moving on to doing something else, or trolling and then pretending like you weren’t trolling.
This, in my opinion, - means that you just suck at trolling and don’t want anyone else to figure it out or notice it. It’s Ok, - because you just suck at it, but you might be good at doing other things?
You’re a failed troll, own up to it, and stop hating on people who are just better trolls than you?
It’s like how you feel when people hate you for doing something better than they do, - but now you’re just doing it to other people?
Just go back to doing whatever pointless shit you were doing earlier, - and then come back and respond to/feed the trolls like you know you always do? In reality, they are just doing you a favor because they are just providing you with something you know you wanna hate on?
Every little Hater’s Gonna Hate? But the reality is that trolls are also haters because making fun of others is really also a form of hating?
Who then can escape this paradigm? What do you guys think about it?
I think accusing others of trolling is often itself a form of trolling. Just because someone is adamantly expressing a controversial opinion, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re trolling, Not everyone who differs from the majority is doing so on purpose. Assuming someone has diverged just for kicks is cynical, stupid, and is itself an example of trolling at its most disgustingly hypocritical. This has happened to me a few times recently. They want to think of you as a troll because they can’t handle controversy. Then they maliciously and vengefully proceed to flame, flood and troll your threads, all because you’ve disturbed their tranquil slumber. There’s a phenomena I’ve noticed here and on other forums I’ve dubbed the friendly troll. The friendly troll is a vacuous airhead. They have little or nothing of substance to say. They flood other people’s threads with their casual aloofness and meaningless banter, but they’re tolerated for they don’t try to offend. Their interest is in being retarded and having a laugh. I don’t care if someone’s playing devil’s advocate, so long as they’re doing so intelligently and sophisticatedly.
Wasn’t Socrates a troll? If he was, then isn’t it expected of philosophers to troll people? I think a lot of trolling has to do with provoking people, sometimes making them look foolish, for the explicit intent to expose, publicly, where they contradict themselves and where the weaknesses of their ideas and values are.
So proper philosophy should embrace trolling and trollage, bring on the trolls!
I Think there is some truth to this. Stubborness, unwillingness to notice good Points or acknowledge them, unwillingness to notice when one is nto quite sure, in fact, or to admit it and a host of other minor Little lacks of integrity are endemic. Trolls who do not know they are trolls are more effective, especially if they make some semi-decent Points or even toss in some good ones, or almost respond to what you wrote, or make good Points that are not responses to what you wrote, etc.
Personally, I don’t really care one way or the other as long as they aren’t derailing the discourse, - but usually I always ignore unintelligent trolls on principle.
You’re right, - but you missed the point where I said that while trolls ridicule and make fun of other individuals for being haters, it appears that they themselves are just another form of hater.
Therefore philosophers are in actuality haters also, - but the only way to escape being a hater is then to, - stop doing philosophy?
So sometimes ultimately after a certain point, - the only way for a true philosopher to avoid contradicting themselves, - is to abandon philosophy altogether?
They are only effective if you decide to respond to them.
Right but they are more effective if their posts are a muddle rather than a clear trolling post. More people will respond. And since to some degree everyone is muddled…
OK, I read that. Not quite sure I get the hate - troll thing. I don’t think of trolls as hateful. I see them as derailing. There are hateful posters who do not derail. I have posted with hatred but been on topic and, I think, given some stuff to work with, mull over and respond to.
A troll is above pulling strings. I don’t see them as particularly emotional, more that they feed off of the emotions of others. A kind of online vampirism.
But we should make sure we mean the same thing by troll if you disagree.
I am going by what I think is the main meaning: someone who posts simply to rile people up. They may not believe what they are saying at all. They like the disarray and the emotions that fly around.
I don’t particularly want people pissed off. I am not deep down wishing to fuck up threads and create distractions. I wouldn’t mind pissing someone off because I presented an argument they couldn’t deal with. That might be fun, if they had already pissed me off. But still it would be a secondary gain.
More people will probably respond, - but not necessarily smarter people. Quantity is not always better than quality. I’d presume that’s the reason most people got into philosophy in the first place.
I see all trolls as hateful, - but to me that’s irrelevant in that regard. I just don’t respond to the unintelligent ones not because they are derailing - but because one I usually always have nothing to learn from them and two I don’t wish to encourage petty behavior or pettiness.
Pointing out what someone else is doing doesn’t magically exempt you from what you’re doing. And yeah, - it doesn’t sow discord but it will sow spite which inevitably leads to discord.
You’re not really responding to me here. You are responding to a Point someone would make, I would guess, but not one I made.
It seemed relevent to your earlier posts, which were based, I thought, on the idea that people saw trolls as hateful but really were jealous since they were also hateful but not as skillful as the trolls at acting out. I don’t see that as the case.
Great, fine motivations and reactions. I still don’t by the model in the OP about what everyone else dislikes about trolls and why they act as they do.
I was responding to your claim that they are more effective, - because more people will respond. And I said yeah, but effectiveness isn’t necessarily about quantity over quality, as distinguishment in anything is all about differentiating oneself from the common paradigm.
I also made the claim that people could also see trolls as being hypocritical because while they haven’t successfully managed to eliminate all of their own weaknesses, they go around doting over those of others’.
What do you guys think about it? 
