Dan brought up my motive for calling someone delusional.
Now that moderation is seeping more into the boards, I’ll open it up with this post as a discussion.
Everyone on ILP Ad Homs.
I’ll give you the most basic and encrypted Ad Hom.
“I disagree; you’re wrong”
Every counter-post has this Ad Hom imbedded in it.
The series goes like this…
“Here’s a fact you didn’t know; you’re uneducated on this, I’m educating you.”
It’s a polite way of saying… you’re dumber than me about this.
And these are the types of subtleties that set posters off.
It’s all there subliminally. I’m not into subliminal shit.
If I don’t think someone knows what they’re talking about, it’s as much an Ad Hom as if I call them delusional.
There are people who really don’t know what they’re talking about. I make an actual argument with different proofs in three different posts (which is no easy feat btw) - and they just repeat the same shit 3 times. By doing this, they’re calling actual genius: stupid.
How am I supposed to respond to that?
I’ve just put 3 times the effort into this argument than the other person did (actually, probably a lot more) and then I’ll eventually call them delusional.
And you know what? They deserve it.
This is a fucking philosophy board. It takes people their whole lives to come up with arguments, I get that, I get the stakes.
When I’m having actual discussions (aside from the spirit shit I talk about) and I come up with three different disproofs (which is hard as fuck to do!) and they just repeat the same shit without addressing one of them)… I’ll Ad Hom them. I’ll call them disingenuous at best.
When I insult someone (aside from simply disagreeing with them). I always have an argument to support the insult. I don’t do this immediately. I do it after repeated lack of engaging with the actual arguments presented.