Where else would you find a climate change denier, a pole dancer and a SpaceX nut all exchanging views (mostly) amicably? Works for me.
(Feb 7, 2020 02:43 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]I just wish there could be interesting or innovative gadflys, SS, not the predictable gimps who you could write their replies in advance for them. Somebody who could actually offer the possibility of enlightenment or discovery rather than the monotony of wasted weeks that in the end were just self-therapy for the other's insecure ego.
There is no edifying and illuminating destination with the boring drudgery of spending 90% of your time correcting projected motivations and distortions/misrepresentations, just to have another one regurgitated afterwards. Especially if it's actually possible that the latter really could be the result of reading comprehension problems rather than literal, exhaustion-inducing tactics of the other party. Either way, the latter cares about nothing but the conflict itself -- not uncovering, introducing, or creating novelty (epistemological or otherwise).
There’s a novel that I read where one character insults the other one but they’re friends—truly friends. I would go as far as to say it’s a bromance. They love each other. Their relationship is real and plays out the same in real life. The author (the one being insulted) said, that the enjoyment that he has in being insulted is that his friend’s insults are magnificent—they’re so inventive, so alive! How refreshing it is to be insulted in a time when we’re all supposed to be so cloyingly nice to one another. They pay attention to one another in their uniqueness. And how wonderful to be paid the compliment of a finely-crafted personal insult!
"True friends stab you in the front," says Wilde.
Syne is reliable. He doesn’t ignore you. You can ask him a question knowing that he would answer it. That’s what I like about him. Yazata will only acknowledge you when it suits him.
You’re right, though, Syne might lavish you with attention but he doesn’t pay attention. He doesn’t want to know you. He doesn’t want to be your friend. Therefore, his insults aren’t finely crafted, funny, or unique to you.
(Feb 7, 2020 04:13 PM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]Where else would you find a climate change denier, a pole dancer and a SpaceX nut all exchanging views (mostly) amicably? Works for me.
I agree. We need diversity, not an echo chamber. It works for me, too.
Can we keep him, if I promise to clean up after him, walk and feed him?
I tend to just shy away from people in general (offline as well) who are just spoiling for a fight. If name calling and such fly right out of the gate as soon as I disagree with something they're saying/posting, then I'm out. There's no reason to name call. It doesn't cause healthy discussions to bloom, instead it shuts down most conversations. It isn't that I think heated debates aren't fruitful, but sticking to the topic is key, arguing the issues is key. Pointing out to someone the error of their thinking, can be incredibly enlightening. Name calling by an internet stranger doesn't offend me, but it just doesn't incentify me to continuing the conversation.
If you're into that sorta thing however, you can lurk on SF any day of the week, and see two or more members in any given thread topic, completely abandoning the initial argument, and sparring over who can out name-call the other.
(Feb 7, 2020 04:13 PM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]Where else would you find a climate change denier, a pole dancer and a SpaceX nut all exchanging views (mostly) amicably? Works for me.
Wait a minute. Pole dancer? If you’re referring to me, I told you that I was just training to be a volunteer fire fighter, not a pole dancer.
(Feb 6, 2020 09:48 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ] (Feb 6, 2020 05:53 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]I think that he's attacking me this time.
Meh. Syne is just Syne, kind of like a boulder wedged deep in a hill.
I was just alerting MR that I was the target this time and not him.
Quote:Overall, you seem to do as good a job of ignoring his barbs and insinuations as I do. He's online for no other reason than to provoke people into battling him, so he can practice and stay mentally fit for his prog and radical menaces.
I actually agree with a lot of what Syne has to say. I just wish that he could express his ideas more persuasively.
It's a basic principle of rhetoric that we won't have any chance of persuading people to agree with us unless we somehow make them
want to agree. Making them angry is counterproductive. That just hardens people against us. One needs to address the other person's concerns.
That's the fundamental failing of much of contemporary politics, in my opinion. We no longer talk
to and
with each other, we just denounce and condemn 'the other side's' perceived evil. (Very old testament in its weird way. The faith-doctrines have changed, but the underlying psychology hasn't.) It's why I sometimes say that we live in a 'neo-puritan age', where every issue becomes moralized into intransigent matters of good and evil.
Pointing fingers and shrieking "sinner! sinner! sinner!" (or in today's political climate "racist! bigot! fascist!") isn't the way to make people on the 'other side' want to switch sides. Hence the growing polarization.
I agree with that, Yazata. One of the positives about forums such as these, is that its members get me to think, and to open my mind to other possbilities. Over zealous scrutiny at times (by others) as to what we're posting and trying to convey, can be very helpful to our personal growth. Name calling just changes the trajectory of the discussion, and derails the potential that it could have had to help us as a group. Just my $.02
(Feb 7, 2020 04:49 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ] (Feb 7, 2020 02:43 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]I just wish there could be interesting or innovative gadflys, SS, not the predictable gimps who you could write their replies in advance for them. Somebody who could actually offer the possibility of enlightenment or discovery rather than the monotony of wasted weeks that in the end were just self-therapy for the other's insecure ego.
There is no edifying and illuminating destination with the boring drudgery of spending 90% of your time correcting projected motivations and distortions/misrepresentations, just to have another one regurgitated afterwards. Especially if it's actually possible that the latter really could be the result of reading comprehension problems rather than literal, exhaustion-inducing tactics of the other party. Either way, the latter cares about nothing but the conflict itself -- not uncovering, introducing, or creating novelty (epistemological or otherwise).
There’s a novel that I read where one character insults the other one but they’re friends—truly friends. I would go as far as to say it’s a bromance. They love each other. Their relationship is real and plays out the same in real life. The author (the one being insulted) said, that the enjoyment that he has in being insulted is that his friend’s insults are magnificent—they’re so inventive, so alive! How refreshing it is to be insulted in a time when we’re all supposed to be so cloyingly nice to one another. They pay attention to one another in their uniqueness. And how wonderful to be paid the compliment of a finely-crafted personal insult!
"True friends stab you in the front," says Wilde.
Syne is reliable. He doesn’t ignore you. You can ask him a question knowing that he would answer it. That’s what I like about him. Yazata will only acknowledge you when it suits him.
You’re right, though, Syne might lavish you with attention but he doesn’t pay attention. He doesn’t want to know you. He doesn’t want to be your friend. Therefore, his insults aren’t finely crafted, funny, or unique to you.
What I said in those two quoted paragraphs. Nothing about either sarcasm-exchanging friends or sycophant friends, or incivility. Yazata and MR are more like old Webtv "relatives" than friends. The only member I've had any infrequent messaging at all with in probably months is one who doesn't post here anymore. I'm not looking for friends, but I'm not going to over-reactively ward somebody off with garlic and silver cross if they try to venture tentatively there.
Reminds me of a situation some years back where a woman steeped in poverty is writing to me about how horrid her life is, and all I'm doing in response is expressing worded sympathies and maybe occasional advice. She eventually turned on her "real friends" in her discussion group who had sent her money and other assistance. Because they had an initial, indifferent reaction to her posting and grieving about the death of a teacher from her school years who had been instrumental in teaching her how to write literature and poetry. She totally flipped-out from what she perceived as their callousness, cursing them and driving them off for good (most of them weren't fully aware of the importance of that figure in her life).
That and many other incidents equals my having had enough of the crazy, upside-down world of forum "friends", as far as that being an initiative on my part.
My earlier remark of "ignoring his barbs and insinuations" [Syne] simply references a manner of pissing on that kind of juvenile bait, not being offended by it. I've got nothing against Syne being here. My disdain is half-facetious (perhaps more than that), but no surprise that goes undetected by those who project upon me taking things too seriously.
But I reserve the right to be bored, even it there's a smidgen of tongue in cheek or parody in the source of the boredom. The kind of "buzzing in the pasture" of getting people to respond to, or even outrageously finding themselves defending, what the buzzing asserts about them or misrepresents. Again, if I need useless activity, I prefer more interesting otiosity than wandering through a half-kilometer rabbit hole chasing after an elusive cat-caller and the pile at the end of it.
(Feb 7, 2020 06:00 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]Quote:No group identity is monolithic in it views, just as Yaz and I, straight men, do not agree.
Then don't say this:
"Notice how Yaz' view comports with those of women and gays."
I express myself how I wish. If you don't like it, go pound sand.
(Feb 7, 2020 12:21 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ] (Feb 7, 2020 04:56 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ] (Feb 7, 2020 02:43 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]I just wish there could be interesting or innovative gadflys, SS, not the predictable gimps who you could write their replies in advance for them. Somebody who could actually offer the possibility of enlightenment or discovery rather than the monotony of wasted weeks that in the end were just self-therapy for the other's insecure ego.
This:
(Feb 6, 2020 09:48 PM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Overall, you [Yazata] seem to do as good a job of ignoring his barbs and insinuations as I do.
Sorry, you get no brownie points for figuring out that those two quotes do wire together in some way. The bulb has to light afterwards (overhead).
Zero connection implied. You just broke my post before my point. Seems to make you feel clever though. Good for you.
Quote:Quote:You have to engage to have any possibility of enlightenment. You don't.
Did you borrow that line from a cult guru? Yeah, some people do have to trudge down a 100 kilometer road to find a bag of #### waiting at the end of it. But others can smell it at the start.
I have no reason to believe you engage with anything but your own navel. I'm sure that's close enough to smell.
Quote:Quote:Quote:And that betrays your lack of understanding. Men do not tease each other as a persona. They do it because it is fun/funny, even for the target, who tends to be man enough to take it with some good grace, if not a barbed comeback of their own. It's how camaraderie is built.
C C Wrote:<sigh> Stare real hard at this: "...not acting and talking like a sphincter (in the non-jocular sense)" subsumes your "They do it because it is fun/funny, even for the target, who tends to be man enough to take it with some good grace, if not a barbed comeback of their own. It's how camaraderie is built. "
By labeling the real [serious] sphincter behavior as a "non-jocular" context, the comment is acknowledging what you refer to, or discriminating the two.
Quote:I'm not so sure you can tell the difference. Especially when that exact same respect, in not treating another man as a woman, is often expressed in a non-jocular fashion...again with no affected persona. At best, you're only making a superficial distinction, only to further an exaggeration of one with the other as justification.
What a quibbling pile of dreck. I'm supposed to be interested in this? Is this what your stupid-as-wood, personally invented male mythos would find captivating enough to be wrangling over for what -- two or four weeks? Two rams butting heads on a mountainside for the sake of dull dog-turds like this?
See ya' in another 6 months or year of further ignoring, Captain Boredom and his faithful, predictable M.O. Don't try stealing Ostro's spot on the bench. Now there's an independent guy who doesn't give a flip whether we engage with his Langan's CTMU or not. He still makes his rounds.
See, you just keep repeating the same ignorant exaggerations and caricatures. Yawn...which is my reaction to most your long-winded, unengaging, navel-gazing posts (that aren't just a news feed). By all means, ignore me, deary.
Ostro seems a likely ally for you. You're both just as unlikely to engage with anything you disagree with.
(Feb 7, 2020 06:23 PM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]I actually agree with a lot of what Syne has to say. I just wish that he could express his ideas more persuasively.
It's a basic principle of rhetoric that we won't have any chance of persuading people to agree with us unless we somehow make them want to agree. Making them angry is counterproductive. That just hardens people against us. One needs to address the other person's concerns.
That's the fundamental failing of much of contemporary politics, in my opinion. We no longer talk to and with each other, we just denounce and condemn 'the other side's' perceived evil. (Very old testament in its weird way. The faith-doctrines have changed, but the underlying psychology hasn't.) It's why I sometimes say that we live in a 'neo-puritan age', where every issue becomes moralized into intransigent matters of good and evil.
Pointing fingers and shrieking "sinner! sinner! sinner!" (or in today's political climate "racist! bigot! fascist!") isn't the way to make people on the 'other side' want to switch sides. Hence the growing polarization.
You have to choose your audience. On science forums, I know I'm unlikely to sway anyone, no matter how sweet the rhetoric. In such environments, you expose the weaknesses of other's ideas for the benefit of the potential reader, not the holder of those intransigent ideas. I trust people to be smart enough to evaluate arguments for themselves.
People who disagree with me are very often already perpetually angry, like MR. There's little I can do about that, at least without just blatantly patronizing them. If you let them call you bigot, etc. without ever making it clear that they are bad people for doing so without any evidence, people will assume that where there is smoke there is fire. It's how the left has operated for decades. PC niceties just don't cut it.
(Feb 7, 2020 04:49 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]There’s a novel that I read where one character insults the other one but they’re friends—truly friends. I would go as far as to say it’s a bromance. They love each other. Their relationship is real and plays out the same in real life. The author (the one being insulted) said, that the enjoyment that he has in being insulted is that his friend’s insults are magnificent—they’re so inventive, so alive! How refreshing it is to be insulted in a time when we’re all supposed to be so cloyingly nice to one another. They pay attention to one another in their uniqueness. And how wonderful to be paid the compliment of a finely-crafted personal insult!
The provocative banter works because the people know each other so well -- siblings who grew up together often do it, you see it in 'band of brothers' military units that have all faced death together. It's common among police and you even see it among close groups of college friends. I've seen married couples doing it.
It works because each one fundamentally
trusts the others. There's usually scrupulously maintained boundaries. Each one knows things that if said will really hurt the other person and is careful not to go there. The fact that this kind of behavior is even possible serves as indication of the strength of the bond, and that's why guys (and gals?) place great value on it. (It isn't unique to males.)
I don't think that it works in the anonymity of internet discussion boards because none of us knows the others that well. There isn't that fundamental element of trust. Insults often aren't friendly.
(Feb 8, 2020 03:50 AM)Yazata Wrote: [ -> ]Insults often aren't friendly.
Perceived insults often aren't even insults.