Some craven decided to stir up controversy by soliciting his friends to come troll around on my livejournal. I have disabled comments from non-friends until further notice
( Read more... )
I'll go with that conclusion. Over on an Objectivist blog that I follow, there was much discussion of the White House's "report Internet traffic that criticizes our health policy proposals," and a lot of people were enthusiastic about sending in statements beginning "Dear Big Brother" and the like. I thought that was a bad idea, in that it activated the us-versus-them emotional mindset and made it very unlikely that anyone reading such statements would have any reaction other than being entrenched in their own political loyalties. And in the discussion that followed I realized that I also thought it was a bad idea for someone who opposed the current administration to lash out emotionally, because it would get them into a mindset of adhering to their own positions out of emotional reaction and not out of reasoned judgment, and a position held in that way is not the same position. I was rather disappointed that the admirer of Ayn Rand I was mainly discussing this with took my position to be one of weakness
( ... )
Reasonable men may disagree -- indeed, hold entirely opposing viewpoints -- and yet engage in amicable discussion, even reach compromises acceptable to both sides. Unreasonable men seek to push as many of their opponents' buttons as they can, in the hopes of provoking the same fury that they feel. They would rather "win" a skirmish whether doing so benefits the campaign or not. It is very short-sighted.
It saddens me that the term "dispassionate" is now thought to mean that someone does not care about a topic, rather than that he has set aside his passions in order to confront that topic with reason.
Yes. C. S. Lewis, I believe it is, talks about the old phrase "equal and indifferent justice," when many people back when he wrote about it took to mean "justice of mediocre quality." He objected to this interpretation and asked a gardener he was acquainted with, and the gardener said, "It means not making a difference between one man and another." That one was already lost, at least in southern California, by the time I learned the word "indifferent" sometime around 1960.
"Disinterested" is pretty well gone, too. I had not thought of "dispassionate" as fading, but I can see how it could happen.
There is in fact a body of historical linguistic investigation that traces the paths by which meanings of words fade over time; unfortunately I can't find where my favorite book on this is hiding (it's not on the linguistics shelf), so I can't check the title and authors, but Hopper and Traugott's Grammaticalization is worth a look. You get a word that starts out with an objective meaning, such as want=lack; it becomes subjective, want=
( ... )
"test 1,2,3... test 1,2,3... I'm not banned? How can I not be banned? I need to work harder at this."
Compared to them, you are my bestest buddy. When you call me an idiot, you at least treat me like a human being, and you can correctly identify what idiotic thing I said you are disagreeing with. We have real conversations.
Those folks are all mad at their fathers or something, and wanted to say to me hateful things they never got a chance to say to the people they are really mad at. Your clashes with me are not even in the same boat.
Thank God you are around, Oscillon. If I wasn't a bigoted hate-filled homophobe, I'd kiss you.
ah, now i'm blushing. I hadn't even looked over at your journal to see what all the fuss was about until just now. Wow, what a nightmare. You have my sympathies. Congratulations on the adoption.
Between the mess here (which I missed) at Arhaylon's place (which I read some of)...I'm not sure what to say. This sort of thing used to make me intensely angry - and it still angers me, but to a far lesser degree - but now it mostly feels sad and predictable.
I found the source. It started with this notice, although naamah-darling covered her ass by specifically saying "and no trolling!" However, then seize copied it to this community with the link to the same post but minus the "no trolling" warning. Not sure whether the floodgates opened before or after that happened. No one actually said "start the attack!" but it was what we in the law business call a "foreseeable outcome"; not enough to be considered bannable harassment under the terms of service, though
( ... )
Comments 18
Reply
"Who let the Trolls out?"
I keep hearing, "Woof, woof."
Reply
Reply
Reasonable men may disagree -- indeed, hold entirely opposing viewpoints -- and yet engage in amicable discussion, even reach compromises acceptable to both sides. Unreasonable men seek to push as many of their opponents' buttons as they can, in the hopes of provoking the same fury that they feel. They would rather "win" a skirmish whether doing so benefits the campaign or not. It is very short-sighted.
It saddens me that the term "dispassionate" is now thought to mean that someone does not care about a topic, rather than that he has set aside his passions in order to confront that topic with reason.
Reply
Semantic drift is a nasty thing.
Reply
"Disinterested" is pretty well gone, too. I had not thought of "dispassionate" as fading, but I can see how it could happen.
There is in fact a body of historical linguistic investigation that traces the paths by which meanings of words fade over time; unfortunately I can't find where my favorite book on this is hiding (it's not on the linguistics shelf), so I can't check the title and authors, but Hopper and Traugott's Grammaticalization is worth a look. You get a word that starts out with an objective meaning, such as want=lack; it becomes subjective, want= ( ... )
Reply
Reply
Compared to them, you are my bestest buddy. When you call me an idiot, you at least treat me like a human being, and you can correctly identify what idiotic thing I said you are disagreeing with. We have real conversations.
Those folks are all mad at their fathers or something, and wanted to say to me hateful things they never got a chance to say to the people they are really mad at. Your clashes with me are not even in the same boat.
Thank God you are around, Oscillon. If I wasn't a bigoted hate-filled homophobe, I'd kiss you.
Reply
Reply
I hadn't even looked over at your journal to see what all the fuss was about until just now. Wow, what a nightmare. You have my sympathies.
Congratulations on the adoption.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment