A funny story, and a philosophical questions

[paulhope]

So, I've been in this community for a while, not counting the period of time when I was banned. In that time I've been an undergraduate studying philosophy in cognitive science, been working at a tech company and reading a respectable amount of philosophy on the side. Now I am in grad school at a program that is roughly "about the internet" but

Comments

[4inquiries]

LOL

Congrats on grad school - where? Or, what department? Not philosophy, right?

Trolling is trill lolling.

[paulhope]

I'd rather not say on the open forum because I still like my use of livejournal to be pseudonymous, but if you help me write this paper then we can confer privately to come up with the by-line. I was thinking First Monday would be a great venue for this.

[4inquiries]

Honestly tempting, but I'm too busy. I have to pump out essays on Derrida's White Mythology: The Metaphor in Philosophy and the Thai film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and I'm doing my Beiser posts in my free time anyway. Plus, it is hard for me to see how your discourse analysis of trolling will contribute to a social justice agenda, so I'd rather spend my time on my own project on educational discourse.

But what is your department? That's not going to give your identity away.

[paulhope]

Plus, it is hard for me to see how your discourse analysis of trolling will contribute to a social justice agenda

Hmm, that's a fair point. I suppose it depends on whether certain social justice agendas are furthered by tactics that would be considered 'trolling' by the institutions in charge.

Or, to put it another way: suppose you have a community, with a set of norms. And then suppose you have community members with alternative norms involved. The latter put themselves in a position to challenge the broader norms, resulting in overt conflict. In what cases is this activism, in what cases is it trolling, it what cases is it both?

[rechercher]

I enjoyed your post.

[promeny]

I did, too.

[david_deacon]

trolling used as a justification for banning

Yes, mendaciloquent and apperception--

[4inquiries]

The Occupy Movement is trolling? You're trolling.

When I was bad the moderators took my privilege of conversing here, which certainly made me recognize my appreciation of this community and made me change accordingly.

[meus_ovatio]

This conversation is something akin to listening to Reformed Calvinists speak about their sinful past, and how they found Jesus.

[paulhope]

You!

I like you, but I've got one thing that I'm going to hold against you for all time, and that is that you came back groveling.

Appy and Mendy were being total dicks, and you caved to their fucked up moderating "ideology". You realize that they were basically just fucking around, right?

[epictetus_rex]

I think it's worth noting that--on some interpretations, at least--Socrates was basically a troll.

[paulhope]

Yes, I agree. I think that "Socrates was a troll" would be a great opening sentence to a paper.

Is it possible to be a philosopher and NOT be a troll?

[epictetus_rex]

Ohhhh yes. I think most aren't, because most aren't normally conscious of the fracture between constructed sets of propositions and the actual experience of human beings. Socrates, conscious of his own inability to make sense of our basic life-concepts, lead people to aporia by pretending to be wise. Most philosophers are missing that crucial first component.

[dzlk]

But is philosophy actually accomplishing itself in those cases, or are they correctly termed philosophers in the sense that [insert favorite symbol of "vacuous pop trash" here] is still correctly termed an artist? Or does that question just presuppose a Socratic agenda at the expense of other (valid) ways of going about it?

[zentiger]

In the proud tradition of the sciences, and as owner of this community, I demand third author credit on this paper, without doing any actual work.

(Yes, kids, that's meta-trolling.)

[improvedhuman]

Not really, trolling involves an honest effort to conceal the fact that you are trolling. It could have been trolling without the parenthetical statement, and if there were a chance that anyone would take that demand coming from you seriously, but with it it's just run-of-the-mill humor about trolling.

[zentiger]

Hence meta-trolling. I'm like bean dip: seven layers deep.

[improvedhuman]

Okay now you're... oh. Clever troll.