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Things I've noticed happen in the general vicinity of my posts:
- Fundie nutjobs reduced to curling up in a little ball, plugging their ears, and spewing either contentless religious copypasta (Freeman) or barely-coherent amateur apologia (Bot).
- The Shitey Uzzard degenerating into mudslinging and pretending (badly) not to care when defeated in arguments...every single one of them.
- Insecure manchildren accusing me of being a transsexual (some random AC) on one hand, and on the other, an actual transwoman accusing me of being a TERF (Kurenai).
- Creeps like VLM, KHallow, JMorris, Entropy, and all their kind simply giving the hell up and abandoning ship when faced with a proper down-smacking for their fallacious sociopathy.
When you have people on the fringes everywhere angry with you, each of them accusing you of the precise opposite on the spectrum they hate, you must be doing something right. In all my time here, I've never gone in for trolling, deception, or shitposting. I've always stood for what's right, and took the fight to those who would try to spread their noetic poisons, fighting it everywhere it appears for the sake of anyone unfortunate enough to encounter it, knowing full well the originators of such poison are by their own choice irredeemable, certainly so in this lifetime.
And my approach drives them nuttier than squirrel vomit.
Well boo fucking hoo. When someone on here tells me I'm bitchy or angry, I just laugh, because what they really mean is "you're making me uncomfortable by exposing my bullshit in such direct, uncompromising, profanity-laced ways." It's pretty obvious the accusations of being a transsexual come from sheltered, misogynist little manchildren who can't handle actual women speaking the plain, unvarnished truth to them, because they have so little truck with the opposite sex they've never seen it in the real world before. No, this insult to their manly honor cannot stand! ONLY another man could POSSIBLY have the balls, literal balls, to stand up to them! (And of course the kind of person who'd make this argument lumps MtFs under the heading of "man." I don't, though I do draw an important distinction between transwomen and cisgender women because, frankly, they are never going to know what it is to have a period or risk being pregnant).
Time to put on your big-boy undies and join the adult world! The toughest people I know are all women, including my own mother and some of the nurses at work. I'm a marshmallow compared to them.
And I don't regret anything, as painful as it's been sometimes. Am I a "nice girl?" No, and haven't been for several years, and you know what? It's better this way. "Nice girls" get used and taken advantage of and thrown away and never have their needs met. "Nice girls" are the permanent victims of tone trolling by people too frightened or too weak to deal with them as the full human beings they are. In this place, at this time, as this site sinks further and further into RWNJ decay, all it means is I'll fight all the harder.
What I hope this does is encourage the people on here who still seek the light to defend it. Hit back. We're seeing on a number of scales, from the President's capitulation on his stupid bullshit shutdown right down to the examples at the head of this post, that the sociopaths are like any bully: weak, cowardly, amoral types who don't expect and can't handle sustained, principled pushback. Part of it is that evil simply can't comprehend good, but mostly it comes down to how bullies work and have always worked. Anyone who wants to join me in fighting the good fight, please do: we've seen that it works.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Tuesday January 29 2019, @01:00AM (4 children)
I am sorry, but the only thing the previous AC said was to compare me to a German from the 30s or 40s. He didn't have an argument, he had watered down name calling. And the fact that it was direct to the internets favorite foil, nazis, made calling Godwin an absolute necessity. Also, the metaphor isn't accurate because, brace yourself, I, the singular person he was talking about, am not a nazi. That is the problem with name calling, it makes anything else you might say utter dross.
You really haven't been paying any attention around here if you think I am OK with literally anything about Trump, you are right, the parallels are uncomfortable.
I am not perfectly clear what you mean by the "hysterical female" trope, but I don't think I could have been any clearer that I wasn't trying to make others upset or "win" anything.
I am not going to claim to be 100% on speeches of the civil rights movement, but yes, I know the broad strokes.
I also did not speak against passion I spoke against getting loud, unreasonable, and aggressive. There is a difference.
I apologize if this is going to sound like green site BS, but I have a lower UID than Azuma, I have seen much of the same stuff she has on this site, and for at least as long, that is verifiable. She is a more prolific commenter than I, sure, but I don't find the argument that she has seen some hidden pattern in the matrix persuasive. Sorry if I don't meet your measurement of fair, but that is literally the single think I try hardest to be, I will try harder next time.
You can't "force" anyone to see anything, sorry, it just doesn't work. And the entire thrust of my argument was that Azuma was giving aware her ability to influence me by her tone, perhaps you lost that in your hero worship.
I fully believe PEOPLE commit atrocities, and all of the cases I am aware of start with dehumanizing your victims. Which is why I am uncomfortable with things like "good" "evil" and "nazi" being ANY PART of an argument, it is incredibly unpersuasive.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Tuesday January 29 2019, @01:21AM (2 children)
We don't have to call people good and evil but we can label their deeds as such. Would that get around your criteria for dehumanization? Are you a moral relativist? Do you not accept that many actions, if analyzed carefully, can be found to either increase or reduce human suffering? If you don't accept it then maybe you're part of the problem.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Wednesday January 30 2019, @12:31AM (1 child)
I wasn't trying to make a philosophical argument that good and evil doesn't exist, rather that prescribing those traits to people, and especially to groups of people, as rhetoric, is directly responsible for some of the most heinous things humanity has done (which implicitly acknowledges at least some form of prescriptive morality, doesn't it). In short tribalism is a problem not a solution. I suspect that either that wasn't clear or you are taking a very long way around to your point, which would be confusing given the rather direct implication that I am part of "the problem".
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday January 30 2019, @12:09PM
I agree that tribalism is not a good thing in politics. A reasoned, civil, debate is infinitely more useful than a shouting match. Although there does come a point, where one side has long since abandoned all reason, that losing patience and responding on their own level is understandable and forgivable. There are many examples of that on this site.
I think you're talking about using good and evil as labels to paint on people, usually as part of a propaganda campaign, in an attempt to shut down all debate and discriminate against them. I certainly disapprove of those practices because they are deceitful and unfair and therefore immoral (evil) in themselves.
The reason I'm disagreeing with you is I've noticed a worrying trend in modern western society, particularly among politicians and the media, to never talk about morals or ethical values directly anymore. This means that when some propose blatantly immoral actions, the opposition are typically reduced to more indirect forms of disagreement or at worst spouting slogans and spin or even ad hominems (at which point there's a danger of sinking to the tribalism you mentioned). I think this fear of speaking in moral terms is related to the rise of political correctness. The implication is that we need to be tolerant of others that have different moral codes to our own. Such tolerance is certainly needed but values like honesty, compassion, generosity and forgiveness absolutely should still be discussed. I believe there's greater harm in shutting such concepts out of a debate than the harm caused to someone who might be offended by them. Again, when an administration's policies are letting people die unnecessarily in an affluent society, I feel strongly we should call a spade a spade and point them out as immoral. This should still be accompanied by a rational argument but let's not skirt around concepts when they're at the core of our objections.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 29 2019, @02:22AM
My bad for not writing more clearly. The only relation to yourself was about the "hysterical female" part, a trend where women are easily marginalized if they get upset. Men are able to get angry and obnoxious with pretty little blowback, but a female getting angry makes people uncomfortable and prone to writing the women off.
The rest was more pondering about the current state of affairs where liberals have tried to compromise and conservatives have replied each time with "fuck you!"
I used to view Azuma's posts more closely to your characterization, but after a while I started to see where she was coming from. Then I got tired of being constantly trolled into going through the effort of explaining my positions and even basic reality to people just trying to stir up shit and ignore valid points.
"Also, the metaphor isn't accurate because, brace yourself, I, the singular person he was talking about, am not a nazi. That is the problem with name calling, it makes anything else you might say utter dross."
That is a very good point, and pre-2016 I would have agreed with you. However, here we are in 2019 where "civil war" is actually a topic of discussion and the president has declared US citizens the "enemy". That is why I chimed in, you dismissing the Nazi Germany reference out of hand was actually in the wrong because it was one of the rare instances where the comparison was valid!
"I fully believe PEOPLE commit atrocities, and all of the cases I am aware of start with dehumanizing your victims. Which is why I am uncomfortable with things like "good" "evil" and "nazi" being ANY PART of an argument, it is incredibly unpersuasive."
Another good point, but that was not done here. "So, let me get this straight: you are afraid, and have nothing to say? Sounds like a "good German" circa late '30's, early '40's." You were being compared to the good Germans who didn't do enough to stop the nightmare that was the Nazi Party. So I saw a valid comparison which you then rejected because "internet Godwin" which is an amusing role reversal actually.
Also, "hero worship" is a phrase which marginalizes my own position, as if the only reason I'm standing up for Azuma is because I admire her. I used to feel similarly to yourself, I agreed with her but disliked the overly antagonistic approach. Then I realized that a good portion of the user base around here is made up of trolling edge lords who delight in starting arguments to waste the time and effort of others. Others are actual full blown racists who want to steer us down the path of fear. So now I see her as the bullshit detector and her harsh words are almost always deserved. Even so my reply to your Godwin accusation wasn't about defending Azuma but pointing out what I saw as flaws in your posts.
Once the more conservative types break away from the Fox News type conditioning then we can return to more adult conversations. Until then there is no point in a more rational approach. I tried it and it does nothing, at least yelling at the stupid prevents the rabbit hole of wasted time and effort which is their actual goal.
Again, my fault for not being more clear but you took my words more personally than they were meant.
This might be my biggest wall o' text yet