Mod post

[lyndz.livejournal.com]

So I guess having two absentee moderators is pretty much worthless. I'm taking nominations to add another couple to the list. I apologize for all but abandoning LJ.

Comments

[oslo.livejournal.com]

And the reason that this sentiment hasn't compelled you to leave and has, rather, led you to believe you're in the position to opine on its moderation is...?

What irks me about these kinds of comments is that it requires a substantial amount of restraint to respond to you without indulging in precisely the same kind of passive-aggressive and snidely insulting commentary you engage in as a matter of course, as though it were your entitlement. You (and Jeff and Geezer) seem to expect that you're entitled to express your opinions and have them engaged respectfully like they're the seriously-considered, well-formed opinions that they're not, while at the same time you (and Jeff and Geezer) say things like, "I don't respect anyone in this community," or "Being accused of incompetence is character assassination," or "You're a lawyer, so you must have amazing mind-reading abilities." And when that juvenile behavior elicits a harsh response, you pout or you caterwaul about how unfairly you've been treated - must have been your politics, amirite?

Look, you've chosen to participate in this community. That's great! That's just neat. But the least you owe the members of this community is a modicum of respect. We're not here just so you can have an audience every time you want to feel morally and intellectually superior. That's why I engage in the degree of self-restraint that I do exercise, in nearly every comment I write to you - because it makes no sense for me to respond to you at all unless I assume you're worth the time.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

I've stated my reason for being here: to keep myself on the cutting edge of emerging rhetorical trends, so I can practice my responses and tear down stupid ideas on both the left and the right when I encounter them in meatspace.

I don't mind harsh responses one bit. Unlike most people, I'm able to focus on content rather than form. I'd be happy if people just responded what my positions actually are. But most people are too mired in the false left-right dichotomy to avoid assuming and then responding to ideas that don't actually follow from anything I've said.

You, for example, keep implying that I'm a conservative, as if I'm not constantly at odds with Jeff myself. Why, because I constantly attack what I view as philosophical weakness and cognitive dissonance on the left? Do you similarly assume that Trotsky was a conservative because he criticized Stalin? Do you assume that Guevara was a conservative because he embraced violence?


"you owe the members of this community is a modicum of respect"

Wrong. I owe respect to people's inalienable right to hold stupid beliefs. This implies no debt of respect to those beliefs or to the people who hold them. The inability to make distinctions like this is one of the things that frequently loses people my respect.

What you call "self-restraint" is frequently nothing more than couching ignorance and bigotry in long-winded pseudo-intellectualism. I respond with the vitriol that the actual substance of your comments deserves.

[zanganito.livejournal.com]

Virtually everyone else here deserves to be insulted far more than the community rules allow.

Well, wow. At least you're honest I suppose.

I respond with the vitriol that the actual substance of your comments deserves.

So, you are of the opinion that you catch more flies with vinegar? ;)

[madscience.livejournal.com]

I always found that a funny idiom because you literally do catch more flies with vinegar.

[zanganito.livejournal.com]

you literally do catch more flies with vinegar.

Partially true, though it really depends on the species of fly you are out to catch. (Pomace flies are attracted to acetic acid for sure, most other species, not so much.)

[oslo.livejournal.com]

I've stated my reason for being here: to keep myself on the cutting edge of emerging rhetorical trends, so I can practice my responses and tear down stupid ideas on both the left and the right when I encounter them in meatspace.

So you apparently disagree that "we're not here just so you can have an audience every time you want to feel morally and intellectually superior." We're all here just to serve your own selfish needs. Gotchya.

I don't mind harsh responses one bit. Unlike most people, I'm able to focus on content rather than form.

Who's being distracted by "form?" Did you mean to say something else here? Like "substantive content rather than style or invective"?

I'd be happy if people just responded what my positions actually are. ... You, for example, keep implying that I'm a conservative, as if I'm not constantly at odds with Jeff myself.

I don't think I've ever responded to you as though you've taken positions you haven't taken. I appreciate that you're not a "conservative" in the same sense that Jeff might be, and if you feel I've painted your churlishness-as-typical-"conservative"-behavior with too broad a brush, I'm sorry for it. But let's not slip between the two.

Wrong. I owe respect to people's inalienable right to hold stupid beliefs. This implies no debt of respect to those beliefs or to the people who hold them. The inability to make distinctions like this is one of the things that frequently loses people my respect.

The reason you owe the members of this community at least a modicum of respect is that you seem to want and expect them to read your comments. I'll agree that, if your only stated purpose in participating here is to practice wiping your ass with us so that you can be assured that your ass is clean when you offer it up to a meatspace prostitute, there's no reason to regard us with any respect at all, but you shouldn't expect us to thank you for the opportunity or pay any attention to you at all, other than to say, "Go fuck yourself."

The inability to appreciate the distinction between what I've said and the ludicrous strawman you've first attributed to me and then insulted me for holding is a key reason why I have to restrain myself so often when addressing you.

What you call "self-restraint" is frequently nothing more than couching ignorance and bigotry in long-winded pseudo-intellectualism. I respond with the vitriol that the actual substance of your comments deserves.

If I am ignorant or bigoted, you're free as always to demonstrate as much and charge me with the task of either defending what I've said or admitting my limitations. Happy to go either way. But all you seem to be capable of doing is to read a lot into what I've actually said and then insult me for saying things I haven't said, which suggests to me a possibly insurmountable problem of reading comprehension.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

"The reason you owe the members of this community at least a modicum of respect is that you seem to want and expect them to read your comments."

Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but I don't "owe" anyone respect for that. I'd barter the pretense of respect for that if it were necessary, but apparently it isn't.

I retract and apologize for calling your ideas ignorant and bigoted. I do think you often attempt to cloak weak arguments with verbosity and academic airs, but as for bigotry, I was confusing you with someone else.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but I don't "owe" anyone respect for that. I'd barter the pretense of respect for that if it were necessary, but apparently it isn't.

It is implicitly owed, insofar as your comments are offered with the expectation that they be treated a certain way.

I do think you often attempt to cloak weak arguments with verbosity and academic airs,...

Well... I wouldn't deny that... But in any event I do try to remain open to correction. My verbosity is a habit, not a strategy to avoid being called out, even if many people fail to see through it.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy if people just responded what my positions actually are.

You're the one currently repainting the premise in another post right now. If you're not comfortable with people replying to the issues underlying the positions you profess to hold instead of the positions themselves, maybe you need to look at your own behavior.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

. I'd be happy if people just responded what my positions actually are.

If everyone seems to misunderstand your positions, Occam's Razor indicates that you are communicating ineffectively, not that everyone else is incorrect.

Wrong. I owe respect to people's inalienable right to hold stupid beliefs. This implies no debt of respect to those beliefs or to the people who hold them.

If you don't respect me (or others here), why do you demand respect for yourself, hmm?
Ja, ja, ich kenne - wir sind die Untermenschen. I've heard it all before from you.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

I'm well aware that I communicate ineffectively with stupid people. I have no desire to ever be able to communicate effectively with stupid people, since that would probably require learning to think like a stupid person. As long as people I know to be highly intelligent continue to understand me, I have nothing to worry about.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

I'm well aware that I communicate ineffectively with stupid people.

Your internal dialogue must suck.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

I'm well aware that I communicate ineffectively with stupid people.

Dunning-Kruger in effect, right here.
Of course, it is impossible that you could ever be wrong.
It's everyone else that's stupid, it is impossible that you could ever be so.

That's just fine. Keep thinking I'm stupid. :) It just makes it easier in the long run.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

"Of course, it is impossible that you could ever be wrong."

No, just probable that I'm wrong significantly less often than nearly everyone in this comm. For it to be otherwise, there would have to be an incredibly strong self-selection bias for participation here. The comm would have to be composed almost entirely of people so far into the top half-percentile of general intelligence, so far above me because of the steepness of the curve at the high end, that I don't even recognize their intelligence as intelligence. If such people exist at all, I'm sure they're far too busy to post here.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

No, just probable that I'm wrong significantly less often than nearly everyone in this comm.

Based on no verifiable evidence.

The comm would have to be composed almost entirely of people so far into the top half-percentile of general intelligence

Assuming, of course, that you are that intelligent.
Which, frankly, I don't agree with that premise. You remind me most of Vox Day (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale), who speaks just as often on the subject of how much smarter he is than the rest of plebes. Your politics, belief on race, and belief on women match his as well.

Relevant quote from the entry: He claims to be a member of Mensa and to have an IQ "Over the so-called 'genius' threshhold." If true, this demonstrates at least one of two things: Showcasing how allegedly smart people can make a living saying very stupid things, or that the IQ test is severely overrated as a measure of actual intellectual capacity. Or he may be lying.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

I, on the other hand, recognize that Mensa is a joke, and would never join it, let alone brag about it. You realize they admit people above the 95th percentile, right? Talk about plebes.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

If there were someone in this community who was smarter than you (if such a person could exist at all), what do you suppose that super-smart person would think about the way you're going on and on about your own superiority?

Anyway, I wouldn't underestimate the power of self-selection here. Everyone participating in this community has self-selected for being engaged - or even entertained - by verbal reasoning and is more proficient in written language than the average person. Most of us are also highly practiced in debating issues of a political nature, an exercise which further attracts a certain set of proficiencies. Finally, we're LJ hold-outs, so we can be kind of obsessive.

I admit I find it a bit puzzling that you should be so adamant and direct about your putative superiority, when addressing a group of people you take to be inferior. I assume you already understand that doing so can't possibly be an effective rhetorical strategy for convincing others, whether stupid or otherwise. If your purpose is to be abusive - well, surely you can see how that's working out; people are less offended, chastised, or hurt by your flagrancy than amused. And you've said that you think it extremely unlikely that anyone in this community could be smarter than you are, so it's not as though you're appealing to them or trying to amuse them, whoever they might be.

So what's the point of it? You keep saying you're so extraordinarily intelligent, but the very statement undermines its apparent truth.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

Yet you've explained the reason behind your participation here thusly:

I've stated my reason for being here: to keep myself on the cutting edge of emerging rhetorical trends, so I can practice my responses and tear down stupid ideas on both the left and the right when I encounter them in meatspace.

If you're not interested in effectively communicating with stupid people, how is there any value in learning to tear down their arguments? Essentially, you're admitting here that your only audience is yourself: you're practicing tearing down stupid ideas held by people you don't care to communicate effectively with, and the only people you care to communicate with aren't going to hold those stupid ideas.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[madscience.livejournal.com]

The value is in non-stupid people seeing them torn down. Analogous to swing voters, there's a large class of "swing morons" who are in constant danger of falling under the sway of irredeemably stupid people, but who can be saved by seeing their ideas ripped to shreds.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

So you're not interested in communicating with irredeemably stupid people, but you are interested in communicating with these so-called "swing morons?" And I take it, by your statements here, you don't think there are even any "swing morons" here?

How many of these "swing morons" do you suppose there to be, relative to the "irredeemably stupid?" What differentiates them from one another? What benefit is actually gained by tearing down "stupid ideas" for "swing morons"? Do they "swing" to a smarter idea? Or do they remain just as susceptible to stupid ideas?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

Did you make that ACA alternative site yet?

[rowsdowerisms.livejournal.com]

I think I found it! http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubios-health-care-project-comes-empty-florida