wrote in message
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On Jul 23, 9:00 pm, "Ed Huntress" wrote:


Hey, did you forget? You're the one who keeps commenting about other
people
agreeing with you about my comments.


I do not remember commenting on other people agreeing with me about
your comments. I do admit thinking that other people must be
agreeing, but think that hardly anyone has commented either way.


Well, then, Dan, keep making remarks about what's wrong with me and I'll
keep shooting back at you. As long as you keep it up, I will, too. I've
changed my ways and you're not getting away with it anymore.


I'll spell this one out for you. If you pay attention to the pile-on
methodology of the right wingers here, you would recognize my comment as
a
parody of their style. It's a joke about the whole course of
conversation,
or what passes for conversation, once a winger enters the conversation
and
starts piling on with nasty, silly, irrelevant, meaningless remarks.


That might explain it. The truth is that I do not read most of the
messages by people that use anonymous nyms. I think they are beyond
help. You on the other hand are capable of good logical arguments and
I think should be above personal attacks when you can argue with
facts.

We could, but that has no effect on the level of noise or the level of
discourse. They're immune to facts. That's not a dismissive remark; it's
literally true. They're just spouting off baloney based on their
ideology/philosophy, and they grab at any straw that appears to support
them, while ignoring the rest.

Partly. But, often, they're just using their skills at being contemptuous
bullies, to pump up their own egos and self-esteem.. Gunner has honed it to
a blunt, but broad edge. They don't listen to reasoned, evidence-based
discussion. It's all about bluster and bullying, finding and accusing
scapegoats, dredging up biased or twisted arguments on the Web that they
don't really understand and pasting them here, and avoiding responsibility
for their own circumstances. Central to their approach is demonizing anyone
who doesn't reinforce their self-justification and excuses.

I should in fairness attack all the people who make nasty irrelevant
remarks. But then I would have to read all that crap, and life is too
short.

g I would not recommend that anyone try improving their discourse by
reason alone. That's a waste of time. Many people have tried.

Dan, here's how I see it: Those guys have turned most of Usenet into a
pesthole. This place has survived better than most. You have the
nym-shifting, anonymous, cross-posting cowards, like Hammy and his numerous
aliases, and the blunt bullies, like Gunner, and a few other types. They all
have one emotional problem or another and the chances of changing them are
slim.

Usenet has become their playground because it's perfect for the
courage-challenged to blow off vituperation, trying to convince themselves
of their superiority by being the nastiest prick on the hill. They ignore
the obvious complaint that they are cowards of a pretty low sort; they've
tuned that out by ignoring it and by focusing on their strengths, which are
bullying and intimidation.

You've commented that you don't take Gunner seriously, so you pretty much
give him a pass. But the seriousness is the effect he has on honest
discourse, not his loony provocations. He now has a completely split
personality here, if you've noticed, and half of it is devoted to hammering
away at scapegoats for the numerous mistakes he's made in his life.

The irony here is that his mistakes and misinformation are not at all the
reason he's attracted so much antagonism. That half of him is fun and a real
contribution to the discussions here -- even his preposterous, tall tales.
g. It's the scapegoating and trashy vituperation that represent the other
half that have made him such a target. He'd get along fine being his jolly
self if he didn't try to put others down in order to make his own failings
seem less important.

I was gone from here for six months and I got several e-mails telling me how
far the discourse had shifted to the right. It's more evidence of how the
dynamic of this thing works: silence is taken as tacit acceptance, and a
lack of counterpunching is treated as weakness. Say nothing, and they breed.

So, when I have time, I counterpunch. As our old friend Jim Rozen once said,
I'm a gentleman. g I realized he actually was pointing out my problem and
I fixed it. Now I'll counterpunch. No more consistent gentleman. Not on
Usenet. It can get you killed. d8-) But never, ever, without provocation
coming from the other side first. And it takes a consistent level of
provocation, or a particularly egregious one, to get me started.

Whether it's worth it is kind of moot; I just resent that kind of behavior.
I can be cranky, mistaken, and have big memory lapses. I'm just average in
the human departments. The only edge I have is that I never, ever bull****.
That's stopped a few particularly egregious threads. Not that another one
doesn't crop up right behind it. It's their method.

Ignore it, or contradict it, or whatever. I'm just not going to give tacit
approval to it by ignoring it. At least, until I've had enough of it and
start spending my time more usefully. There are still some good discussions
here and I'm trying to make time for them when I can.

--
Ed Huntress




Dan