"Around here, the only thing we have is our credibility."

[Que]

Sidebar:

Why are the ones that are painfully stupid, The one with no understanding of the very subject that they're arguing about, the ones with no ability to articulate their position always so confident that the other will be (what?) persuaded, intimidated, cowed by them implying or explicity saying their counterpart is less intelligent than they?

Do they really think that they look smart?

I, for one, am well aware that when I'm arguing with an idiot very few people can tell which one of us is the idiot.

I never walk away from one of those sorts of altercation feeling like wow that was time well spent what a smarty I was to participate...


Do they honestly walk away patting themselves on the back, basking in the warm rays of their intellect?

 

[Recidiva]

Sidebar:

Why are the ones that are painfully stupid, The one with no understanding of the very subject that they're arguing about, the ones with no ability to articulate their position always so confident that the other will be (what?) persuaded, intimidated, cowed by them implying or explicity saying their counterpart is less intelligent than they?

Do they really think that they look smart?

I, for one, am well aware that when I'm arguing with an idiot very few people can tell which one of us is the idiot.

I never walk away from one of those sorts of altercation feeling like wow that was time well spent what a smarty I was to participate...


Do they honestly walk away patting themselves on the back, basking in the warm rays of their intellect?

I think this is a safe space to be an asshole. People can ignore you but there are no real consequences. I think that's a good thing. If someone's here arguing their heart out about something that could otherwise be destructive if unleashed in reality, good for them.

I don't know what it's like to be them. I used to, before I came here, and now I really have no idea.

If I'm them then mostly I am amused and thoughtful.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sidebar:

Why are the ones that are painfully stupid, The one with no understanding of the very subject that they're arguing about, the ones with no ability to articulate their position always so confident that the other will be (what?) persuaded, intimidated, cowed by them implying or explicity saying their counterpart is less intelligent than they?

Do they really think that they look smart?

I, for one, am well aware that when I'm arguing with an idiot very few people can tell which one of us is the idiot.

I never walk away from one of those sorts of altercation feeling like wow that was time well spent what a smarty I was to participate...


Do they honestly walk away patting themselves on the back, basking in the warm rays of their intellect?

As the Patron Saint of Dum lemme say that we do it to get the idea out there.

 

[Que]

I think this is a safe space to be an asshole. People can ignore you but there are no real consequences. I think that's a good thing. If someone's here arguing their heart out about something that could otherwise be destructive if unleashed in reality, good for them.

I don't know what it's like to be them. I used to, before I came here, and now I really have no idea.

If I'm them then mostly I am amused and thoughtful.

Well I had sort of for some reason discounted the keyboard gangster aspect of this... for some reason I forget that when people are bragging about how much more eruidite they are then you that really what they're saying is "I have a bigger dick and my dad can beat up your dad."

Usually on the Internet in other places when I run into keyboard gangsters it's usually accompanied by threats of physical violence from people that wouldn't have any idea how to trace an ISP, pick a lock, well lets just say the emptyness of their threats are comically evident, so I laugh. Not even out loud just to myself. I guess I need to picture them shaking their fist at the computer monitor.

 

[Recidiva]

Well I had sort of for some reason discounted the keyboard gangster aspect of this... for some reason I forget that when people are bragging about how much more eruidite they are then you that really what they're saying is "I have a bigger dick and my dad can beat up your dad."

Usually on the Internet in other places when I run into keyboard gangsters it's usually accompanied by threats of physical violence from people that wouldn't have any idea how to trace an ISP, pick a lock, well lets just say the emptyness of their threats are comically evident, so I laugh. Not even out loud just to myself. I guess I need to picture them shaking their fist at the computer monitor.

That's what I thought, that they're all miserable creatures shaking their fist, but if you listen to them, they're saying they're doing it for fun to rile people up and get attention.

I used to think it meant something else, but I'm pretty sure that some people are just impervious to interaction and are fine being who they are and live a fairly effective life if they come online just to mess with people. It doesn't "mean" anything in a concrete way. It's interesting to try to figure out each person, but there's just not enough information to go on unless they give it to you.

Usually they're saying "I'm fine, you guys are the morons" and that appears to be the truth that's hard for other folks to accept. I take it as a given now that most people are just online screwing around and it is about as meaningful as me going out and playing a video game and shooting people and taking their stuff and having fun doing it. It's not "real" to enough people that it's just a pastime to fill up some bored space.

 

[Que]

I have heard that from gate keyboard gangsters before that they're just f****** around... But there's an intensity there that is a little too real. Some deep seated needed they themselves are trying to fill. If they really were just poking the bear with a stick for fun and just as pleased to withdraw they wouldn't leave so b*** hurt when they finally lose the argument or dont get the rise they were aiming for. These people are vested in their self image as invinceable.

Might ne amusing to push a coupla of them over the edge...


You see? Its contagious.

That's what I thought, that they're all miserable creatures shaking their fist, but if you listen to them, they're saying they're doing it for fun to rile people up and get attention.

I used to think it meant something else, but I'm pretty sure that some people are just impervious to interaction and are fine being who they are and live a fairly effective life if they come online just to mess with people. It doesn't "mean" anything in a concrete way. It's interesting to try to figure out each person, but there's just not enough information to go on unless they give it to you.

Usually they're saying "I'm fine, you guys are the morons" and that appears to be the truth that's hard for other folks to accept. I take it as a given now that most people are just online screwing around and it is about as meaningful as me going out and playing a video game and shooting people and taking their stuff and having fun doing it. It's not "real" to enough people that it's just a pastime to fill up some bored space.

 

[Adre]

Sometimes the idiot's in the mirror. Sometimes it's not.

 

[Recidiva]

I have heard that from gate keyboard gangsters before that they're just f****** around... But there's an intensity there that is a little too real. Some deep seated needed they themselves are trying to fill. If they really were just poking the bear with a stick for fun and just as pleased to withdraw they wouldn't leave so b*** hurt when they finally lose the argument or dont get the rise they were aiming for. These people are vested in their self image as invinceable.

Might ne amusing to push a coupla of them over the edge...


You see? Its contagious.

Heh. Well, I am accused of all sorts of things existing in my reality as absolutes that are simply not there. Based on that, it was reasonable for me to stop thinking about other people in terms of how their reality "must be" because of their online persona.

I don't mind looking stupid, but I do mind being stupid. Odds are it's a thought process that helps "good" people feel like "bad" behavior is being punished through some justice system. When I look at the world, I don't see justice as a real thing that is balanced out evenly by the universe.

In reality, "bad" behavior is often rewarded.

Internet bullying is not really opposed effectively by internet wishful karma thinking.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Well I had sort of for some reason discounted the keyboard gangster aspect of this... for some reason I forget that when people are bragging about how much more eruidite they are then you that really what they're saying is "I have a bigger dick and my dad can beat up your dad."

Usually on the Internet in other places when I run into keyboard gangsters it's usually accompanied by threats of physical violence from people that wouldn't have any idea how to trace an ISP, pick a lock, well lets just say the emptyness of their threats are comically evident, so I laugh. Not even out loud just to myself. I guess I need to picture them shaking their fist at the computer monitor.

Wait till one appears at your front door.

All of us leave bread crumb trails to our homes when we play online.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If you think internet bullying is awful wait till a pleasant young man visits your place of employment and pulls out a large knife, then alerts you that the voices commanded him to go kill someone. You, whom he has never met. But he was well-mannered and patient and spoke in a calm voice and waited his turn and had a big goddamned knife.

And suddenly you know that RECIDIVA is talking shit.

 

[bronzeage]

I can't think of an example because I never get past the headline. But a lesser jen today articulated a viewpoint that Obama's lack of business experience made it impossible to for-see any possibility that Obamacare could be administrated.

Nonsense of course but the kernel of truth in there is that he DOESN'T have any business and more to the point decision making/delegating what is termed generally executive experience.

It IS impacting the hoped for by many implementation because he wouldn't know WHO to delegate that sort of thing to. He seems to mistrust anyone from the business world..(I suspect pride at work there he shouldn't be embarrassed about not knowing their language and practices, it wouldn't be hard to come up to speed, he has had 5 years to study how business and economics works...) or its hubris...he really thinks he knows more about business and economics than people (unlike him) that have studied and practiced in these fields...

I have often said facetiously that Obama has never so much as run a lemonade stand. Though true, its kind of beside the point he COULD should he have ambition to do so be a hell of a lemonade salesman. He's glib, personable...so why not. He isn;t as people say "the smartest man in the room" but he is bright enough to perhaps with a different set of mentors, a different course of study be as bright as many so called captains of industry.

Point being I can see what that poster meant, but admittedly it wasn't much substance there. So perhaps I need to consider that idiots of all persuasions are equally ill-informed.

Franklin Roosevelt had no combat experience, yet we still managed to invade France under his supervision. He did like boats, so maybe that was the difference.

When one doesn't like a person, it's easy to pick at apparent weaknesses. Obama was never a corporate CEO, so he can't know anything about business. Ken Lay was a CEO and ran Enron into the ground. Perhaps business experience is not as valuable as all that.

In the end, these rhetorical flourishes mean nothing. The President will be judged by his performance by most people. A few will still judge him by the minister of his church, or some college professor, or his mixed parentage.

 

[Que]

Of course it does. That's just reality and it's no different here than IRL.

That's actually quite sad.

In so-called real life, I try to have a life. On a lot of different levels I find Lit a good outlet for escapism.

In so-called real life I wouldn't bother to even speak about politics with most of the posters on here. Nor would I assume that they would find it interesting to talk to me.

I think to a certain extent it's all playing to some sort of imagined audience. Which one you think about it is sort of pathetic. My participation as well. I suspect most people on lit skip those sort of political threads especially when they see that it's nothing but boring ad homynim attacks and so modreately interesting regurgitation.

Online or in real life I don't delude myself into assuming I'm going to change someone's point of view. So it begs the question I'm asking it off myself why bother to engage in discussion at all.

Every once in awhile, somebody makes an interesting point, that alters my perception of some particular part of my belif system. My version of the imaginary audience contains people who don't have opinions yet, I have just heard one side presented that I believed to be factually or morally or otherwise "wrong." Its a point of view on whatever issue that I happen to have an opinion on.

The old saw about "ever argue with an idiot because observers won't know which one you are" rings true..

 

[Que]

Franklin Roosevelt had no combat experience, yet we still managed to invade France under his supervision. He did like boats, so maybe that was the difference.

When one doesn't like a person, it's easy to pick at apparent weaknesses. Obama was never a corporate CEO, so he can't know anything about business. Ken Lay was a CEO and ran Enron into the ground. Perhaps business experience is not as valuable as all that.

In the end, these rhetorical flourishes mean nothing. The President will be judged by his performance by most people. A few will still judge him by the minister of his church, or some college professor, or his mixed parentage.

This thread was not about expressing specific opinions. Rather it was about how one expresses opinions. (although I did decide an example there)

So to further your example, which I thought was a well-reasoned and expressed version of your point of view:

It may not be what you were trying to express but coming from the other side as it were I would take the last sentence to imply that there are people who are judging by performance honest thinking people on the ride and all of the left and there are some people only on the right judging him by that other criterion.

I would propose that there are far more people who happen to like those things about him who judge him on that basis rather than his actual performance.

My perception is that those on the left who seem to me to be giving him a pass based on those sorts of subjective criteria... such as he's historic or he had it rough either growing up or inheriting this or that from Bush... I don't think that people that I perceive that way I think that they are at all coming across that way. I think that they think that they are objective.

 

[Wrong Element]

I was 'warned' by Sean Renaurd that I should be careful what I say because, "Around here, the only thing we have is our credibility."

He has helpfully assisted me and my re-education with little snipes and barbs and snarks and telling me I'm full of s***...with litlle specifity of what it is he disagrees with, much less any cogent counterpoint.

I think what he and a lot of people here seem to misunderstand is just because there are other people who agree with your point of view doesn't mean that they agree with your method of expressing it.

The number of fellow posters that you can get to pile on doesn't bolster your argument, unless they actually raised something that refutes a previous point or illuminates your point. The volume that you shout your argument doesn't improve it's viability.

When it comes to debate I'm well aware that I am way too verbose and my point often gets muddled. I'm amazed at the number of people that seem to think that they have great debate skills when they're not even technically debating.n

Do people on the General Board actually feel "credibility" describes the strength of their respective positions (whatever they may be) and the brilliance with which they engage in rhetorical argument with the "wrong" side (according to their respective viewpoint?)

Seriously?

I can't imagine a junior high debate team alternate would deign to engage most of us after a couple of pouty rounds.

Thoughts?

I'm getting to this late, since I didn't see the thread when it was first made.

Sean is right in the sense that "you" as a person and your board persona are one and the same as relates to everyone else here. With one exception, all of y'all are just words on a screen to me. For all I know, koalabear is a great guy, valuable neighbor, helps old ladies across the street etc, and not the imbecile he presents himself here as being. But all I have to go on is the imbecile thing, so what are you going to do?

As far as credibility goes, I suspect hardly anyone here cares. Speaking only for myself, people who won't admit they're wrong on matters of fact, can't make their points without using bigoted language, have separate standards for people they like and people they don't, and have difficulty spelling common words lose their credibility regardless of the substance of what they're saying. If someone merely has a different system of belief, that just means there's a disagreement, not that they lack credibility per se.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Everyone knows whats good for them: eat right, exercise, get adequate rest, brush your teeth, say your prayers at bed time. And we do what gives us the most comfort. Its all you need to know about psychology. Obama is the patron saint of comfort addicts, and demonizes those who toil and sweat and bleed.