Your comment here seems more polite to the "fuck you up the ass with a red hot wood rasp" guy than the person mocking him. What the hell?
I'm glad Carlos is posting this. I thought refugee50s was just a run-of-the-mill right-wing USian who got occasionally snippy on James' journal. Now thanks to Carlos' comments here, I know the kind of thing he posts, retraction or no, and I am genuinely freaked out to a moderate degree right now. Knowing that this guy I've interacted with for years on James' journal is capable of writing "fuck you up the ass with a red hot wood rasp" and "we will shoot back" -- and is more than willing to escalate his trolling of James' journal by posting trollbait on his own blog -- is upsetting.
Politely ignoring what refugee50s has said is dangerous. Mockery and exposure is necessary.
More polite to the guy who backed off the violent language than to the guy saying "you're a basement dwelling masturbator" right now, yes. Drawing attention to public posts is one thing. Gratuitous insults and asshole behavior are another. Compare to Doug M., who often makes the same points in discussion without being an aggressive asshole throwing personal insults aroun.
But *you've* probably never been accused of being a troglodyte living in your parent's basement while you were visiting and helping your parent who was dying of cancer. For me Carlos isn't just someone who happens to other people.
And you seem to be leaping to conclusions with the 'trollbait'.
Empathy is hard, isn't it? But a lack of empathy is inhuman. You see someone being picked on, and so your heart goes out to them; I see someone being cruel to strangers, and so I mirror it back to them.
"I see someone being cruel to strangers, and so I mirror it back to them."
Has it ever worked? To make them less cruel?
RPG.net has a bunch of ex-conservatives, or conservatives who've become friendlier to gay and trans rights and universal health care. But they seem to have become that way by polite discussion and getting to know people, not by direct frontal assault, which in my experience just makes people defensive and closed. Being victimized doesn't make better people most of the time, just victims and often more victimizers.
But beating on people self-righteously sure feels good!
Haven't you ever made yourself better because you failed to live up to a standard? But maybe you're a special flower for whom such tactics fail to work. Coasting, feeling self-righteous because someone dared pick on you, never living up to your potential as a human being while fantasizing about the Singularity.
And you seem to be leaping to conclusions with the 'trollbait'.
Just because you disagree with me doesn't mean I'm inherently wrong.
refugee50s didn't back off the violent language, he's still doing it, as Carlos has already pointed out.
I gather you have a history with Carlos and hate him. That's your thing and you're welcome to it. But don't you dare pull the "I've had it worse than you" card -- not on me, not on anyone you don't know. You rail about Carlos being personally insulting while never realizing that, perhaps, if you pull the "I've had it worse than you" on someone who doesn't deserve it, you're personally insulting them.
It's not just you who has had it bad. It's never just you.
Since we're oversharing anyway: Several years ago a lady on alt.religion.kibology named Darla got me an invite to Kingdom of Loathing. When I stopped playing it because I was taking care of my terminally ill mother, Darla attacked me by saying I had "betrayed" her, repeatedly stating that she was more important than my mother and inventing a host of lies to bolster her claim that I was mentally ill and had irreparably hurt her. All because I didn't log into KoL much anymore. This went on from 2004 until 2009, and may still be going on for all I know. I understand your anger more than you assume.
Yet if Darla was here mocking refugee50s, I would still agree with her. I would not automatically defend refugee50s because of some skewed "enemy of my enemy" ideal. I don't say this as automatic gainsaying. I say this because it's how I try to live my life.
How you deal with past hurts and injustices is your business and none of my concern. What is my concern is when someone immediately pulls the "you haven't had it rough like me" gambit, which is disrespectful and diminishes my entire life. What is my concern is when someone tries to diminish extreme violent rhetoric, racist screeds, and anti-woman hate by telling people who complain about it to shut up. If you want to be nice and give the benefit of the doubt, fine, but trying to silence others is way out of line.
But I never told you to shut up about complaining about violent rhetoric etc. There's a difference between complaining about bad or hateful ideas and endorsing the use of low personal insults.
I've thought about it and decided to delete my response. I genuinely apologize for responding this time. You probably get replies in email and I've wasted your time, which wasn't my intent.
Just FYI, Damien is right: I'm not a terribly nice person. I'm harsh, I set traps, I treat people who don't measure up with contempt. If I see people being willfully stupid or cruel, I'll go out of my way to treat them like an object, a grievous sin if you follow Pratchett morality. And I rarely forget.
I think what really disturbs people, though, is that I seem to enjoy the process entirely too much. A higher-up from one of the chan-related groups once called me a Dexter. I think he meant it as a compliment. Not sure how to take that.
Yeah, I know all that. The SF/F community is full of self-proclaimed assholes, some beloved, some loathed. I don't pretend to understand it. Ultimately, though, I was explaining that I don't form opinions based on who says what but rather on what is being said. If past bad actions affects the context of what's being said, sure, take it into consideration. But I see nothing here that would make me think you being a "not terribly nice person" somehow affects calling out refugee50s for his own words.
Lately, as someone who is routinely attacked merely for existing as female, liberal, etc., I've become very, very tired of seeing all this "you should be raped and shot" crap lobbed at people like me, and even more tired of people telling me I'm an asshole for calling it out.
You have no idea how difficult it was for me to not begin my response with, "We're not so different, you and I..."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
james_davis_nicoll) wrote2012-04-24 11:25 am
no subject
I'm glad Carlos is posting this. I thought refugee50s was just a run-of-the-mill right-wing USian who got occasionally snippy on James' journal. Now thanks to Carlos' comments here, I know the kind of thing he posts, retraction or no, and I am genuinely freaked out to a moderate degree right now. Knowing that this guy I've interacted with for years on James' journal is capable of writing "fuck you up the ass with a red hot wood rasp" and "we will shoot back" -- and is more than willing to escalate his trolling of James' journal by posting trollbait on his own blog -- is upsetting.
Politely ignoring what refugee50s has said is dangerous. Mockery and exposure is necessary.
no subject
But *you've* probably never been accused of being a troglodyte living in your parent's basement while you were visiting and helping your parent who was dying of cancer. For me Carlos isn't just someone who happens to other people.
And you seem to be leaping to conclusions with the 'trollbait'.
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I'm terribly sorry for your loss.
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Has it ever worked? To make them less cruel?
RPG.net has a bunch of ex-conservatives, or conservatives who've become friendlier to gay and trans rights and universal health care. But they seem to have become that way by polite discussion and getting to know people, not by direct frontal assault, which in my experience just makes people defensive and closed. Being victimized doesn't make better people most of the time, just victims and often more victimizers.
But beating on people self-righteously sure feels good!
no subject
Haven't you ever made yourself better because you failed to live up to a standard? But maybe you're a special flower for whom such tactics fail to work. Coasting, feeling self-righteous because someone dared pick on you, never living up to your potential as a human being while fantasizing about the Singularity.
no subject
Just because you disagree with me doesn't mean I'm inherently wrong.
refugee50s didn't back off the violent language, he's still doing it, as Carlos has already pointed out.
I gather you have a history with Carlos and hate him. That's your thing and you're welcome to it. But don't you dare pull the "I've had it worse than you" card -- not on me, not on anyone you don't know. You rail about Carlos being personally insulting while never realizing that, perhaps, if you pull the "I've had it worse than you" on someone who doesn't deserve it, you're personally insulting them.
It's not just you who has had it bad. It's never just you.
Since we're oversharing anyway: Several years ago a lady on alt.religion.kibology named Darla got me an invite to Kingdom of Loathing. When I stopped playing it because I was taking care of my terminally ill mother, Darla attacked me by saying I had "betrayed" her, repeatedly stating that she was more important than my mother and inventing a host of lies to bolster her claim that I was mentally ill and had irreparably hurt her. All because I didn't log into KoL much anymore. This went on from 2004 until 2009, and may still be going on for all I know. I understand your anger more than you assume.
Yet if Darla was here mocking refugee50s, I would still agree with her. I would not automatically defend refugee50s because of some skewed "enemy of my enemy" ideal. I don't say this as automatic gainsaying. I say this because it's how I try to live my life.
How you deal with past hurts and injustices is your business and none of my concern. What is my concern is when someone immediately pulls the "you haven't had it rough like me" gambit, which is disrespectful and diminishes my entire life. What is my concern is when someone tries to diminish extreme violent rhetoric, racist screeds, and anti-woman hate by telling people who complain about it to shut up. If you want to be nice and give the benefit of the doubt, fine, but trying to silence others is way out of line.
no subject
no subject
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I think what really disturbs people, though, is that I seem to enjoy the process entirely too much. A higher-up from one of the chan-related groups once called me a Dexter. I think he meant it as a compliment. Not sure how to take that.
no subject
Lately, as someone who is routinely attacked merely for existing as female, liberal, etc., I've become very, very tired of seeing all this "you should be raped and shot" crap lobbed at people like me, and even more tired of people telling me I'm an asshole for calling it out.
You have no idea how difficult it was for me to not begin my response with, "We're not so different, you and I..."
no subject