Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Insulting one's allies - to what end?
- Thread starter Sarkus
- Start date
Please do not troll.
And yet, it's relevant↗, i.e., "their hot button grievance issue, whatever it may be"↗. Compared to your statements over the course of years, it's a direct contrast.
(And you even liked our neighbor's post.)
Whether last year, or the 2016 version you praised in the third person as if somebody else had written it, were those words sincere, or just some oppositional something to say and then forget? Why does it hurt your feelings so badly to have said something worth considering? Why does it upset you so terribly to have your words compared and analyzed alongside what other people say?
Seriously, James, when you post something, should we just read it once and then throw it away as if its meaningless? Would it be easier if people just pass over whatever you have to say?
Think about it, James:
• "… we shouldn't be merely dismissing the views of people who voted for him as obviously crazy, or motivated by racism or sexism or any of those other bad things." (James R)
• "… but that's okay because his entourage is sympathetic to their hot button grievance issue, whatever it may be." (TheVat)
• "… but that's okay because his entourage is sympathetic to their hot button grievance issue, whatever it may be." (TheVat)
I'm just sayin', in a thread where people are discussing what and how Trump thinks, the contrast stands out: What is Trump thinking? What does his team think? Does it actually matter? By your telling, yes, by TheVat's, not really. These disparate outlooks suggest different assessments of Trump's behavior.
Why does that make you so angry as to threaten people in order to suppress the discussion?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Trump is, by all accounts, purely transactional - when he is being rational, that is. I feel sure that to him these threats are a protection racket, most likely to win trade concessions. “Do me a nice deal on trade and I’ll stop threatening to invade you.”Trade is not going to happen - at least no new trade deal.
Trump wants the EU - and I guess UK as well - to balance the trade surplus that he thinks Europe is enjoying. He seems to think that this is the same as the US "subsidising" these countries. He's trying to force them (somehow) to buy more oil/gas from the US, which the EU, I believe, was already intending to do to make up for the last bit of Russian stuff that will be closed off. But nowhere near enough to balance the trade deficit.
[Naturally, there is no consensus among economists as to whether a trade surplus, deficit, or balance is preferable, as there are pros and cons with each, but Trump seems hell bent on reducing the US trade deficit, and focussing on the deficit in goods. As CFR Distinguished Fellow Michael Froman, a former U.S. trade representative, has said: “every legitimate economist states that measuring trade policy by the size of the goods deficit is probably not a passing grade in a basic economics class." (Oct. 2017).]
As for the UK, though, any trade-deal is pretty much a non-starter as the US seems to see the NHS as the big-ticket item, along with foodstuffs that we just don't want (chlorinated chicken etc). After that it's just scraps, despite what those "experts" told us would happen as a result of Brexit.
Regarding Canada... this just in:
Seems he's doubling down on Canada being the 51st state, and "doesn't care" what the leading candidate to be the next PM after the elections later this year has to say on the matter (i.e. that Canada will never be a US state).
Trump says he’d use ‘economic force’ to make Canada 51st state
Trump said the US doesn’t need “anything” that Canada produces.fortune.com
Personally, I think he has to be told to fuck off, by all concerned. That means the EU has to stand behind Denmark over Greenland. And the UK should join them. The trade the UK has with the US is small compared to that with the EU. He can’t be allowed to link trade and tariff negotiations with threats of military force. It is utterly unacceptable. ( I wonder what the professionals in the Pentagon think about invading Greenland - or even the Panama Canal. Might be a slew of resignations if any of these ideas starts to get serious.)
I don’t believe any of this is coordinated with Musk’s act as Troll in Chief. Musk is mad as a hatter with his own deranged agenda and seems increasingly out of control. He should be ignored as far as possible and the more serious of his wild falsehoods debunked dispassionately without mentioning him by name. “Don’t feed the troll”.
But, as that Canadian negotiator put it during the last round of trade talks:
THIS
IS
A
TOTAL
GOAT RODEO
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
Back in Oct 2024 there were Labour volunteers helping the Harris platform.
I don’t know if this sort of thing is new or not, but it won’t be water off a duck's back and just forgotten by Trump and possibly Musk too.
Labour volunteers in US helping Harris in spare time, Keir Starmer says
The prime minister said volunteers from his party travelled to the US for "pretty much every" presidential election.
www.bbc.com
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Agreed he will not forget insults and he will not forget that either.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Talking of insults and Rayner, 1.33 below.
I happen to agree with her on the actual subject however, tough guy comments w.r.t to the leader of free world "short sighted" does sum it up.
The channel is probably right wing - ignore that part.
I happen to agree with her on the actual subject however, tough guy comments w.r.t to the leader of free world "short sighted" does sum it up.
The channel is probably right wing - ignore that part.
Moderator note: Tiassa has been warned for trolling.
I have asked him to stop calling me out in his posts. I have no interest in engaging with him any more and I don't want him following me around the forum, trying to be a dick. I have also asked him not to contact me by private messaging, unless it is to apologise for his behaviour towards me.
Despite my requests, he continues trying to stalk me across the forum. As an administrator I do not have the luxury of being able to put him on ignore.
I have asked him to stop calling me out in his posts. I have no interest in engaging with him any more and I don't want him following me around the forum, trying to be a dick. I have also asked him not to contact me by private messaging, unless it is to apologise for his behaviour towards me.
Despite my requests, he continues trying to stalk me across the forum. As an administrator I do not have the luxury of being able to put him on ignore.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
That's for letting us know but can't you just ban him for a few days?
No. I will follow our published Warnings and Bans policy, which has been in place for years. All bans that are applied here, apart from ones for obvious spam and for things like blatant hate speech and threats, are automated, based on a member's accumulated warning points. Very occasionally, exceptions have been made for incorrigible repeat offenders.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Suggest, then, that we do our bit by reporting trolling as it happens, and you try not to react too much in the threads.
Please do not troll.
You know, if you don't want people answering your private messages, you could just lock the message thread. But apparently trying to threaten people into silence is more your thing.
It's a discussion board, James: If the things you say at a discussion board must be shielded against discussion, that kind of defeats the point.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
So far as I can see, people have been warned of moderation if they troll, or abuse the forum for pursuit of personal vendettas.
I am unaware of anyone being threatened into silence for expressing an opinion on a thread topic. Can you cite an instance?
Kid Anymore
Registered Member
Wow. Problems with the standard of moderating. This place has everything!
In case you were wondering, I'm sarcastic, sometimes I even get laconic.
It's automatic. I can't help it when I start to get bored with people sniping at each other. I could go fly a kite.
That would sum up the significance of what I've just read on this page.
BTW, it looks kind of pathetic, like a group of people who have something to protect. I wonder what it could be?
heh heh
p.s I consider myself an honest broker. If you want to be in my class, you will have to accept the occasional dollop of righteous opprobrium. I don't like ignorance, it makes me feel creepy. Like I'm trying to talk to a patient who needs stronger meds. Seriously.
Oh hell, all this from me could be just a symptom of my undiagnosed autism. Sheee. . . it
In case you were wondering, I'm sarcastic, sometimes I even get laconic.
It's automatic. I can't help it when I start to get bored with people sniping at each other. I could go fly a kite.
That would sum up the significance of what I've just read on this page.
BTW, it looks kind of pathetic, like a group of people who have something to protect. I wonder what it could be?
heh heh
p.s I consider myself an honest broker. If you want to be in my class, you will have to accept the occasional dollop of righteous opprobrium. I don't like ignorance, it makes me feel creepy. Like I'm trying to talk to a patient who needs stronger meds. Seriously.
Oh hell, all this from me could be just a symptom of my undiagnosed autism. Sheee. . . it
Why would you ask that in a circumstance when answering has been explicitly forbidden?
You recognize, do you not, that reality occurs regardless of whether you are aware of what happens? For instance, if someone does something, then they've done something, and the fact that you are unaware does not mean they didn't.
Moreover, what's the point in asking for information you already have? After all, it was said front of you: [(redacted per expressed rule)] Again, if [(redacted per expressed rule)], it's as simple as [(redacted per expressed rule)]. Meanwhile, as you see, [(redacted per expressed rule)] apparently constitutes [(redacted per expressed rule)].
You can't possibly have missed that, when asking, Exchemist.
A question you might wonder about, then: "Why skip the obvious course in order to threaten?"
Because that, in turn, ties back to the thread about what Donald Trump and his people are thinking. On some level, he knows his argument is wrong and can only lash out in hopes of silencing a discussion he thinks he can't answer. This sort of authoritarianism is not only symbolically and historically familiar, it's also unsurprising in its way.
Microcosmic particularities will always seem more particular than macrocosmic generalizations, but it's a similar framework to why Trump would insult allies. To what end? Well, it's about perception and empowerment: The behavior reflects the individual's perspective, and seeks an ephemeral sensation of infliction; if the common value in such disputes is empowerment, these behaviors reflect arguments seeking people's perceptions of their empowerment to inflict against others.
Think back to Kansas and creationism, Texas and history, the transpartisan PMRC, Pledge of Allegiance, Commandments in classrooms, tolerance of terrorism; these days its Florida and Texas, Christian nationalists, any number of industrialists, and even Harry Potter fan fiction.
If, in history, we might agree there are religious extremists of a particular sort, it sometimes becomes necessary to consider the oppositional argument that simply disdains the religion, but not the extremism, and even quietly disdains the thought that something is extremist. In this way, especially, politics raises strange bedfellows.¹ To wit, one need not be explicitly religious to be a terf or pilled masculinist, but if there's one belief terfs, masculinists, and Christian nationalists (and even actual Nazis) all share, it's the proper place of a woman.
This is an important circumstance to note, because another commonality among those and other beliefs is that at some point, they require redefinition of words in order to maintain their argument.
And if this is what, say, the Christians needed in order to advocate creationism as science, it's also what they need in order to object to oral contraception and IUDs, but that's right about the point where some ostensibly nonreligious folks who have particular beliefs and expectations about the place of a woman soften up on pseudoscience. That's an example of why some people end up blaming liberals for forcing them to support fascism².
But Christianist conservative politics over the last fifty years have required redefinitions of medical standards like conception, or what is an abortifacient, as well as necessarily blurred concepts like consent in sexual conduct. The thing is, one need need not be explicitly religious to arbitrarily believe such things, nor to appreciate the conservative book-banning argument↗ of telling us what other people think and mean.
Looking beyond religion, it's also how Bob Dole became a Nazi, and why the Chief Justice remembers no animus; were Christians so treated, Roberts would assuredly perceive animus.
As I've said, before↗, for American conservatives, that's the last thirty years, at least. More like fifty; actually, a little more than that.
See, the thing is that when science and enlightenment sought to civilize the savage world, science and enlightenment were enough. But, kind of like geocentrism, when the science starts to inform differently than the superstitions of the prevailing societal narrative, then we have a problem. And if that reaches back at least to the Scopes trial, or geocentrism before that, the iteration marking our time is observed by the late Seventies and into the Eighties↗. Inasmuch as we might suggest, then, that people were disputing over the wrong question³, any number of questions arise as to why.
Why others might play along is its own question and pathology, but it really does seem the common attraction is a perception of empowerment. It would thus seem an important circumstance to observe, that a narrative should require redefinition of the terminology.
With medicine, words have certain definitions because other asserted meanings introduce imprecision and inconsistency. Similarly, the science and math are pretty straightforward, and somewhere between the armchair einsteins and the religio-pseudoscientists decoding scriptures in search of the real truth, some otherwise seemingly normal people will feel empowered by rarified definitions that cannot be applied consistently, but justify personal gratification.
In matters of history or even jurisprudence, such redefinition erodes the integrity of the narrative.
To the other, antisociality has no need for such integrity.
And there we are: The thing is, Trump doesn't really know what he's doing, and his political supporters and handlers don't really care. The thing about insulting allies is that it feels, to his supporters, like empowerment, i.e., "their hot button grievance issue, whatever it may be"↗. That's the whole of Trump's attraction, the enduring appeal of infliction.
And if they can't justify themselves, well, they don't really need to; that's not really what they're about. This is about the gratification of infliction against others, and what people are willing to say and do in order to justify themselves.
____________________
Notes:
¹ There's a social media episode, a couple years back, when a prominent British terf started to wonder why she was seeing so many neo-Nazis at their rallies, for instance, but depending on perspective, that activist with an online store was also, somehow, late to the moment, i.e., apparently she hadn't noticed until then.
² i.e., Blaming the penguin↱ as one faults right↱; see #3529093 (2018)↗, 3544203 (2018)↗, 3660008 (2021)↗, 3679040 (2021)↗, 3691667 (2022)↗, 3703452 (2023)↗, 3714797 (2023)↗, 3732494 (2024)↗.
³ ca. 2021: If we consider the idea of an historical period in which traditionalist and Christian supremacism wrapped itself in a pretense of literalism that was never actually genuine, perhaps it might stand out that the whole time—that is to say, since even before the Reagan Awakening—literalism had already been ceded as an anti-historical relic of faith. In its way, the period can describe people disputing over the wrong question.
² i.e., Blaming the penguin↱ as one faults right↱; see #3529093 (2018)↗, 3544203 (2018)↗, 3660008 (2021)↗, 3679040 (2021)↗, 3691667 (2022)↗, 3703452 (2023)↗, 3714797 (2023)↗, 3732494 (2024)↗.
³ ca. 2021: If we consider the idea of an historical period in which traditionalist and Christian supremacism wrapped itself in a pretense of literalism that was never actually genuine, perhaps it might stand out that the whole time—that is to say, since even before the Reagan Awakening—literalism had already been ceded as an anti-historical relic of faith. In its way, the period can describe people disputing over the wrong question.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I don't think exchemist is a terf or a pilled masculinist but I'm just saying that considering that my native tongue is the White American Historical Experience
Kid Anymore,
Advice: If you decide to stick around here, take a little time to learn the lay of the land. Don't stick your nose in before you understand what's going on. Importantly: don't start taking sides before you know who is in the right.
If your interest in coming here lies mainly in trying to kick up a fuss, for instance by criticising this forum and the way it is moderated before you've been here 5 minutes, you're probably not going to enjoy your time here. Not for long, anyway.
Well, congratulations. You've got some attention.
Now what?
You're hopelessly out of your depth to make pronouncements on what is happening with Tiassa or more geenrally about "standards of moderation" here. You don't know Tiassa's history here and you haven't been here long enough to see more than a couple of instances in which somebody was moderated (and chances are that you are oblivious to the wider context in which those incidents occurred).
Advice: If you decide to stick around here, take a little time to learn the lay of the land. Don't stick your nose in before you understand what's going on. Importantly: don't start taking sides before you know who is in the right.
If you're bored here, it's not hard to work out how to leave.
If your interest in coming here lies mainly in trying to kick up a fuss, for instance by criticising this forum and the way it is moderated before you've been here 5 minutes, you're probably not going to enjoy your time here. Not for long, anyway.
To me, it looks like you're a bit needy. You tried to get yourself some attention by sticking your nose into other people's business.
Well, congratulations. You've got some attention.
Now what?
Moderator note: Tiassa has been warned for trolling.
Tiassa has also been warned for contacting me twice by private messaging, after I had made it very clear that I want no further contact with him by private messaging. I consider this stalking behaviour. Nobody on sciforums should have to tolerate a stalker making unsolicited contacts by private messaging, or continually calling them out by name (or by snide quoting) in various threads. A polite "cease and desist" request ought to be sufficient. If the behaviour continues after that, official warnings and/or bans are an appropriate response.
Due to accumulated warning points, Tiassa will be taking a 1 day break from sciforums.
In his private communications and in a post above this in the current thread, his message seems to be that he might not want to be notified about any future warnings he might receive. I have requested clarification from him on that matter (and only on that matter). I mention this only because I know that Tiassa will probably tell lies about it if I don't post a public notice about it.
Tiassa has also been warned for contacting me twice by private messaging, after I had made it very clear that I want no further contact with him by private messaging. I consider this stalking behaviour. Nobody on sciforums should have to tolerate a stalker making unsolicited contacts by private messaging, or continually calling them out by name (or by snide quoting) in various threads. A polite "cease and desist" request ought to be sufficient. If the behaviour continues after that, official warnings and/or bans are an appropriate response.
Due to accumulated warning points, Tiassa will be taking a 1 day break from sciforums.
In his private communications and in a post above this in the current thread, his message seems to be that he might not want to be notified about any future warnings he might receive. I have requested clarification from him on that matter (and only on that matter). I mention this only because I know that Tiassa will probably tell lies about it if I don't post a public notice about it.
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
In his defense you did have the audacity to ask him a direct question.
In his defence, he did actually answer. At least in the same way that the Pentagon will tell you all about their secrets... while redacting the actual secrets due to people higher up telling them they can't reveal them.
The rest of his post is quite pertinent to this thread, and tries to contextualise the question I asked at the beginning. I'm not blessed to be part of the USA (yet, it seems, or so the posturing from the incoming administration goes), so seeing it framed in the way Tiassa has is certainly informative, even if I might be too ignorant of the detail to either agree or disagree with his assessment.
However, that's not to say that there is not a certain style to what he posts that may put some/many people off trying to parse what he writes. If some see it as "impenetrable shit" then, sure, I don't see through other people's eyes.