ktarthan
-
Posts
1,615 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Blog Comments posted by ktarthan
-
-
The point of trolling isn't to convince or to build a reputation, but to derail and bury the thread/arguments under pages of stupid discussion. Discrediting the troll can't get you anywhere, save maybe where the troll wanted to bring you.
In fact there's only one way to neuter trolls, which is to ignore them. If you can actually do it.
Oh I'm well aware. I was attempting to not get lengthy about this, but I guess the distance between what I said and what I meant was a bit too far and most people came to the conclusion that I'm trying to admonish people who troll. This is not the case.
My OP carries two main ideas, and I'll try to break them down:
"Attempting to convince the world that you're an idiot and succeeding"
The basis of making someone dislike you is to be disagreeable. Whether by disagreeing directly with what they say, by espousing ideas that they strongly disagree with, or by acting in a way they strongly disagree with. The main point is to act contrary to their beliefs/opinions.
The other main ingredient is believability; if they don't think you're sincere, then you don't effectively establish yourself as being disagreeable, and whatever you're trying to do won't really work.
So, together this means being believably disagreeable. I used the word "idiot" but as I said, it can be pretty much any other derogatory term. The take away here is that success means the target(s) will be convinced you are wrong in some way.
This really only covers a specific flavor of "trolling". It's probably the most common and most effective one, but anger isn't the only reaction that people can try to elicit.
"is a victory neither hard won nor worth merit."
Now that we've established the sort of trolling I'm talking about, this is where I call into question its merit. This part is a bit tricky, because there's a bit of implied context. That is, it's directed only to a person who is attempting to convince me otherwise. Or in other words: an openly proud troll.
Since we established earlier that believability is a major component to effective trolling, a person who admits that they are indeed purposely trying to elicit a response is intentionally reducing their effectiveness. So in my eyes, the only reason to do so would be because they assign value to their actions. And once such a thought is expressed, it's now a valid target for criticism, which is exactly what the OP is.
So, without discussion of trolling, the OP doesn't exist. I guess you could call it a meta criticism? Effectively, to those who admit they troll: "What, would you like a cookie?"
-
Substitute "idiot" for any other derogatory term, really. It's trivial to get people to dislike you for any number of reasons. Simply saying that it was your intention to get them to dislike you doesn't lend the act any worth.
-
I thought this was an interesting anecdote until you came along with "it's unnecessary and more detrimental to the game then a lot of things" to which I'm going to call bull. Do you know what hurts the game more than raiding? Complaining about things that you think hurt the game.
-
Seriously though, I don't know if MK could have a unifying dogma due to the mixed nature of its members. My own personal dogma is to support any and all change so long as it does not significantly reduce potential for change in the future.I'm inclined to agree. I think a lot of us are in the same boat that we want to make things more interesting, but we find it hard to put this into words that both makes things both fun/lighthearted for "RL friend" or casual players and more challenging/realistic for the more politically interested players.
There are also a lot of in-game factors that heavily disincentivize any form of war as action. And that is, for most, the primary way of affecting change. This is why I add the caveat about reducing potential for future changes. Without the NS to back it up, it's difficult to make changes unless you're one of the few that are gifted enough to manipulte others to achieve your goals. And, with that exception in mind, most changes come about through some loss in NS. So you have to balance your ability to make changes (weight of NS) with the actual changes you make (loss of NS).
-
Seriously though, I don't know if MK could have a unifying dogma due to the mixed nature of its members. My own personal dogma is to support any and all change so long as it does not significantly reduce potential for change in the future.
-
Everything. Must. Die.
-
Analogies are useful, or else they wouldn't exist.
To suggest they aren't "equivalencies" is irrelevant. To someone who has never seen oil, I could say it is "sort of like water, because they're both liquids". Unless they're actually mentally challenged, they probably won't decide to drink it based on that evidence alone.
Analogies are indeed incredibly important in how we learn about the world. This is why I specifically made the case against analogies being used in arguments, and prefaced everything by saying that analogies can be incredibly useful.
Also I think you missed the point.
-
This entire thread is like the scent of whale turds being offered half-price in India the exact moment they announce a whale turd scent shortage in Pakistan.
Actually if you replace whale turds with month-old mouse turds it's a lot closer to the truth, and this really only works if it's 1930's India.
-
Oh this brings back memories of when we needed our allies FOK and Kronos to help us out during Roguefest.
-
<HailSatan> actually, i seen the rogue GOONs nation (verified by GOONS war dude) and helped HoT , they did not request it . Causalities are good, any chance to get more... why not . < as posted on IRC . So... next theory ?
Wow, did you really miss the point by that much?
-
Also it should be noted that no proof has been presented of Roq's allegation that RoK was spied on. We clearly don't know what Nagasaki will bring, but I prefer not to count my chickens before they hatch.
-
Good luck keeping intellectual honesty when your friends have already made up their minds.
My friends have nothing to do with my own integrity.
-
I guess that you actually know that Schatt is well aware of what mrwuss was doing, and also that you know that Schatt is just exploiting that dumb taunt to make his argument. Dressing this blog entry as "a moralist falling for the bait" may work though.I said "this" blog post meaning its specific contents; not just "a" blog post. It's mostly for my own reasons though, so I don't expect everyone else to get it.
-
Can I make this argument again without the "giant namedrop?" No, because where the contention is that the members of CoJ are mindless numbskulls to my Pied Piper, we must examine just who these supposed raving morons are. And we see that in fact they are anything but.
Fair enough, the names are perhaps warranted. But my contention is that while you say we must "examine just who these supposed raving morons are," but you didn't do much of that. All you did was list their past credentials, and as I pointed out, credentials tell you nothing about the person. You could have made a much more solid and substantive point if you had simply singled out a good 5-10 members and elaborate in a verifiable way on how their specific history refutes mrwuss's point.
And honestly I believe that you could have done this. I think that you're technically correct in refuting mrwuss's "claim", and you simply did a bad job of it. While I do think you're a spotlight-hound and there are many people who agree with you solely because of your reputation, I know that mrwuss's post was nothing more than a barb to get a reaction out of you. And I find it endlessly entertaining that this blog post is the result.
-
Appeal to popularity, appeal to authority, you don't state how long any of them remained in the cult, leadership background does not imply sound reasoning, past actions do not imply future motivations, you don't have any direct testimony from any of these members so apparently you can read their minds.
Can you make this argument again without the gigantic namedrop?
-
It's pretty easy.
Myth is a raging idiot and everything he says is retarded = ad hominem
Myth, what you just said is retarded = not ad hominem
Myth, you are retarded = not ad hominem
Actually, none of those are completely ad hominem. The first one is just abuse. The second one might be ad hominem, but it lacks the context it'd be used in. The third is, again, just abuse.
-
The insult is used as part of the reasoning indirectly in two instances and directly back-relating on the last. You have ignored this part a few times.
Please, as I've asked, demonstrate the reasoning. What are the steps he used to have an insult reinforce the point that refutes what you said?
Sort of like how he would use those if he knew his statement to be false to reinforce his point?No, not like that at all. Demonstrate the reasoning he used to reinforce the point that refutes what you said. "To reinforce his point" is the why. I'm asking for the how.
It is when you are using it as the argument as to whether an additional post is an ad hominem argument or not and not addressing it, but the individual instead.Potato has in this very thread said that his point was "You don't know what ad hominem means." "You used it incorrectly" is in support of his point, not the point itself.
-
You are arguing that there is a distinction between insults and abusive ad hominems, otherwise, and that's simply impossible to argue.
Actually yes that's exactly what I'm arguing, and I'm correct. As I've said: an ad hominem is a kind of fallacy used to refute an opponent's argument. And a fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Thus, if the insult is not used in the reasoning behind the refutation an argument, it's not an ad hominem.
Unless you can demonstrate how 1337 used any of his insults to reason that your post was wrong, then you have been proven incorrect.
It's quite simply meant to be abusive and to support his overarching argument as demonstrated IThatT and ITT that it was ridicule.No, it isn't. Potato specifically has said that it wasn't meant to insult anything.
but when the individual clearly addresses his intended target by attempting to make the argument that l337 did not make an ad hominem argument by using personal attacks to negate the users intelligence/ability
No matter how many times you say it, telling someone that they do not know what a term means is not a personal attack in any way, shape, or form.
-
He has no argument other than a tu quoque ad hominem argument as to why this would be true.
Responding to this point, as that's the key point of your paragraph.
This is incorrect. His argument is that you are incorrect about everyone ignoring Rampage's post because he did not ignore it. Everything else in his post follows from this argument. None of it is used to support this argument. Zero ad hominems are present.
"You really shouldn't use words when you don't know what they mean." at face value is a claim. Even if we infer one step past face value, "You don't know what ad hominem means" is still just a claim. Claiming that someone doesn't know what a term means is not an insult. If it is unsubstantiated, that doesn't somehow mean that the claim also implies anything about the capacity of the opponent to identify or comprehend the term.
I honestly don't know how much longer I want to keep doing this dance, though. I get the distinct feeling that you're simply attempting to prove your ability to stubbornly argue a point regardless of merit rather than reach a conclusion or some other intellectually disingenous pursuit. I'd simply rather not participate. (And this is me giving you the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise I'd have to assume you have deficiencies in reading comprehension and logical process.)
-
Alright let's back this up. I feel like I'm repeating myself (because I more or less am) but herein lies the crux of why you're wrong.
A fallacy is faulty reasoning. If no reasoning or argument stems from the insult, it isn't a fallacy.
Also because this seems to be what you're trying to get at: "Gaining the advantage in a debate" does not immediately costitute "reasoning". You can call your opponent a !@#$-head to your heart's content, but if you don't use his !@#$-head status as part of your argument's reasoning, it's not a fallacy. Even if calling your opponent a !@#$-head somehow results in people favoring your argument. There needs to be some argumentative link between the statement which is said to be a fallacy and the conclusion of the argument.
Also, w/r/t what you said to Potato, you just argued in a circle until you refuted yourself.
If you take his post at face value, "literally", he's making an argument "You shouldn't use words you don't know the meaning of." You cannot infer any meaning or insult from this, because you're taking it at face value. There's no insult there.
Or if you seem to think that at face value, "This is an attack on the individuals ability to either reason or think but not an argument of whether or not l337's posts are or are not ad hominem arguments." Then it's only an insult which we have determined in the absence of an argument is not an ad hominem.
Or If you try to infer any meaning from it, then you run into the problem where potato is here actually telling you you've inferred the wrong thing.
-
Weird, I had a post before, but it got removed. Or never posted?
Anyways.
Myth. You just ignored my entire argument. "An insult that follows from a claim cannot be an ad hominem." Do I have to continue to help you figure out how to argue with me?
Choices
A) Demonstrate that an insult that follows from a claim can be an ad hominem.
B) Demonstrate that the insults in that post didn't follow from the claim.
C) Continue to spout the exact same thing over and over in different words. (this is the wrong one. don't pick it)
-
The point of 1337's post was that he thought you ignored his. It's that simple. He called you a blithering idiot and a hypocrite because he thought you ignored his post. Something that you conclude from an argument can't be an ad hominem for that argument because 1) that'd be cyclical and dumb, and 2) its truth is dependant on the argument being true.
"You totally misred my argument, therefore you must be retarded and probably illiterate" is, in fact, not an ad hominem.
The point of potato's post is that you were using the term incorrectly. It's that simple. He says that you don't know what the word means because you used the word incorrectly. Something that you conclude from an argument can't be an ad hominem for that argument because 1) that'd be cyclical and dumb, and 2) its truth is dependant on the argument being true.
(Also saying that someone doesn't know what a word means is really not an insult, but considering you seem so hell bent on seeing it as one, then you get a more substantive argument.)
-
Myth, you misunderstood my point.
Just as any variation of Streptococcus must meet the criteria of Streptococcus in general, if a bacteria does not meet the criteria of being Streptococcus in general, then it by default cannot be any of its variations. You do not need to test against the criteria of each variation to confirm this.
Apply this logic to ad hominems. All variations of an ad hominem must first meet the criteria of being an ad hominem, which I posted in the OP. Unless the definition of "abusive ad hominem" is inconsistent with the broad definition, only the broad definition needs to be tested against in order to determine "ad hominem?"
In order for the examples you brought up to be considered ad hominem attacks, at least one of two things must be true:
A) The examples you brought up fit the criteria of the broad definition, or
B) The broad definition of ad hominem and the specific definition of abusive ad hominem are inconsistent
If you can prove either of these points to be true, I will concede the point. If you cannot prove either of these points, then you don't have anything to argue about. You can also try to find flaw in my inference, but again I'm confident you won't find any.
Edit:
By the way, if you want to argue that a subset doesn't need to fit all the criteria of its superset you must think that dogs are a valid subset of cats.
Cat: 4 legs, fur, ears, tail, meows
Dog: 4 legs, fur, ears, tail, woofs
-
Well then we're good considering those instances fall under that spectrum. Carry on!
If the different categories of ad hominem on the wiki page fall under the definition in the OP, then the definitions of those categories are useless for anything other than classification. If something can be proven to not exist within a set, it by default can't exist in any subset.
So, in order to continue your claim that either of your examples are indeed ad hominem you must do either of the following:
A) Explain how your examples fit within the definition in the OP, or
B) Provide a credible definition of ad hominem that fits your examples but does not fall under the definition I provided.
You may also attempt to find some error in the logic I have presented, but I'm sure you will find that it is quite sound.
Of Trolling
in Your Argument Sucks
A blog by ktarthan in General
Posted
HoT, I can't really tell who you're responding to so I'll just ask: who do you think called you an idiot? Other than Mr. Uruk here, I can't see anyone singling you out.