The Amateur's Guide to Kicking Anthills

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Unk's Wild Wild West : One Thread

For those who just wander in to this forum, here's a guide to Kicking Anthills as practiced by Flint, Tarzan and others.

Step One: Make a mocking, sarcastic or glib statement designed not to illuminate but to bait.

Step Two: Act surprised when people take offense. The Flint Option is to explain what you really meant in excruciating detail. Pepper this explanation with the statements that suggest your are being infinitely patient and rational in the face of ignorance. The Tarzan Option is easier. Deny your original statement and make a second taunt. In both options, claim you are acting rationally while your opponents are not.

Step Three: Use the emotional reactions of those offended as "proof" the "other side" is a bunch of ranting maniacs while your calm, considered behavior demonstrates your intellectual superiority. Consider your personal attacks justified while your opponent's personal attacks are "faulty logic."

Step Four: Refuse to acknowledge any argument but your own as valid, even when you lack any scientific data to support your point. Argue in favor of "reason," but abandon the rules of reason when it suits you.

Step Five (if necessary): Rationalize hypocrisy. Flint made extensive preparations for Y2K while ridiculing the doomsies. Given his recent critique of faith, I wouldn't be surprised to find a Bible on his bedside. After all, the religious "nuts" might just be right.

Step Six: Repeat as necessary to amuse oneself.

For new reader's, Flint admitted this was his motive in participating in the old forum. I imagine Tarzan gets the same glee in poking at people who hold ideas he finds "invalid."

Feel superior to others and avoid the nasty problems of acting like a boor in real life. On the Internet, everyone's anonymous and you can mock, deride, denigrate and ridicule at will. Party on, dudes.

-- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (only@theshadow.com), March 29, 2001

Answers

Oh lighten up. Trolling is good sport. I admit to having done it; many people do it. Most folks who respond know they are being baited even as they respond to the bait.

I am particularly suckered by Doctor Paulie's trolls on Poole's forum. Can't help myself.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 29, 2001.


What's more, by saying something absurdly provocative, the trollster often flushes out other absurd staements. More importantly, a good troll post can generate a vigorous thread. I'm all for it.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 29, 2001.

I agree, Lars, but Tarzan and Flint are more like ubertrolls. The real point is not to get anyone to think. Tarzan and Flint are the first to suggest they and a few others are the only ones around with working synapses. This is more like pulling the wings off of flies or making fun of Down's Syndrome kid in special ed. Flint and Tarzan are not trying to teach us anything. Does this serve a greater purpose? Maybe, but mostly it's just a couple of smarter than average guys who like picking anthills.

-- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (only@theshadow.com), March 29, 2001.

Their brilliance has imtimidated you all to hell, hasn't it "Who knows"?

The evil lurks in your heart, not theirs. THEY aren't afraid to use their "real" handle. YOU are just a coward who keeps losing arguments with them.

You look like a fool.

-- (We recognize@the.truth), March 29, 2001.


Sychophant on parade! I'm laughing my ass off about the "real" handles, and about "losing" arguments. I'm checking my phone book under "T" for Tarzan. And what's really funny is how you use a handle no one has ever seen here. Must be "intimidated," huh?

Tarzan, Flint and others are here to get their kicks. It's just a game. Flint admitted it. Tarzan would too, if he had a rare moment of intellectual honesty. Writing here doesn't mean anything. Hell, Flint or Tarzan could be a lot more influential writing to the local newspaper or doing a column. They stay in this tiny corner of the Internet universe for a reason. There are plenty of people giving them a chance to show how brilliant they are. There are plenty of kooks to pick apart in an argument, to mock, ridicule and debase and they can stay anonymous to the world.

The real irony is how both cloak themselves in reason, but only when it's suits their purposes. Flint wrote a novella explaining his remark about kids and religion. In the end, he "won" the argument by having not a single reference, citation or work that supported his point. What he really had was an opinion you (or others) agreed with. Yeah, that's science, baby.

-- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (only@theshadow.com), March 29, 2001.



Wow! What a terrific example of a troll post! Good job!

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), March 29, 2001.

But, we're all here for the game, aren't we?

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 29, 2001.

How much do you want to bet this guy is either Flint and/or Tarzan? I'll bet Lars and I are the only real people posting here.

-- (dudesy@37.com), March 29, 2001.

I know, let's vote on the best troller and then award him/her a troll- trophy. IMO, people with totally fake names like "Cannot Tell" and YNGMW are not eligible for this prestigious award.

Nominations are now open.........

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 29, 2001.


No Buddy, some of us are here in an effort to save the world, others, like Flint and Tarzan, are only here to express their opinion and have a good time. This is a terrible waste of MIT resources and I, for one, won't stand for it. I've just sent an e-mail to Phil Greenspun insisting that Tarzan, Flint, and anyone else using this forum purely for entertainment, or expressing an opinion contrary to my own, be barred from posting. I've also requested a password protection option on this forum to prevent thought pollution from those who are only here for a good time.

-- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (only@theshadow.com), March 29, 2001.


I nominate Doc Paulie because of his relentlessly abusive, frivolous, agent provacateur posts on Poole's. A current one (59 answers and counting) poses the deep-thought "Jenna Bush v Chelsea Clinton; which one was the result of better parenting?"

Brilliant Doc, pure brilliance.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 29, 2001.


If we exempt people with totally fake handles, that would exempt the person who started this thread, and that would be a shame, because he is truly deserving.

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), March 29, 2001.

Yeah, right. Like anyone's going to save the world when about 20 people read this forum. People would reach more people writing an article for a neighborhood newsletter. During the whole Y2K shindig, there were some people who stumbled in the forums because they didn't know what to think about people like Ed Yourdon. Most left pretty quickly because the online forums were mostly pissing contests between the doomsies and the debunkers. This forum is an extension of the same pissing contests: liberal versus conservative, religious versus atheist. It's not about changing hearts and minds. It's just entertainment.

-- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (only@theshadow.com), March 29, 2001.

Hi Barry. Nobody misses you so go entertain yourself.

-- (We recognize@the.truth), March 29, 2001.

Excuse me, but if it's just entertainment, why are your panties so tightly waded up your rear?

-- Tarzan the Ape Man (tarzan@swingingthroughthejunglewithouta.net), March 29, 2001.


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And if that is not proof enough, well, than, I will try again.

-- sad;fghs;rhghdf;lgk;hdfgk (sdhsrlgj@skjgskjgfg.sdhsrigh), March 29, 2001.


That last poster was obviously Tarzan and/or Flint pretending to be me to throw the credulous off the scent. When Greenspun cleans this forum, fun loving scum like you will have to find a new place to hide out.

-- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (only@theshadow.com), March 29, 2001.

No, Shadow, oh brilliant one. Your powers of deduction are dazzling. The nonsense post was me. Just a reminder that you forgot me on your list of people who do not "make the grade" on your idealized board. Have nothing else to do today? Where is Unk today?

-- FutureShcok (gray@matter.think), March 29, 2001.

FutureFlint, or TarzanShock, whoever "you" are, I was referring to the poster who was pretending to be me, not your nonsense post. However, if it will make you happy, I will include you in my list of non-entities.

-- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (only@theshadow.com), March 29, 2001.

Tarz--

I don't respect a troller that uses one handle onc time once. They can be funny or stimulating or irritating but unless they will post under that same handle enough times to be recognizable, I don't take them seriously. That's just my personal bias.

I don't consider this thread to be a troll except we will never see his handle again. He raised a legit issue.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), March 29, 2001.


Something about online communications seems to make some people particularly irritable. Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity of it all. Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will soon think seem to exist to make you miserable.

Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do with a letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your R key and tell somebody you don't really know what you really think of them. Even otherwise calm people sometimes find themselves turning into raving lunatics. When this happens, flames erupt.

A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for something he or she has written. Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that begin to take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes several; flamers like cross-posting to let the world know how they feel). These can go on for weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in which case they become "holy wars," usually on such topics as the relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs). Often, just when they're dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all the messages, gets upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be taken to e-mail so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's business is. All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the First Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for impugning this poor soul... You get the idea.

Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe even the wrath of God will smote everybody involved. This brings what has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily: "Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11."

Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. They quickly grow boring, though. And wait until the first time you're attacked!

Flamers are not the only Net.characters to watch out for.

Spewers assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the throats of people who don't seem to care -- as frequently as possible.

You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which he then sends these articles -- both can reach well into double digits. Often, these messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the world. Frequently, there is no conceivable connection between the issue at hand and most of the newsgroups to which he posts. No matter. If you try to point this out in a response to one of these messages, you will be inundated with angry messages that either accuse you of being an insensitive racist/American/whatever or ignore your point entirely to bring up several hundred more lines of commentary on the perfidy of whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to destroy his people.

Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who periodically inundate certain groups (such as soc.history) with long rants about how the Holocaust never really happened. Some people attempt to refute these people with facts, but others realize this only encourages them.

Flame, Blather and Spew

-- Flame wars (are@nothing.new), March 29, 2001.


Hey "Flame wars," nobody asked for your opinion so why don't you just shut the hell up and get lost, jerkface.

-- (fire@brim.stone), March 29, 2001.

There's a shadow wannabe who's probably a loser from the easy boards. The censorship gig is big with that crowd.

You can consider the original post a "troll," but I think of more like a warning label. Guys like Tarzan and Flint are here to jerk people's chains. All the preening and posturing about logic, reason and science is BS. They don't care about anything but stubbing out their intellectual cigarette on the foreheads of others.

I suppose this place is all consenting adults. If you want to let Flint, Tarzan and others screw with you using the same tactics again and again, have fun. They should have named this place the Dungeon.

-- The real shadow (agenuine@rticle.com), March 29, 2001.


Unc's Wild Wild Dungeon? Hmmmm. It does have a cryptic ring to it.

Nah.

-- sumer (shh@aol.co), March 30, 2001.


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