The purpose of responding with rational debate to attention-seeking behaviour is that a rational debate is not what is being sought. The attention-seeker wants someone to yell back so that they can get into a slanging match. Or they want shock and revulsion as this feeds their ego. This is reinforcing behaviour.
By responding calmly, they will either learn that debate is fun and best participated in with circumspection or they will think that debate is boring and seek another group of less-prepared individuals to rile.
You aid noone by reinforcing the attention seeking.
And I think you are being unfair if you are seeking to categorize JET as a poster who engages in “one-sided, chest-pounding pissing contest[s]” I don’t read that from his contribution at all - I read some interesting thoughts wrapped up in a childish presentation.
You are quite correct in your assessment of the attention-seeker’s intentions, but I would think that an even better way to discourage such behavior would be to enforce the rules that everyone else needs to follow. The attention seeker just wants someone to pay attention to him, as we all are in this thread; does it really matter to him, do you think, if we’re screaming at him or attempting to be logical with him? Both provide that attention. Why should we be enablers?
“Okay,” you might say, “but while we’re not feeding him by posting at the same emotional level he is or by paying more attention to his words than to his thoughts or ideals, we’re at least trying to foment some rational thought in a seemingly intelligent brain. In this way, we can take the moral high ground and make him post on our own terms, those of eloquence and clarity.”
I guess it comes down to personal convictions. You might say that it’s better to try to win one over to the side of thought rather than the side of bitchery, while others might say it’s better not to give such a person the opportunity to further spread hateful text the only purpose of which seems to be to irritate and annoy. Why would such a person be welcome here? Because they had some interesting thoughts? Interesting thoughts are wonderful if they’re expounded upon; they’re rendered meaningless if they’re posited in an inflammatory way.
Interesting thoughts can come out of pissing contests; the two notions are not mutally exclusive. Therefore although my hyperbole might be unnecessary, the concept is still plausible.
First, when I say you’ve ignored “us” all, I didn’t mean the people from the school shooters thread. I meant the people from THIS thread. Re-read what I wrote. Since the people I was writing about didn’t have the time or inclination to wade through that thread, how would they have responded in that thread?
No, I’m talking about those bringing up civil arguments against you here, right now, that you ignored once in your first reply and then again in your second. No, you’d much rather have everyone hate you than understand you.
You start your first reply with something like “I hope no one considers narcassistic by replying to this…” Why on earth would we? Someone made a complaint and you’re responding to it! So, did you make that comment because you honestly believed we would think that of you, or because you WANTED us to think that of you? Just one more name to pile on top of the rest so you can sit there and say “ho hum…no one takes the time to find out the real me.”
I’ve read stuff from you. You’re very intelligent. You’re also misguided and illogical. Not that I could ever prove this to your satisfaction, but I have proven it to my satisfaction.
In the thread I’ve seen from you, you’ve: 1) claimed that people who kill random citizens are doing society a favor. 2) Wanted to throw scalding coffee in the face a woman who said “hello,” to you. 3) Antagonized the very people you needed information from, from the very begining, and then complained when they wouldn’t help you, 4) been gleeful over the deaths of 6 year olds…who you claim aren’t innocent because EVERYONE has done something bad to someone else.
So god forbid you use this post as yet another reason why the it’s JET against the world. I know it’ll be hard for me to sleep tonight, wondering how you’ll take this post, but somehow I’ll manage.
Somebody seems unclear on the concept of message board. You are judged here by the words that you post here.
If you have any friends, perphaps they are interested in what really makes you tick. I care only about what you post. I doubt that I will care even about that for much longer.
Andros can count. He cannot, apparently, discern the emotional tenor of the objects he counts. One wonders if he can even read the words, since he includes a grammatical nitpick with stoid in his count. I can hardly fault him too much. That post did show about as much interest in JET and the details of his personality disorder as any other I have made.
Yes, andros, while I have made comments in this thread I still find nothing particularly inteesting about JET’s jeuvenile sense of self-importance, nor do I find great “meaning” in the banal demonstration that revelling in the murder of children will cause an emotional reaction in some people.
JET, apparently, fancies that he is deep and powerful because he can make outrageous statements in an anonymous forum. You, apparently, find resonance and relevance in the same. You probably think Tom Green is a comic genius, too.
I do not. And it takes precious few “sizzling synapses” to make that observation. Hell, stoid gave me more of a workout with her grammatical not. I actually had to cut and paste for that one.
I just want to point out that some of my best friends are non-human offal. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’m relatively new to the message-board “scene” so I can’t really evaluate JET’s posts in the context of how they contribute to the message-board ideal or anything like that, but I can say that it’s hard for me to read stuff like “I think it’s funny when children die” and the like because it offends my sensibilities, and if those are received sensibilities and I am a sheep for having them, then just call me Lambchop.
I don’t want to see the little fusckstick banned though, because he’s right about one thing - that he’s not alone, and to just dump him would be like putting our fingers in our ears and going “Lalalalala I don’t hear any evil. Do you hear any evil? I don’t hear any evil.”
Oh and I guess I missed the oh-so-poignant irony that he’s a reflection of our collective dark side, and I’m really just railing against my own evil nature when I find fault with him. Whatever. I’m pretty well acquainted with my own evil nature and it’s whole hell of a lot smarter, funnier and more interesting than Jeremy’s Evil Twin.
So, JET, I say seriously, you need help. Get some. And now I say figuratively, go drown in shit.
If you learn something about yourself, whether it be about your emotions or your thoughts, that is worthwhile.
Learning something about your emotions is even better than learning about your thoughts- thoughts are really very transient vapor when weighed against emotions, although we all like to think we are ruled by our so-very-logical thoughts. Many responses in this and other threads I have seen give basis to that statement.
This thread was started because someone was offended at someone elses behaviour/statements. Offense is an emotion, not a thought, although it is the result of bruised thoughts of what is right or wrong. When offense happens, these thoughts give rise to feelings, and this is when action is taken, when one freely takes action.
If you are stranded in a blizzard, on the hiway, and I stop and give you a ride, you were helped. My motivations do not matter one whit. Even if I stopped in the hopes of giving aid and comfort to a beautiful young lady, hoping she would express her gratitude in a sexual way, or that she had some kind of drugs or something that I thought would benefit me, and even if none of this proves to be the case and I turn into a perfect anus, but still give you a ride to wherever, then you were helped.
My motivations and shitty behaviour matter not one iota- they do not change in the least that you were helped. And that I was the one who helped you.
Would you refuse several million dollars from me because you did not like my motivations in giving it to you, if they were not life and death serious, just that you found them offensive?
Then, with all due respect, this would not seem to be a place to stretch boundaries, to undergo the painful process known as personal growth, to fight ignorance, but rather, a sheltered place for smug, unchallanged intellectualism.
The sensitive ones are the ones that need pressing the most, most often. The more sensitive a button is, probably the bigger tender spot it represents. Must we all go through life as softly as we can, never touching the sensitive, tender places, never challenging our most cherished beliefs? This is the biggest propogator of ignorance in the whole history of the world, in my opinion.
Well, I’ve never had a Pit thread dedicated to me before, and I’m not exactly sure how to react to it. I’ve seen lots of these kind of threads where the person being flamed shows up, posts a gazillion posts, and then gets blamed for spamming the board. How can I win? If I respond to each and every comment, I get accused of being a troll. If I don’t say anything, I’m accused of “ignoring” everyone.
This whole “attention-seeking behavior” thing really gets under my skin. Here’s a clue: EVERYONE seeks attention!!! It’s a basic human need. When I post on some mundane topic (here or anywhere else) that doesn’t get replied to, I feel rejected. On the other hand, when something I post takes off like a rocket and gets 200 replies, I feel validated. So what? I’ll bet that EVERYONE feels that way, whether they’re talking about their sister’s new baby or discussing whether or not Tim McVeigh’s execution should be televised. Unless you know something I don’t.
I remember one guy who kept saying, “Oh look, Jeremy wants attention again, we should all ignore him.” I find that kind of attitude FAR sicker than anything I’ve said in this thread or anywhere else. Because it’s just like walking through a Rwandan refugee camp eating a huge pastrami sandwich and saying, “Oh, look at the starving children, they want food. Let’s not give it to them.” I’ll bet this person has all the attention he can handle, from work, family, and his social circle. Then he laughs at people who aren’t part of that circle. Now THAT is twisted.
I’ve also discussed scenarios of what the U.S. would be like if the South won the Civil War, and given advice to people about their computer problems. I guess that counts for nothing? But I’ll humor you and respond to your points one by one:
Yes. Yes, they are. If for no other reason than the fact that this planet has a very serious overpopulation problem and we need to cull out the chaff. Serial killers and the like merely fill the void left by disease, war, and other natural population controls that have been neutralized by reckless 20th century innovations.
Read that post again. This woman was very rude and invasive. And I didn’t throw coffee on her, even though I wanted to. Yet, somehow, just the mere thought of it was a bigger crime than anything I said or she said, judging by the responses.
You’re talking about those anti-Windoze threads, aren’t you? Now, there’s something to talk about. My original thread (which the thread you probably saw was a sequel to) was, in my opinion, just a standard rant about what a fucked-up O/S Windoze is. I was absolutely floored by the number of spiteful, pedantic responses from people calling me an idiot and belittling my computer abilities. So, in the “sequel” thread, I thought I’d reply in the same manner I was replied to originally. And I get accused of being a rude, immature asshole. See the hypocrasy?
Now now, you’re forgetting the corrolary to that. Not EVERYONE deserves to have something bad done to them because they’ve done something bad to someone else. They deserve something bad to happen to them because they haven’t felt that kind of suffering yet. Look, there are certain doors in my life that are forever closed to me, things that other people take for granted. I’m sick of looking around at people who float effortlessly through life. I want to shake these people up, destroy their protective circles, make them see just how harsh and cold reality is from my perspective. So when one of these so-called “tragedies” happens, I feel validated. Because somebody, or a bunch of somebodies, just got a big wake-up call. That’s all there is to it. Whether they deserve it or not is irrelevant.
You’re joking, right?
Well, that’s 30 minutes out of my life just responding to one post. If I had the time & inclination, I could stay up all night responding to each and every person in this thread. But I’m not in the mood and I’ve got other things on my plate. Sorry, everyone.
Besides, I’d probably end up overlooking someone and they’d come back crying that they’re being “ignored”. Oh, boo-hoo. Here, have a pastrami sandwich.
Actually, in JET’s School shooters are my heroes thread, he actually did debate in a rational manner with those who were rational to him. I think that all attention seekers do want attention, but the kind of attention they want may vary from person to person.
I agree, I think it is always a good idea to respond courteously, even in the pit. Not everyone does this, but the more who do make good examples for the rest.
Since JET didn’t actually start this particular thread, I don’t think that responding to it is reinforcing attention seeking (which may not be what you meant anyway). But I have e-mailed JET, and I believe that anyone who does so courteously will receive a courteous answer.
I poked around a little in descriptions of psychological/personality disorders, trying to find out what kind of person might rationalize the world the way that JET does, and I came up with this link concerning passive-aggressive personality disorder (PAPD):
There are lots of other juicy quotes that could apply to JET’s posts, but I’ll let it go at that.
I should point out that I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist. I just poke around some of these psychological profiles purely as an amateur, for entertainment purposes. So I don’t have any professional expertise for tagging JET with a diagnosis of PAPD. Still, I thought that JET’s reasoning in the quote above to be totally reprehensible (“It is good when tragedies happen to strangers because it makes people suffer the way I do”), and I wanted to find some kind of rationale for that kind of thinking. Besides, it’s not outside the bounds of the rules of the Pit to accuse a fellow poster of being nuts, is it?
Besides, PAPD is a good psychological profile for a troll. PAPD sufferers can be cogent and intelligent and even courteous when they want, but at other times they delight in being obstructive, argumentative, and infuriating. They have temper tantrums and engage in outbursts, drumming up a lot of anger from people around them. And then they use facetious logic to dodge responsibility for the anger. Once they’ve absolved themselves of responsibility, they can then point to the anger around them to demonstrate to everyone how hostile the world is and how the world victimizes them. (See the third paragraph in the “PAPD Anger” section of the link, and then reread JET’s descriptions of how victimized he is on the SDMB, for example: “How can I win? If I respond to each and every comment, I get accused of being a troll. If I don’t say anything, I’m accused of “ignoring” everyone.”)
It also points out the difficulty of dealing with these types. It’s no use trying to be understanding toward them. PAPD sufferers want abuse. The abuse justifies their own perception that they are victimized by a hostile and angry world. By stirring up anger, they are transformed into victims and cleansed of their own inadequacies.
In the final analysis, I don’t know if JET suffers from PAPD. Still, it’s nice to see a scientific analysis of the kind of thinking that JET seems to be engaging in. I finally start to feel a little pity for JET rather than simply irritation and disgust.
Just thought I would offer up my findings for the consideration of the others on this board.
We’re all hacks here, Scylla. Or did you claim to have special expertise of some sort when you posted?
Psychological information is information like any other. I declared the limits of my own expertise clearly, I quoted extensively, and I put it all in appropriate context. After that, you’re welcome to judge for yourself the legitimacy of my personal opinions.
I also made my purpose clear: I was trying to address the thorny question of why trolls do what they do, by comparing my experience with trolls here on the SDMB to some psychological reading I’ve been doing lately. Mainly, I’m just trying to understand where JET is coming from. If you don’t think the material on PAPD applies, then you’re welcome to disagree.
But I disagree that amateur psychology is somehow out of bounds, especially if it is backed up with appropriate disclaimers, citations, and links so that others can judge for themselves.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Jeremy’s Evil Twin *
**
Let me continue the food analogy. There is a vast difference between a starving child in desperate need of food and an healthy, well-fed child who’s just whining for a piece of a candy. Neglecting a starving child is wrong, and malicious in the context of the example. Denying a kid a piece of candy is hardly in the same league.
The example attempts to draw a connection between “one guy” saying we should ignore someone who seeks attention to “this person” who laughs at people who aren’t part of a circle. Which would you prefer-being ignored or being ridiculed?
