When it comes to other people, you have strict standards for civility. You expect them to show not even the hint of disrespect, and for them to accept your unilateral decisions as to what it is acceptable. But when it comes to your own behavior, you are unconcerned with other people. You literally shrug off other people’s concerns. In this thread, you accused me of misrepresenting you position while misrepresenting my own, made comments that showed you were not even trying to listen to what I was saying, tried to shift the burden of proof to me when you were the one making the claim, insulted me, and refused to take any responsibilty for actually getting your point across. But perhaps your most amazing act was, when trying to show how my interpretation was not in any way based on what you said, LYING about what you said. You first said “the desire to exploit children or see them exploited” , and then when I said that it sounded like you were opposed to the desire rather than the act, you then claimed “I VERY CLEARLY said ‘exploitation OR desire to exploit’”. What, did you think I would suddenly forget what you actually said?
And then when I pointed out to you that that wasn’t you said, you simply blamed it on my “obtuseness” and refused to help me understand your position. Here’s a hint: the reason I didn’t understand that you meant “exploitation OR desire to exploit “ is BECAUSE THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAID! What, am I supposed to read your mind and figure out that that is what you meant?
Oh, no. Someone is calling out Jodi, the undisputed Queen of the Word Parsers. Don’t know who’s gonna win, but you can bet this is going to be long and ugly and involve lots of quotes.
Hmmm…this is just wild supposition on my part, since I have only glanced at the thread in question. But just from my own experience, having been treated to the debating practices of both parties (Jodi and The Ryan) I think I’m leaning in Jodi’s direction.
Well, well, well - this should be interesting, indeed!
I’ll just pull up my lawn chair over here to watch the multiple and copious quoting, and other fireworks. Don’t mind me!
MysterEcks, I can see where The Ryan’s confusion might come from. I (and probably he) read it as “the desire to exploit children or [the desire to] see them exploited” when, judging from what he quoted Jodi’s clarification as being (“exploitation OR desire to exploit”) the “to see them exploited” might have just been clumsily phrased. goes to check the thread linked
Nope, even when I read it in context, I can only interpret it as “the desire to exploit children or [the desire to] see them exploited”. I’m not gonna touch the rest of it, though.
The Ryan, are you objecting on the grounds that you think that Jodi’s original phrasing “the desire to exploit children or see them exploited” meant “or the desire to passively view representations of children being exploited,” rather than “see them exploited” in the active sense, as in “I want to see my kids through college”? Because if you are, I think you are misunderstanding her intent.
If this isn’t your objection, it really isn’t clear what you’re bitching about.
Oh my God. I glanced at the linked thread and saw that The Ryan is a wild quoteaholic/phrase-parser too! When these two get started will there be any electrons left over for the rest of us?
Those are pretty hard words. So I read the thread without taking a position on the subject matter, and I have to say that I found THE RYAN to be very obtuse.
Having been treated to you “debating” practices, your opinion means nothing to me. You spent an entire thread misrepresenting my position. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Your implication that someone you’ve never met is a rapist indicates that you’re unreasonable.
You: So because the OP won’t let a guy she doesn’t know in her room, she’s unreasonable?
Me: No, she’s unreasonable because she’s referring to him as a rapist.
You: I think it’s ridiculous for you to call her unreasonable for not letting him sleep in her room.
Me: I never said that. I said she’s unreasonable because she’s referring to him as a rapist.
You: So it’s unreasonable to not let someone you don’t know in your room?
And on and on…
MysterEcks
What makes you think I’m confused? The fact that the word “or” appeared in both what Jodi said and what she claimed she said? Does that somehow make them mean the same thing?
Larry Mudd
I’m not sure what you mean, but I think that the answer is “no”.
Um… among other things, the fact that she blatantly lied about what she had said.
Nah. Sometimes, I’m tempted to think that Jodi is on “automatic” … Lib said it, now how will I write my disagreement. But only tempted. Jodi is not a hypocrite, and she’s not a liar. Frankly, I like her, much in the same way that I like Jab. But Jab holds a special place in my heart. He’s my hero. Besides, it’s only atoms.
I’m not going to waste a lot of time on this, but we’ll give it a shot because your OP has a grain of merit – though only a grain – because I did mispost what I myself had said. But let’s see if we can’t wrap this up fairly quickly, and I tell you from the outset that based upon my opinion of you and my past experiences with you, I have no intention of chopping this into atomic parts.
True and untrue. I do have standards of civility that I believe should be adhered to in GD, and I try to adhere to them myself. That is why I didn’t call you a moron the minute you started acting like one. I have never said that no one else can should even a “hint” of disrespect, though I reserve the right to refuse to debate further with people who I believe I disrespecting me – as I believe you know from personal experience. I can hardly expect anyone to accept my decision on what is or is not acceptable, but I can change my own behavior based upon how I feel I am being treated. As, obviously, so can you.
More specifically, I am largely unconcerned with you, and I shrug off your concerns, because (a) I do not find them merited) and (b) I have little or no respect for you. I find you aggravating to deal with in that you are unwilling or unable to process the main point other posters (not just me) are raising; you become obsessed and tangled in tangents and minutiae; and you misunderstand (and consequently misrepresent) what other people say. This is not an opinion formed from one single thread, but from many.
No, though apparently I did. You are correct; the exact language I used in the first case wwas “the desire to exploit children or see them exploited” and that is what I should have said the second time – desire to exploit or see exploited. If you choose to construe that mis-quote as “lying” you are free to do so, though I assure you I would hardly “lie” about something that could be checked by merely scrolling up to the original language, as you did.
My point remains the same: When I say the motivator may be A or B, for you to come back and say “so you are saying only B”? is obtuse in the extreme. I would add that it was only one example of your myriad misunderstandings/ misrepresentations, and hardly the only one to cause my irritation. Up until my “clarification,” which since it was wrong only added to the confusion, I really think the thread (and you ability to grasp what people are saying) speaks for itself.
As for the rest if it, I think I can most effectively sum up my position by quoting you:
And if anyone imagines that my opinion of THE RYAN is unreasonable or unique to me – and if you have a lot of free time – you can take a look that these threads and the related links contained in them:
For some truly unfathomable reason I spent a good week or so attempting to debate The Ryan (I think the thread is linked to in one of Jodi’s URLs above).
I finally gave up when he tried to start a rammy over the difference between “having the facts wrong”, “not being aware of the facts” and “being ignorant of the facts”.
I haven’t interacted much with Jodi, but I have noticed in some of her posts that she does tend to be perhaps a little too much of a stickler for minor and not truly important details. (The curse of the lawyer, I suppose.) But her arguments as a whole are usually well-reasoned and cogently expressed. Most relevantly for this thread, I can’t recall ever seeing her resort to hairsplitting for its own sake - or as the last gasp of a debate she’s losing in all other respects.
[Disclaimer: I was previewing this piece when I saw that Jodi had posted her own reply. As I suspected, there is a history between The Ryan and others on the SDMB. So, unfortunately for TR, his contributions are not going to be given the benefit of the doubt as much as others would. This might be a good thing, I don’t know. As a mere minnow, I can only say that when I read The Ryan’s Pit post and the source thread, I was sufficiently moved to rearrange electrons as follows.]
I’m with The Ryan
I read the early exchanges between The Ryan and Jodi in the thread in question, and The Ryan came across as cautious and perceptive, whereas Jodi definitely appeared arrogant to the point of blindness.
It is easier, and not totally fair, to show the negatives, but this is The Pit.
So, in her very first response, Judge Jodi has issued an admonishment. Then comes her ‘evidence’:
A classic case of “‘Do you mean…?’, ‘I didn’t say that!’” where the retort ignores the intent of the question, namely an attempt to understand someone’s position by paraphrasing and checking for agreement, and treats it as twisting one’s words. At best this is frustratingly obtuse, at worst it is dishonest.
I think it goes downhill from here, and poor The Ryan is made to appear obtuse as he tries to explain his position while daring to cross swords with the Red Queen. It seems to me that Jodi does not even attempt to remain dispassionate or respectful. She uses prickly, accusatory or insulting phrases such as:
[quote] [li]This is simply the semantic quibbling it appears to be.[/li][li]Clearly you misunderstood me, though I’m not sure how[/li][li]And you only have to hit the submit button once[/li][li]:: Shrug ::[/li][li]You totally misread my posts, which IMO are clear on their face.[/li][li]a surpassingly ridiculous inference[/li][li]Then stop misreading my posts[/li][li]I mean, really. How the heck could any person possibly get that from what I said? No one else took that to be my meaning – because it very obviously wasn’t[/li][li](your point being . . .?)[/li][li]Sigh.[/li][/quote]
I don’t wish to get bogged down in the question of whether any of Jodi’s criticisms were accurate. Some people think they were. I think that initially they were not, and later they could have been – since everything got so murky, who could tell who was right, let alone argue the point coherently? The question here is whether Jodi used unfair debating methods, and whether The Ryan was justified in calling her to The Pit. I haven’t been here long, and have not seen Jodi tell others how to behave, so I don’t know if she is hypocritical or whether she actually lied in that thread. But I think that on what I have seen, if only by the extent of the examples shown above, Jodi has indeed shown herself in the original thread to have the capacitiy of being overly defensive and to have an inflated sense of her own worth.
That’s not a case of The Ryan asking a question for clarification…that’s a case of lunacy. Or strawman. Whatever. It’s actually quite an effective debating tactic.
Take someone’s claim.
Bend it to illogical extremes.
Claim victory.
Yay.