Autism isn’t carte blanche to be an asshole. It may help explain some of his posting style, but it doesn’t excuse the contents of it.
And nothing he said in those two posts match up with this comment about it being a sickness:
Based on this, I should not have been so condemning in my words. But he clearly has matters on his hands that are far more serious than a debate on an Internet message board, such that I see no use in engaging him on the topic in the other thread.
Pretty much. I just stopped myself from posting in that thread when he talked about being gay as “manageable”, like it is a case of psoriasis or something. But it is obvious that to him that is exactly what it is like. Assuming he is not a very consistent troll( and I’m inclined to think he is not ), that is just sad and unfortunate. And I don’t think anyone is going to be able to logic him out of his self-inflicted miseries. Venting at him won’t help and debating him isn’t likely to either.
Yeah, I’m one of a dozen or so Dopers who’ve all told him the same thing, over and over: Quit complaining to us and talk to a mental health professional.
He’s no more gay than he is autistic or a serious student of Buddhism. People continuing to interact with him on that basis are all getting played, like gamefish. I mean, by all means reply to any post of his that takes your fancy, I know I do, but don’t make the mistake of thinking there’s anything genuine about the troll’s replies.
Well then he is a certified genius for the long-term consistency of his posts.
I’d be happy to find out we’ve all been played by a genius*.
It would mean there isn’t someone walking around, actively making himself that miserable.
*But wouldn’t THAT brilliant of a genius be using his powers to get rich, and spending his time planning an Oceans-11-level heist somewhere?
3 years is nothing, especially if you stick to just a few topics and mostly in threads you start yourself…doesn’t take a genius (which he definitely is not)
Whether he is a troll or sincere, you all could do the board a solid and stop responding to his nonsense. Seriously, what do you think engaging with him is going to accomplish? If he is sincere, he is too mentally ill to respond rationally. If a troll, you are just making yourself look dumb by dancing to his tune. You all let him derail that pride thread because you can’t bring yourself not to type things.
I’m betting UrbanRedneck is thankful for him.
I stopped responding to Machinaforce after one or two threads, put him on ignore after a couple more. He’s not worth interacting with, and he’s too single-tracked to be entertaining to read. (Some people who respond to him can be entertaining, but even then I only bother when he ventures into threads he didn’t start, any more.)
Loathsome homophobe rescued by self-loathing homosexual.
It ain’t exactly O. Henry, but it’d do for a Hallmark Channel movie of the week, maybe.
engineer_comp_geek put a moderation note in the gay pride thread, telling Machinaforce to stop the sidetrack, and move his conversations back to his own threads. Noooope…the guy keeps posting in it.
I bet that’s like a highway cop trying to get a train to pull over. 
It is like a highway cop trying to explain the legal system to a gerbil.
And other people keep responding to him. Baffling.
::sigh:: we don’t just feed them, we set out a buffet.
And often it’s the posters yelling “He’s a troll!” who just can’t resist returning to the thread to refute the latest “point”.
Oh yeah, he’s been doing that from the first thread.
I’m curious as to how he’s not suspended or banned for posting twice in one thread immediately after a moderator instructed him to never post in that thread again.