Our new Africa troll. How droll.
We seem to get many trolls from a “scientific” racist site because they are upset that we can’t see their “wonderful” points.
Not mentioning names yet, but one of them let the cat out of the bag by referring to (and not posting the cite) a blog that “demolished” the points from a cite that I made in a different thread. It is clear that they are smart enough to know that if they had posted from where they are getting their ideas are coming from that their points would be discredited in a nanosecond.
Oh come on! You can do better than that. Where’s the outrage? The name calling? The bile? The righteous indignation?
Hell, I’ll bet there isn’t even one fleck of spittle on your screen.
But some of his best friends are from New Guinea!
New Guinea beats them all!!
Heh, they look so cute when they hide their jack boots, no?. 
Here’s the thing, pinguin. Do you know how many times we get people coming in here “innocently” asking why Africa is so far behind? And they, as you seem to be, have already made up their minds. Come in here to learn, and you’ll do well. Come in here to lecture, and you’ll be marginalized.
He conceded his original thesis in the linked thread was incorrect. Given that a troll is someone that sticks to a point just to get people pissed off, I’d say that that makes him by definition not a troll.
I am just comming to ask questions. I will focuss in Science Fiction and tech, only. I won’t touch the sacred topic of Africa anymore. Not even kidding.
But if someone talks badly about New Guinea, I will jump to the rink.
even sven: I understand (and share) your frustration with the plethora of Africa threads on this MB and how they always end up down the same rat hole, why not give **pinguin **a little more time before we label him a troll. I just hope he (or she) doesn’t think we need a lecture on the inherent inferiority of Africans.
Ah, just ask questions…
Nah, it is not a sacred one, the problem to me is how it could be that you missed the painfully obvious racist hijackers on the Africa issues that are acting up in the boards lately.
Didn’t he just join today?
He “conceeded” after the pitting. Sometimes you have to take one for the sock-puppet/board invasion team. He’s probably figuring he just bought some credibility for his next incarnation- he can take the high ground saying that we are just a bunch of fanatics who pushed out a reasonable guy. But what are the chances that he would have conceded without the pitting?
I’m sorry Pinguin, but I just don’t believe you are genuine. You sit down on one hand and say you think Africans live “Tarzen-like” in tribes, but now and then you let some relatively sophisticated terminology slip, and for all your wide-eyed innocence about Africa, you sure seem to have some specialized knowledge when the chips are down- you are speaking with a middle-school voice and lots of nifty misspellings (“Angkor Vat”? “Bantue”?), but the you bust out references to the OECD and the subtleties of GDP v. GDP per capita. Your participation in other threads (often race-related) is much more sophisticated and doesn’t have the same cutsie misspellings and fake “Gosh gee” tone. It just doesn’t ring true.
If you are genuine, there is a lot of knowledge about Africa on this board, and there are people far more knowledgable than me on the subject who genuinely enjoy talking about this subject and want to share what they know. We welcome honest participation and debate, but you have to come in with something to offer, as well. You can’t just state something controversial, refuse to back up your opinions, and slap off anyone who says anything that contradicts your position. You can’t come on and say you “know all about the Kingdoms” and then in the same breathe say that Africa had no political organization. I’d be willing to point you to some resources that would help you fill in some of the blanks on your knowledge of this subject, so you can come in with more than “I have a feeling that…”
If he is, then I think it’ll become obvious eventually. But I don’t think you really help the level of conversation by accusing him of trolling pre-emptively.
His location filed says “Chile”, I suspect English isn’t his first language.
The goalpost moving in that thread was a little annoying, but I think it just makes him a bad debater, not a troll.
FWIW, he gives his theory for Africas lack of development in another thread:
So he doesn’t appear to subscribe a racist explanation, as one would expect if he was coming from one of the websites you describe.
I will send you a PM if you want, but the racist blog site that is sending us many “curious” people with similar points posted links 2 days ago pointing to specific threads here and advising their readers to make others see the “error” of their ways.
Ugh. I remember years back when **BrainGlutton **opened a portal to the SFers, and we were inundated with White Supremicists for at least a month. Hopefully, we won’t see a repeat of that.
Just pointing here that I had to wash after I found that thread, and I did not post any links to us.
It is clear that there are at least 2 dopers that know that place and called for “reinforcements” to come over here 2 days ago. I found the site by following a bloke in the student anthropologist’s blog that pointed to a “devastation” of his post, just like a poster in GD said some blogger did.
Please PM me with details. We don’t want to see a board war develop.
This is the Pit - name names. Link to posts. Don’t link to the board in question, of course.
Still not buying it.
In the linked thread, when his little theory (which the first posters pointed out could be proven or disproven with a ten second search) was rather quickly disproven, he reacted by asking for to close the thread. Not really the behavior of someone who is genuinely curious about comparative economics, is it? Wouldn’t you expect some discussion to stem from the findings? It seems he wanted to make a specific point, and was kind of surprised and embarrassed when his plan failed. Indeed, he states it outright:
Want to guess what causes the “level of chaos?”
When he realized the thread was staying open, he tried to weasel out of the numerous people who provided simple and clear data regarding New Guinea and Africa. Finally, after many posts of easily-available data showing quite clearly that he was wrong, and his continued search for loopholes, I pitted him. Only then, after declaring us all unreasonable fanatics, he concedes that the numerous clear cut charts were indeed correct.
He joins a week ago and makes 115 posts, mostly in threads somehow related to race and ethnicity (the exception being two science fiction threads.) His participation in other threads shows much more sophistication- there are usage errors, but the tone is different. For example:
In the linked thread, when someone pointed out that Africans have been late-iron age farmers for centuries, he replies that he is interested in “the largest masses of people, that were tribal, Tarzan style, in both places.” Okay, your thinking, the guy just got all his info about Africa from the movies and doesn’t know what he is talking about. But then a few posts later, he’s talking about griots and the The Epic of Sundiata. He’s differentiating between GDP and GDP per capita and comparing things to the OECD. Not really the sort of knowledge you’d expect from someone who just stated that most Africans spend their lives wearing animal skin loinclothes and swinging from trees, is it?
It’s the kind of information you’d expect from someone who thinks about Africa. Who engages in debates about Africa. Maybe from someone who frequents a message boards where they discuss specific theories about Africa. Theories that just happen to be relevant to stuff that has been happening on this board recently. Like right as he joined.
FWIW, I don’t think he’s necessarily one of those people. I think it’s likely he saw that Africa gets people riled up, and so when his theory didn’t pan out he decided to use the rest of the thread to do some good old fashioned baiting just for kicks.