# Octopus is having a meltdown... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 28, 2018, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098 "2018-09-28T08:26:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/101 "2018-09-29T16:16:22Z")
“start”? When have they ever fucking stopped? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/102 "2018-09-29T17:01:04Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > It wasn’t a racist comment. It was acknowledging reality. Obviously try to fix the problems at home. But if Hitler is in power I’m not staying and I’d advise anyone who could leave to leave. Regardless of how that would be spun, yet again, to be some form of bigotry. Even the _moderate_ liberals here are explaining how your comment came across as _super fucking racist_ and you don’t listen. At a certain point, it stops being worth our time to fight your ignorance by making you a better person, and the option remaining is to fight your ignorance by reducing our contact to your ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/103 "2018-09-29T17:49:57Z")
My god, all this Sturm und Drang over an internet message board (or 2) and a bunch of anonymous people. How very 1999. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/104 "2018-09-29T17:50:50Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Even the _moderate_ liberals here are explaining how your comment came across as _super fucking racist_ and you don’t listen. At a certain point, it stops being worth our time to fight your ignorance by making you a better person, and the option remaining is to fight your ignorance by reducing our contact to your ignorance. How it comes across is your problem. I can’t help that so many here have such emotional baggage or mental deficiencies that they are literally unable to conduct a rational debate without something triggering them into an unhinged profane rant, tears, or a barrage of lies. Now, obviously the whole board isn’t like that. Just a rabid and vocal minority. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/105 "2018-09-29T18:10:31Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Even the _moderate_ liberals here are explaining how your comment came across as _super fucking racist_ and you don’t listen. At a certain point, it stops being worth our time to fight your ignorance by making you a better person, and the option remaining is to fight your ignorance by reducing our contact to your ignorance. You know your post actually deserves two responses. I just realized that your post encapsulates almost perfectly the tactics I was warning about in ATMB. Tactics only the foolish, dishonest, or willingly gullible actually accept but since that is a lot of people the tactics are very effective. Which is why you folks try so hard to silence people who point out the tactics. We don’t even disagree on problems in a general sense but since I point out duplicitous, Orwellian tactics I am labeled a troll or a racist or whatever nonsense is the taboo thing to be. I’d be a witch 100 years back…:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: But let’s break down your post and highlight the tactics. 1. You appeal to some authority which is fallacious in order to lend credence to an unfounded assertion that is quite inflammatory yet used deliberately to discredit the person and by extension everything that person says. 2. You make the presumption that the onus is on me to change merely because some authority you appealed to has made a false assertion. 3. You immediately shift into the acceptance of that assertion as some unquestionable fact and use that as some sort of proof that I am defective as a human and need to be a better person. You are already moved from accusation to conviction. Actually past conviction into stating I’m incorrigible. 4. You try to put yourself and your cohort as being beyond reasonable and as the aggrieved party because someone accused of an inflammatory accusation isn’t immediately apologetic and obsequious. 5. None of what you wrote was for me! You wrote that to attack me and to virtue signal for a larger audience and to shape a narrative. A narrative that you trolls here and at Giraffe do in part to generate snark and in part to run off anyone who disagrees not just with a message but tactics used to silence others. You and the fools who agree with you and the devious people who engage in the same sort of tactics would have been right at home in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, the mob of the French Revolution, executioners in the Soviet Gulags, or oven operators in the Third Reich. Your tactics are shameful and it’s sad they actually work here. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/106 "2018-09-29T18:11:36Z")
I suspect you are probably a nice guy, IRL. Do you not care to make a tiny change in your behaviour? It won’t hurt, I swear. Just be more accommodating to people not like yourself. Easy-peasy. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/107 "2018-09-29T18:15:53Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > It wasn’t a racist comment. It was acknowledging reality. Obviously try to fix the problems at home. But if Hitler is in power I’m not staying and I’d advise anyone who could leave to leave. Regardless of how that would be spun, yet again, to be some form of bigotry. (Let the record show that this was the first mention of Hitler in the thread. I didn’t Godwinize it! 😛 ) Imagine someone in Germany as Hitler is coming to power telling his Jewish friends “I’m not anti-Semitic or anything like that but I have to vote for the team that’ll Make Christian Germany Great Again. Get used to it. If you don’t like it pack what valuables you can and get out of the country leaving your life behind.” That may be good advice to give your Jewish friends, but an enlightened benevolent man would have stopped voting for Hitler and tried to help the opposition. And your post came across, not as helpful advice, but as sarcastic and dismissive. I’m not accusing you of actually voting for Trump or the Republicans who’ve sold out the country in the name of Trumpist bigotry and greed — for all I know you’re one of these dimwits who voted for Gary Johnson — but you certainly seem supportive of Trumpist hypocrisies and hatreds. We’re still a very long ways from Blacks and Hispanics being forced to wear yellow stars — unnecessary anyway since facial features give clues — but mistreatments in Trump’s America are already heart-breaking for those with open eyes and open minds. And don’t forget that by the time of the Reichstag fire it was too late to stop Hitler with ordinary democratic process. Maybe I can save you a click. You’re going to laugh, and say I exaggerate. And even if Trump is a stupid lying criminal, it’s your kind of stupidity, your kind of lies, and your kind of crime. Whatever. My suggestion is: _ **Stop typing and instead think about what others are trying to teach you.** _[Majority of One](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055124/) is a fine moral tale — _but you ain’t it._ ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/108 "2018-09-29T18:16:45Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > How it comes across is your problem. I can’t help that so many here have such emotional baggage or mental deficiencies that they are literally unable to conduct a rational debate without something triggering them into an unhinged profane rant, tears, or a barrage of lies. Now, obviously the whole board isn’t like that. Just a rabid and vocal minority. Do you and **Starving Artist** get the same newsletter or something? No, dude, it’s not _everyone else_. It’s you. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/109 "2018-09-29T18:18:28Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You and the fools who agree with you and the devious people who engage in the same sort of tactics would have been right at home in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, the mob of the French Revolution, executioners in the Soviet Gulags, or oven operators in the Third Reich. Your tactics are shameful and it’s sad they actually work here. Wow, you’re not just kind of a douchebag, you’re a completely fucking nutso douchebag. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/110 "2018-09-29T18:18:51Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > (Let the record show that this was the first mention of Hitler in the thread. I didn’t Godwinize it! 😛 ) > > Imagine someone in Germany as Hitler is coming to power telling his Jewish friends “I’m not anti-Semitic or anything like that but I have to vote for the team that’ll Make Christian Germany Great Again. Get used to it. If you don’t like it pack what valuables you can and get out of the country leaving your life behind.” > > That may be good advice to give your Jewish friends, but an enlightened benevolent man would have stopped voting for Hitler and tried to help the opposition. > > And your post came across, not as helpful advice, but as sarcastic and dismissive. > > I’m not accusing you of actually voting for Trump or the Republicans who’ve sold out the country in the name of Trumpist bigotry and greed — for all I know you’re one of these dimwits who voted for Gary Johnson — but you certainly seem supportive of Trumpist hypocrisies and hatreds. > > We’re still a very long ways from Blacks and Hispanics being forced to wear yellow stars — unnecessary anyway since facial features give clues — but mistreatments in Trump’s America are already heart-breaking for those with open eyes and open minds. And don’t forget that by the time of the Reichstag fire it was too late to stop Hitler with ordinary democratic process. > > Maybe I can save you a click. You’re going to laugh, and say I exaggerate. And even if Trump is a stupid lying criminal, it’s your kind of stupidity, your kind of lies, and your kind of crime. Whatever. > > My suggestion is: _ **Stop typing and instead think about what others are trying to teach you.** _[Majority of One](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055124/) is a fine moral tale — _but you ain’t it._ You realize I’ve considered leaving the US? So why wouldn’t I advise others to do what I considered if they don’t like where they live? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/111 "2018-09-29T18:20:14Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Wow, you’re not just kind of a douchebag, you’re a completely fucking nutso douchebag. Don’t you have guillotines or machetes to sharpen? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/112 "2018-09-29T18:41:56Z")
Like I said - melting down. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/113 "2018-09-29T18:42:16Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Discussing the implications of a rule change or a proposal is not trolling. Trolling is posting here to generate snark elsewhere. If I wasn’t the convenient target of the day someone else would be. It just happens that I don’t think bigotry is acceptable in order to fight bigotry. You all do. Well, when white males start playing the identity politics game you might reconsider. Dude, just go over to the Giraffe Boards already and take it up there. YOU’RE the one trying to start something. Nobody else. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/114 "2018-09-29T19:06:14Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > You realize I’ve considered leaving the US? How would I have known that? Where are you thinking of moving, and Why? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/115 "2018-09-29T19:13:24Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > when white males start playing the identity politics game you might reconsider. What the fuck, dude? Forget the identity politics of Trump’s 2016 campaign, identity politics have been part of the white male playbook literally since before our country was founded (3/5 compromise, anyone?) This idea that somehow white men have been forbearing and not interested in identity politics until those evil libruls brought it up first is among the stupider things you’ve said. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/116 "2018-09-29T19:43:26Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > How would I have known that? Where are you thinking of moving, and Why? I guess you wouldn’t. 🙂 I only speak English and I like the cold so I’ve thought about Canada. I like the UK. I wouldn’t mind somewhere on the Med. There are a lot of things that I find appealing about living abroad and a lot of things I don’t. But I wouldn’t recommend something like leave a dangerous country if I didn’t think it was a reasonable thing to do. I know folks from Iran, Syria, etc. and I don’t blame them for choosing to leave. I do feel bad for those that can’t. Or those that have died trying to leave or trying to fix intractable problems. If I lived in Cartel-ville I’d be crossing the desert as quickly as I could. So I’m not just typing things to “troll.” ---
**Author:** ![Covfefe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Covfefe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covfefe)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/117 "2018-09-29T19:53:56Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I suspect you are probably a nice guy, IRL. Do you not care to make a tiny change in your behaviour? It won’t hurt, I swear. Just be more accommodating to people not like yourself. Easy-peasy. He needs a caddy. I noticed he used to be more agreeable and less combative in the Pit when Spice Weasel would be around. It’s too bad it’s apparently so rough and tumble here his wife can’t come and be his caddy. Maybe you can coordinate posting schedules with him, Beck. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/118 "2018-09-29T21:03:26Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I guess you wouldn’t. 🙂 > > I only speak English and I like the cold so I’ve thought about Canada. I like the UK. You should split the difference and move to the middle of the North Atlantic. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/119 "2018-09-29T21:38:34Z")
> [@Covfefe](#): > > He needs a caddy. I noticed he used to be more agreeable and less combative in the Pit when Spice Weasel would be around. It’s too bad it’s apparently so rough and tumble here his wife can’t come and be his caddy. Maybe you can coordinate posting schedules with him, Beck. 😛 Nah. I got my own baggage to haul around. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098/120 "2018-09-29T22:38:22Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I only speak English and I like the cold so I’ve thought about Canada. " Canada is a terrible place. Moose look big and cool but are actually super hipster douche bags. Beavers will roll you for your pocket change, poutine sounds delicious but it’s actually just unmassaged kale with no citrus (the menu descriptions are a lie.) Maple syrup is mostly just water and hockey is boring and mostly just dudes sitting around in a coffee klatch. You wouldn’t like Canada at all. You shouldn’t come here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/octopus-is-having-a-meltdown/822098.md?page=7)