I question this, unless it’s done with great care for effect from an otherwise genuinely thoughtful person. Otherwise it’s just noise that causes people to tune you out.
The What in the Whiches?
Perhaps you meant to say “in the Hundred Acre Wood.”
There was that blustery day…
Heh. Agreed. It’s pretty amusing to see the thread backfire on him. “Yeah, DT’s awfully abrasive, but he’s a lot more right than you are, Lumpy baby.”
I came to say this, word for word. Beat me to it.
And this!
I used to ignore anybody who talked in the kind of extreme positions Der_Thris uses, then they turned out to be right once, so I started to rethink my position, then they turned out to be right again, and again, and again…
They also are many times completely wrong, but I’ve decided to at least hear what they say, contrast it against reality, see if their predictions turn out to be accurate, why, and on what areas and act accordingly.
I still don’t like the extremism, but I take their warnings far more seriously.
Add me to those who generally agree with DT’s positions, and welcome seeing an extreme version of what I think. Sure, he often (but not always) takes it further than I would, but I welcome that as a counter balance to the unrealistic “can’t we all just get along - with people who have no desire to get along” pablum.
Agreed but, in this (still currently) democratic nation, the biggest roadblock to true gender freedom for women is … (hold on to your hats) … WOMEN. Yes, WOMEN.
We represent roughly 50% of the vote and, if only 25% of the men out there sympathized and voted with us, we would EASILY rid ourselves of what is institutionalized sexism in this nation. Do we? No, we don’t. Many women go to the polls and obediently vote for the things that men want.
I believe this is akin to the “Stockholm Syndrome”, the psychological coping mechanism where hostages or abuse victims develop positive feelings, empathy, or loyalty toward their captors. It’s why many women in places like Iran go out into 115 degree sun baked heat with black sheets thrown over the heads. It’s what they are supposed to do.
So, if women really want to free themselves, then they need to actively act to free themselves. Women who literally support their own bondage enrage and disgust me.
No, but he’s clearly motivated by many of the same shitty hateful impulses that Republicans are motivated by.
Man, is this ever true. I can’t believe what we’ve become in this country.
I agree with this as well.
I’d like to pit the people who engage with some of his super-extreme posts. If he says something obviously crazy, just let it go. It’s really easy to argue with the most extreme post in the thread, but engage with the more nuanced posts by less black-and-white posters instead.
Some poster: Nuanced take on abortion rights
Der Trihs: Conservatives want to kill all women
Lumpy: Show me a cite that says Republicans want to kill all women. Why some conservatives are women.
Babale: You think conservatives are trying to kill all women? What about…
And, just like that, the nuanced take scrolls off the top of the page.
May I reference … myself here – an occasionally insightful, but periodically unreliable source:
I’m talking about threads that are supposed to be about another subject. Some posters keep up at their schtick and the thread is all them. He doesn’t tend to do that. That’s good. Read it or don’t, the conversation can move on.
See, I think the opposite is worse.
Some poster: Nuanced take on abortion rights
Der Trish: Unhinged rant about how conservatives take pleasure in causing women pain and also some minor uncontroversial point about abortion
RitterSport: responds only to the part of Der Trihs’ post where he makes a minor uncontroversial point telling him “I agree”.
I think that makes it appear as if you are aligned with him on his toxic nonsense, or at least don’t mind it enough to feel a need to call it out.
But maybe that’s just my own perspective on this.
I joined the Dope in 2008 when I was a high schooler, after a couple years of lurking. Reading political threads here exposed me to a lot of new ideas and ways of thinking, even before I joined. Eventually, along with a few other things (an intro to philosophy class in college really opened my mind on a lot of things, that’s where I first heard about the Veil of Ignorance test for morality which I find incredibly valuable to this day) made me much more Liberal than I was growing up.
But there was one influence pulling against the tide in the opposite direction, and that was the fact that the shitties, nastiest, most unpleasant people on the Dope were all very far Left and (as at the time I didn’t know enough about political philosophy to properly distinguish Liberals from Leftists) this gave me a very negative view of Liberals. Assholes like Der Trihs, Czarcasm, and (by far the king of the assholes) Diogenes the Cynic were such rotten, disgusting excuses for human beings that I almost assumed you had to be a giant raging asshole to be a Liberal.
Thankfully, I grew up, and realized some very important points:
- A Liberal is not a Leftist
- The overwhelming majority of Democrats are Liberals, not Leftists
- The overwhelming majority of Liberals find sanctimonious pricks like that completely intolerable
That’s why I like to make it very clear in my posts that I am not aligned with people like that.
I think when I was a kid, seeing more strongly Liberal people tell off losers like Der Trihs would have made me much more confident in Liberalism.
I usually skip over his posts, but I guess it’s possible that I’ve agreed and linked to some part of his post in the past.
That doesn’t make your engagement with his most crazy posts any less Pit-worthy.
Der Trihs has always been one of my favorite posters. Everyone has already been very eloquent in their defense of him. I would just add that his vehemence is helpful in breaking up my dully complacent and wrong beliefs. He moves the needle a bit more in the right direction every time with his intensity.
Either his posts are appropriate for the forum they are in, in which case they should be engaged with on their own (lack of) merit, or they are not appropriate for the forum they are in (and I happen to think that ranting about how everyone who disagrees with you wants to kill you for their own sexual gratification is probably too much for most forums, but Der Trihs is rarely warned, so what do I know) and they should be moderated.
Well, the fact that utterly braindead assertions by the likes of Der Trihs, Diogenes the Cynic, or Czarcasm would often go completely unchallenged is part of what led me to erroneously believe that their insane spittle-soaked lunatic ravings were in fact canonically Liberal positions.
I don’t understand why you think his idiocy should go unchallenged.
Yeah, I wonder if there are any recent examples of this…
Because it derails otherwise interesting conversations - I thought I was really clear about that. Not every post has to be engaged with, and most aren’t.
At times insightful, though often inciteful (but usually only that to the people I detest).
That said, I do vaguely recall something along the lines of the hat Big_T mentioned (MRA-themed posts). If I were going to pit him, it would be over that. But something tells me that’s not what this pitting is about.
If someone came into every thread and started talking about how it’s all because of their pet conspiracy theory, the answer wouldn’t be “don’t engage that person, just let him spew his conspiracy nonsense in every thread” because that just makes it look like here on the Dope his position is uncontroversial and accepted. It would be to ban that person, or at least give them a topic ban.
This has happened many times for many people, but for some reason Der Trihs is allowed to come into every tangentially related threat to masturbate over how ontologically evil anyone who disagrees with him is.
I agree that Der Trihs derailing every conversation with his nonsense is a bad thing. I think the solution is to give Der Trihs a topic ban on masturbatory rants about how evil his enemies are. Or at least limit it to one post per thread.
The fact that most of his posts go completely unchallenged is what gave younger me the incorrect impression that Liberals were just all like that. That’s why I value strong pushback against his disgusting nonsense.