# Pitting Max\_S **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 8, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074 "2022-02-08T00:26:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 40
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/781 "2022-05-27T04:34:44Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Can I suggest that you start with watching the _ **13th** _ by Ava DuVernay. > > [13th (film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)) I just did a quick text search of the script… are you sure you haven’t confused _indentured servitude_ with _involuntary servitude_? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/782 "2022-05-27T04:36:16Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > The hypotheticals are materially different. In the 1858 scenario I am in the position of a man who discovers a fugitive. In your 2022 scenario I am in the position of the man who _is_ a fugitive. Surely you can understand that the decision making process will be different, and rely on different circumstances, depending on whether I am the person who discovers a fugitive, versus if I am the fugitive himself? > > In the 1858 scenario I made the assumption that I had the runaway slave in my power. It was written into the hypothetical that he begged me to stay. I assumed I was armed and the runaway was not. I assumed the runaway faced probable re-enslavement, assured bodily injury, and quite possibly death if turned over. I assumed I understood, in general terms, his motivation to escape slavery. These were all factors in my decision. If you remember, even then I had to say “depending on circumstances not specified”. > > In the 2022 scenario I haven’t made any of these assumptions because they seemed inappropriate to make. If I assume that I will beg for the man to let me stay, as the runaway did in 1858, then that makes your entire hypothetical moot. If I assume I am completely in the man’s power then that rules out the “kill him” option. If I assume my punishments for being returned to the authorities is probable enslavement, assured bodily injury, and quite possibly death, I would do anything humanly possible to avoid being cought, and would take the wildest chances, including attacking an innocent man if necessary. …what part of “I had no interest in the answers your answers to the hypothetical, I was interested in how you responded to the hypothetical” are you failing to understand? > [@Max\_S](#): > > If you are capable of answering your own hypothetical definitively, and not conditional upon unspecified circumstances, I suggest you are incapable of imagining being the black man behind the door. > > ~Max This thread isn’t about me. Its about **you**. > [@Max\_S](#): > > I just did a quick text search of the script… are you sure you haven’t confused _indentured servitude_ with _involuntary servitude_ ? Just watch the movie already. It will take you less time to watch the movie than it will to type out another boring, verbose post. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/783 "2022-05-27T04:48:06Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …what part of “I had no interest in the answers your answers to the hypothetical, I was interested in how you responded to the hypothetical” are you failing to understand? Evidently you wanted to see if I could put myself in the position of a black man, but because I require additional context I failed that test. So be it, I can’t satisfy everyone. I might watch the movie sometime. I’m skeptical as to whether it will teach me anything I didn’t learn when I did research for a thread on the 13th Amendment and modern slavery as punishment for a crime, just a few months ago. Unless you want to talk about it after I watch it, or otherwise want the last word, we can leave it at that. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/784 "2022-05-27T04:57:39Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Evidently you wanted to see if I could put myself in the position of a black man, but because I require additional context I failed that test. So be it, I can’t satisfy everyone. > [@Max\_S](#): > > I’ve barely escaped some kind of work farm and I’ve already been found. Is this **some kind of drug operation** I’m escaping? Do I know **if the gang running the farm** has all the locals under their thumb? …the point here is that when you imagined being a black man: you wondered if they were part of a drug operation. You wondered about the gang running the farm. These were the _instant_ assumptions you made. This tells us everything that we need to know. Every attempt you’ve made to clarify this is an attempt to walk this back. You never asked if the white farmer was part of a drug operation. Or if the white famer was the leader of the gang. Because you identify with the white farmer. You can’t identify with black people. At all. > [@Max\_S](#): > > . I’m skeptical as to whether it will teach me anything I didn’t learn when I did research for a thread on the 13th Amendment and modern slavery as punishment for a crime, just a few months ago. Was this you? > [@Max\_S](#): > > I also admit that my Google skills are not helping me find out what on earth you are talking about. Do you have an article or something I could look at? I don’t even have a frame of reference. Everything I’m seeing ends with the 13th Amendment or the downfall of peonage in the early to mid twentieth century. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? You did research for a thread on the 13th Amendment and modern slavery as punishment for a crime, just a few months ago, yet you don’t appear to know the basics? Watch the movie already. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2022, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/785 "2022-05-28T16:56:18Z")
To be fair to **Max\_S** , some of us don’t like watching movies, or can’t, for a variety of reasons. I don’t know his, but I don’t like doing it. Reading the script is something I might do instead. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2022, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/786 "2022-05-29T02:22:08Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > Reading the script is something I might do instead. …if I thought that Max had the capacity to absorb what they need to absorb from reading words on the page I would agreee with you. But this is a person who was incapable of understanding that a burning black cross sent to a black lawmaker was a threat. It’s a person who said this: > [@Max\_S](#): > > And it’s been a long time since I’ve talked politics with a Black person (in person) myself. There is a difference between _you_ reading a transcript, and a person who has shown a pathological inability to display empathy or understanding of groups of marginalised people. Max needs to start _listening_ to black people. To _seeing_ them. Not just reading words on a page. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/787 "2022-10-17T04:10:01Z")
I’ve read plenty of Max\_S’s debates. My complaint about him, if I’d had one, would have been that his posts tend toward dryness and tedium, a minor matter. Nothing that would impel me to join a pitting. Until I could scarcely believe my eyes at the outright [Ku Klux racist shit](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-were-southern-whites-oppressed-during-reconstruction/972722/24) from Birth of a Nation he blandly presented as though it were merely reasonable and not drenched in the blood of lynched Black men and women crying out to heaven for justice. Max\_S, damn you, that fucking crosses a line. Check your damn self. ---
**Author:** ![DeadTreasSecretaries](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deadtreassecretaries/32/4817_2.png) [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/788 "2022-10-17T04:42:23Z")
I assumed this thread would be bumped over the “discussion” of how overwhelmed with hormones the female brain gets after having a baby and what wider implications this has for whether a 16 year old girl should be denied an abortion. His comment in the reconstruction thread makes me think he actually is a troll, because I don’t think someone who was just weird and pedantic about online debates would accidentally stumble on something that was pretty obviously making that reference but still had plausible deniability. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/789 "2022-10-17T04:50:43Z")
That or he is, as @Miller opined, “what sealions are pretending to be.” ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/790 "2022-10-17T05:31:38Z")
> [@DeadTreasSecretaries](#): > > I assumed this thread would be bumped over the “discussion” of how overwhelmed with hormones the female brain gets after having a baby and what wider implications this has for whether a 16 year old girl should be denied an abortion. That was cringe all right, but that thread is already in the Pit. This pitting is the vehicle for protesting the turds he drops in Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/791 "2022-10-17T06:53:25Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > what sealions are pretending to be That’s profound and I think that is a perfect descriptor. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/792 "2022-10-17T09:19:24Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > what sealions are pretending to be (chef kiss) ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/793 "2022-10-17T10:13:05Z")
Not feeling too sharp-can someone explain? In small words? ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/794 "2022-10-17T10:17:43Z")
A reasonable person interested in honest debate, where _sealioning_ is understood to be a form of trolling. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/795 "2022-10-17T10:36:10Z")
As cmc says. A sea lion laboriously and obsessively, but with feigned courteousness, grinds through every last possible semantic nuance of an argument. They consciously and deliberately put on the mask of someone who is civil and respectful but is nevertheless very serious about hashing out every single detail in agonizing specificity. Ultimately, though, they don’t really care one way or the other; their true aim is to frustrate everyone with the endless spirals of logic, thereby disrupting the discussion. The proposal here is that Max is the very rare example of someone who naturally exhibits the behavior of a sea lion but does not share the sea lion’s trollish, disruptive intent. If this is accurate, then he really, really does just like to legitimately, if annoyingly, argue about stuff. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2022, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/796 "2022-10-17T10:49:58Z")
Fuck that racist asshole. That is a troll post. No question. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/797 "2022-10-17T11:05:54Z")
Thank you both for your explanations! Those are very helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/798 "2022-10-17T12:05:33Z")
Max strikes me as little better or worse than your typical child who has read some Ayn Rand and thinks they’ve discovered how the universe is intended to operate. The internet being what it is, I can’t tell if he’s _actually_ as amoral as he presents, or if he just thinks he’s sticking the courage of his convictions by taking his infantile ‘philosophy’ to its logical extreme. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory would suggest the latter. Presumably he doesn’t have a bunch of other young people with whom to get high and hash this shit out, and we’re the worse off for it. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/799 "2022-10-17T13:11:48Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Presumably he doesn’t have a bunch of other young people with whom to get high and hash this shit out, and we’re the worse off for it. He doesn’t give the impression of having voluntarily interacted with _any_ other human face to face to any significant degree. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2022, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/800 "2022-10-17T14:05:31Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > A reasonable person interested in honest debate, where _sealioning_ is understood to be a form of trolling. I would redact “reasonable” and insert “incredibly dense” in its place. An incredibly dense person interested in honest debate. That’s best case scenario. But Max might just be pedaling a racist theory. He previously tried to, by his own admission, “rules lawyer” the Holocaust. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074.md?page=39) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074.md?page=41)