Damned right we wrecked it! It needed wrecking, and nobody else was crazy enough to do it!
Hmm, partisan idiot or arrogant asshole. Tough choice.
Not at all. Arrogant asshole every time.
I concede that i might sometimes seem arrogant, especially to people who aren’t very smart and who have trouble engaging in rational debate. I can live with that.
I have also, on these boards, sometimes been too quick to criticize and even insult people, especially on subjects that i’m passionate about. It’s a failing that i recognize, and that i make efforts to correct, although i’m not always successful. I’ve never claimed to be perfect.
I have also, over the years, engaged in heated debates and exchanges of insults with both people i like and with people i don’t. In some cases, a person i like and respect on most issues will push my buttons on one particular topic, leading to conflict. But in nearly all of these cases, with a few exceptions, i do my best to confine the conflict to the thread in question, and not let it fester or spill over into other threads. I’ve engaged with plenty of reasoned and rational and polite debates with folks like Bricker and Oakminster and Shodan and Steophan (to name just a few) on these boards, while also believing at times that they are douchebags. They have probably felt the same about me.
But even when i find other posters annoying or infuriating or stupid or contemptible or plain old wrong in particular debates, i believe that they also contribute to the overall atmosphere of the boards. They have things to say that add to the debate and to the sum of knowledge and understanding around here, and i’m glad they’re around. I regret almost every long-term poster who leaves the boards, even when they’re people i disagree with about almost everything. I didn’t like it when december was banned, even though i argued with almost everything he said; i didn’t like it when Dio was banned, even though i often agreed with him.
But Starving Artist is different. He’s sui generis, a net drain on everything good and useful about this place. He is aggressive stupidity combined with proud ignorance and willful dishonesty, in almost every debate where he appears. There are smart and engaged and thoughtful conservatives around here; he just isn’t one of them.
The thread title keeps making me think he’s died.
♪I will remember yoo-uu.♫
My name is mhendo and I approve this message.
Paid for by the Committee to Retain mhendo at the SDMB Popularity Poll.
Sorry, i shouldn’t have made the thread about me. Starving Artist’s own words speak for themselves, and that’s all that really matters here.
You post a lot about somebody you supposedly have on Ignore. Just sayin’.
Regards,
Shodan
As one of the douchebags (;)) you mentioned, I don’t think you did, you summed up exactly what’s wrong with him, that isn’t wrong with the majority of people here.
I think this is mostly where I’m at. SA is certainly a prick, and while nearly insufferable, his idiocy is hilarious. I’ve had tears rolling down my face from laughing so hard at his tortured stupidity.
I oppose this idea. We are not voting anyone off the island.
But you’re falling into precisely the same error that Starving Artist does.
I’ve never had him on ignore, and i’ve never claimed to ignore him completely. On occasions when i’ve raised the issue, it’s been precisely to note that i was no longer going to engage him as if he were a rational and honest debater. As i said to him five years ago:
I’m happy to weigh in with an insult in a Pit thread like this, and to point out further examples of his stupidity and mendacity, but that’s not the same as engaging him as if he were honest and rational.
Well, that suggestion was largely hyperbole, designed to make a point about Starving Artist’s value. To be honest, despite the fact that he’s as useless as tits on a bull, it’s sort of amusing having him around.
I don’t know…if we do it the way I suggested upthread, it might be amusing to see some egos deflated as poll subjects are brought to the realization that most of the people here don’t give a wet fart about them one way or the other. I say this confidently knowing that the tiny handful of people here who have an any opinion on me at all almost certainly have a negative opinion. Only a very few here rise to the level of being genuinely widely liked or disliked.
Except I don’t really think he’s all that stupid. He is almost certainly one of the top five trolls in the history of this board; it takes at least a bit of cleverness to so consistently push so many peoples’ buttons.
Now, whether it is stupid or not to invest massive amounts of time, over several years, carefully developing a public on-line persona that runs a distant second to Hitler in likeability, well…
Awww. It ruins it for me if it isn’t real! If he’s a troll though, I have to say kudos, because I bought it.
Starkers is the uncle you wish wouldn’t show up for Thanksgiving dinner.
At Thanksgiving I want to eat stuffing and bask in that goodwill to all people stuff, so Uncle Frank needs to fuck off. If you want to do that on the SDMB you can stay in MPSIMS and Cafe Society. Starkers, whatever his faults (and they are manifest), offers contrary viewpoints for people to debate and that’s what we’re here for.
“Contrary” is one way to put it. A completely misrepresentative and kinda bullshit way, to be sure, but it is indeed one way.
:rolleyes:
There are plenty of people who offer “contrary viewpoints” on this message board, and who manage to debate these viewpoints in ways that are not manifestly dishonest and unrepresentative of reality. Simply offering up contrary viewpoints is NOT really what this board is for at all. It’s pointless if you can’t or won’t use evidence and reason and logic to support those viewpoints.