Before I begin, I wanted to note that I had a moment that caught me off guard the other day. I was in a laboratory, and I had this shudder of a feeling that suddenly, without any warning, billions of tiny little nanobot voices suddenly fell silent. . .
I could not have put it better myself. What was most annoying to me was his fluidity:
[ul]
[li]The substance of his ‘positions’ swam from a scrap of a legimitate fact, through personal opinion based on specious sources, through “sources” that were non-credible or so poorly read by him that they were taken out of context.[/li][li]His rhetoric flowed back and forth from the aforementioned “substance” as a starting point, to other “evidence”, to personal attacks. What’s comical to me, is that on his ‘good’ days, he expressed a desire to keep things in terms of “honest academic discussions” instead of attacking the person, but he would immediately switch to personal vitriol when he was clearly, academically wrong.[/li][li]He doesn’t know his audience. There are dozens of experienced professionals in their fields here on the SDMB, but he feels the need to pitch his ideas/get belligerent with them to “prove” a point about something. Apparently his short stint in the Army with no deployments makes him on-par with National Security Advisors.[/li][/ul]
I can only guess to this, but what he’d posted about his personal life (30-something, “can’t land a job,” deep in financial mismanagement and debt, racist/misogynist/etc.), I suspect he had some entitlement issues that drove him to have to “prove” himself to the world–and it just wasn’t working out.
One of my initial (and favorite) episodes, best summarized here that demonstrates my point. He misread articles and texts (and later tried to “prove” his point after getting caught red-handed in a lie), went on personal attacks, and assumed things about his audience, all of which ultimately did him in to tuck tail and surrender. There’s lots of other examples of this, but to summarize his style:
"I am going to prove a point to solve [a most likely non-problem] by "churching something up" and using [a scrap of fact] by suggesting [future technology] and proving that [future technology will be available] by just using [future technology]." Click “Submit Reply.” Start personal attacks to those that don’t agree. Argue some more. Change argument and drift the discussion from the original, basic position. * Lather, rinse, repeat. [sub]*Note: He often would call brainstorming “thought experiments” or “Fermi estimates,” and his use of “space simulation software” was nothing more than a video game. All of this was to add some [del]formality[/del] pretention to his arguments–smoke and mirrors.[/sub] SamuelA was truly the hands-down master of the technology-based self-licking ice cream cone.
This is true. I’ve never seen anyone throw fuel on a fire quite like SamuelA. Adding racism, misogyny, or otherwise distracting information to “academic” conversations doesn’t really lend credibility to otherwise flimsy arguments. But the capacity for his account to have parallel mentalities like this; maybe it’s me, but I would have figured an educated person would be smart enough not to demonstrate/post such despicable behavior, even if only to keep from distracting from his “academia.” I’m still holding onto a thought that his account was managed/used by multiple personalities; Put your tin-foil hats on for this one: I don’t think it’s a far stretch to tie it to a dis-information campaign’s “training ground.” On a personal note, I’m proud to have pointed out just one of his racist remarks that earned him a warning. Reflecting on that link, I’m amazed at how many times he tried to use “patriotism” as a defense/weapon in his rhetoric. I had looked forward to engaging him on his use of “red blooded Americans” as a talking point.
His uglier side was so glaringly obvious, but so grammatically confusing, I just didn’t have the interest to keep up. Same with his solutions to “social” policy/issued. It did become sport though, when I did, to harangue his ineptitude on technology and science.
–
All that reminiscing being said, I fully intended to start Round #2, someone responded, and I covered them! So the way I figure, we’ve got “bookend” winners for such a “glorious” contest–Deltree and Atamasama!
With Atamasama closest to the actual banning date, I’m happy to award him a fresh bag of Cheetos, and a jar of New Mexico Green Chile! Deltree comes in next with his bag of Cheetos as runner-up! I’ll reach out to both of you via PM to get mailing info. The rest of our contestants? I will give them a hearty handshake and pat on the back for helping run that overblown, over-opinionated, and overspoken man-twat out on a rail. Lesser Wrong can keep him.
SamuelA, I know you’re reading this, so remember: Any “Lesser Wrong” is still wrong.
Tripler
PM being drafted to our winners now!