Well, him is pretty smart.
Lib, I understand why you might feel defensive, and on reflection, my post did seem to imply that you were posting without a filter at all, but all I meant was that you could turn up the sensitivity on your “maybe I shouldn’t post this” meter as a way to modify your behaviour further without being “fake.” I apologize for being unclear.
The thing I find most infuriating about your posting style when you drop in to a poor unsuspecting thread and deposit some cryptic comment. Mostly I don’t blame you for it, as much as the posters with a hard-on for you who are absolutely determined to make every thread in which you post all about Lib, but it is frustrating to see the thread turn into nothing but people trying to figure out what the hell you were saying, and attacks from the hard-on crew. You usually protest that your comment was perfectly clear (which it rarely is, but that’s neither here nor there) and that you don’t want the attention, that you are only responding to those who post in response to you, and, well, it seems like one way to avoid that negative attention would be to choose not to post at least some of those obscure little bon mots that inevitably lead to a trainwreck. I don’t think that would be “fake.”
Part of my becoming a happier internet user has been the realization that I never need to make a point on a message board. If I decide not to post, even if my post would have been truly, truly brilliant . . . Well, somehow, life marches on. I’m still the same person I was, just, perhaps, not as visibly. If you seriously think that every point you make needed to be made, well, I think you need to take a step back.
Agreed. 'cept I’m using my own definition of the word “smart,” which, in this case, stands for “megalomaniacal fuckwit.”
Hmmm…wonder where I’ve seen that done before.
I’m on their side. I remember to this day a college prof noting that the way to figure out this construction is to “complete the thought.” E.g. I drink more wine than he - I drink more wine than he does. I drink more wine than him - I drink more wine than I drink him.
The second formulation of the second sentence may not be 100% correct, but it certainly made it stick in my memory.
No sweat.
Okay.
Have a look at this, which I posted a couple of hours ago. In the spirit of that sort of advice, I did not leave my post with just a brief comment. Instead, I explained what I meant, complete with an example. As you can see, the topic sentence of the post I quoted was “This is why I despise capitalists.”
But note the response. The duplicitous son of a bitch had the nerve to call my post off-topic, when he was the one who raised the topic of capitalism specifically. I can understand the benefit of modifying a posting “style” to accomodate people genuinely interested in seeing more than just a one-liner. But what is the point in doing that with people who are certifiably insane? when people are going to say, no matter what you post, that your post is off-topic — even when it is exactly specifically about the topic they raise — what’s the incentive even to make the attempt?
Well, that’s certainly something to consider. Thanks for the advice.
Sheesh. If you think that response was particularly harsh, harsh enough to call him or her a duplicitous son of a bitch, you need to dial the sensotivity-stat way back. No wonder you perceive such persecution.
commasense’s response seems to me to be “I didn’t mean to use the word in a way that would trigger a debate about capitalism. I used it in a different way. Nevermind.” Seems a fine response to me.
Thanks for your response, Lib. I feel I should point out that I don’t necessarily have quibbles with you posting off-topic per se. I was giving you static over something totally different. 
Anyway, I don’t think commasense was right in calling your post off-topic. However, he(?) did not insult you, even though you had insulted him and used a profanity in an otherwise pretty clean thread. He admitted that the offensive line should have been left off, explained it was offered in an immature way, and said he didn’t want a political debate—and all without personal attacks or profanity, in a fairly level-headed manner.
Now, to you, right now, calling your post off-topic has a lot of sting, but are you sure that commasense meant it that way? I think your insults and language in that thread were inappropriate, and in this thread are quite undeserved. “Duplicitous son of a bitch”? “Certifiably insane”? All I see is “Someone who disagrees with Lib about the way the thread should have avoided a couple of Lib’s hot-button vocabulary words.”
What’s the incentive to make the attempt to be on-topic? :dubious: commasense called your post off-topic so you don’t see the point in making any attempt to be on-topic in any thread? Could it be that your perspective’s gotten a bit outta whack?
I realize I’ve already given more than my quota of advice today, but if you want some more, turn your Shoudl-I-Post-o-Meter 'way, 'way up for your pet topics. If you hadn’t called commasense on his stupid, “I despise capitalists!” line, what would have happened? Would everyone in the thread have said “Yes, yes, capitalism is bad! Breadlines are better! Socialism, hurrah!” Um, probably not. It was just a silly rant about not being able to find paperclips. Everyone probably took the “I hate capitalism!” thing to be a joke, like “Democracy is the worst system of government—except for every other system.” Yeah, it galls your ass to here someone say they despise capitalism, because you care passionately about the topic, but, really, what do you gain by defending capitalism every time someone makes a joke at its expense?
Just my 2c: I agree with Hentor. commasense’s response to you didn’t seem impolite. He did not call you names or anything; he just indicated that he did not want an argument about capitalism, trying to head a hijack off at the pass. He also explained exactly what was meant by the “capitalists” comment. Then he tried to get back to the thread at hand.
Yes, he started it by saying he hated capitalists. Your response to that didn’t seem all that out of line (although it was pretty clear to me that commasense wasn’t looking for a debate). But his response to your response seemed a resonable explanation and attempt to avoid a hijack.
Then you called him a sanctimonious twat for some reason.
Who seems harsh here?
It really would be wonderful if I could see things from your point of view, particularly given your good natured way of conveying it. I hope you understand, however, that it would be equally wonderful, at least to me, if you could see things from my point of view as well.
It’s kind of hard to explain this sort of thing if you don’t share a common frame of reference, some shared experience or context in which the explanation is meaningful. Whether you can understand, I don’t know. Whether you have shared the experience, I don’t know. But I’ll explain my point of view as best I can.
Have you ever had something pinned on you that you felt you didn’t deserve? Maybe in school, kids taunted you about being a sissy boy, when you were merely quiet. Or a loudmouth, when you were merely assertive. Or, perchance, a hijacker, when you merely wrote interpretations that were very different from their own? The problem with that sort of reputation manipulation around here is that it can, eventually, hurt your membership. People who constantly hijack are, in my view, definitively jerks. If it is indeed the case that I am here for no reason other than to hijack every thread I see, then my membership should be revoked.
It isn’t just a hot-button word. It is a word chosen specifically for its destructive power. When it comes to the point that someone says he hates capitalists, and you cannot explain why capitalists hate him back because it is a hijack, then it has gone beyond mere mudslinging to a deliberate bandwagon attack. It is as though the writer in that thread thought to himself, “Okay, in what way can I most damage Lib for commenting on my remark? Hey, I know. I’ll sling that same word that a couple of other posters do and contribute to the repetition of it.”
Now, a dime will get you a dollar that someone is already composing a response, without having given any consideration whatsoever to my point of view because, frankly, my point of view is of no interest to him. All he will care to do is bite back at me, and he will select words that he believes are most destructive.
It has gotten to the point, as far as I’m concerned, of calling a black man the n-word. I am not a thread hijacker. I am entitled to respond to attacks on capitalism. I am not off-topic when I directly address a specific remark. I won’t allow that to be pinned on me. And as a man of honor, you shouldn’t allow it to be done to another man. It is a matter of principle, yes. But left unchecked, it will become a matter of necessity for me. If I am ever banned, I want it to be because I disregarded the rules, and not because some two or three jackasses wanted to implement an infantile plan to derail me.
People say they cannot read my mind, and so want me to elucidate rather than post pithy comments. That is exactly the opinion that I attempted to accomodate. Lo and behold, I am chastised for being unable to read the mind of a man who says that he meant only to make an offhand remark. Why am I required to read minds? If in fact he wanted to clear the matter up, why did he have to not only misquote me, wiping out the whole content of my post and replacing it with a reference to hijacking, but repeat it inside the body of his post? Why should I, from my point of view, take that in any way other than the ridiculous accusation that it was? If he merely wanted to correct his mistake, he could have quoted what I actually said, and responded simply, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean that literally. My bad.”
Does the above, in your view, fairly convey the substance of your post? If not, you feel as I did.
Personally, I thought Lib’s response in that thread was perfectly fine. The OP didn’t intend to have a debate about capitalism, so he called it “off-topic”, but I don’t think he was accusing Lib of being the one to bring it off-topic (hence the “I shouldn’t have said that” bit).
But if you make a statement that sounds like, “gee, this problem would be all better if we were just communists”, then you should expect to get some disagreement, and that disagreement is going to be on the topic of communism versus capitalism.
And for what it’s worth, Lib, you seem to have grasped the gist of the complaints quite well. Your “what I would have posted” example was cryptic enough that we can’t really be expected to infer a valid point from it, yet it’s clearly intended to offend, and we can tell that your beef is political. Contribution to the thread: 0. What you did post is clear, makes a good point, and still manages to properly call the guy an idiot (and even get him to admit that he didn’t really mean what he was saying). And it didn’t cause a train wreck.
Thank you, Galt. I cannot express how much I appreciate that.
Someone with your grasp of the language should know the difference between a premise and a conclusion. Your behavior has been observed by many, and pretty much the same *conclusion * drawn by nearly everyone, as you must realize by now. Do you really think it’s more likely that everyone *else * has a problem, not you?
You desperately need to get a fuckin’ life, dude. This board is no substitute, nor is anywhere else on the Web. Shut the computer off, go outside, have a walk, enjoy the fresh air, maybe even meet somebody. You never know until you try.
I don’t think it’s gotten to this point. I don’t see you being chastised in that thread, and I don’t see him accusing you of hijacking it. I see him saying, “I shouldn’t have said that, because it drove us off-topic.”
Again, I think that’s exactly what he was doing. Using the label “off-topic” on your post is just an acknowledgement that he considers that whole branch of the conversation “off-topic.”
And it would seem that I don’t preview enough, because my point has already been heard.
I don’t think so. I might feel as you did, however, if you had gone on to post a consise and relatively polite reason as to why you felt my post was off-topic and taken some of the blame upon yourself, as commasense did.
Relatively polite? Will you please explain to me how accusing you of jerkish behavior, like hijacking, complete with wiping out your whole quote is “polite”? If you were an Indian, would it be polite to taunt you about scalps and wampum so long as I said please and thank you?
Oh, come on. I didn’t call the “wiping out” of the quote and the calling it off topic “polite.” I called the rest of the post polite.
The first thing he said was:
In saying that, he took much of the blame upon himself. He shared the balme of the hijack with you.
On the whole, the post was pretty polite and offered a good explanation of his intent. Yeah, it wasn’t entirely nice to wipe out your quote and call it “off topic.” But I thought his explanation afterwards mitigated that. If you disagree and would rather be offended, I guess I can’t argue about that, though.
Yeah.
The more I think about that, the more it makes sense to me. Just posting this to let you know. Thanks.