Doesn’t that tell you something?
The way this thread is going makes me wonder if age has matured us at all, or we just have fewer incendiary posters than we used to. For my part I’ve learned not to take everything so personally and to just disengage when necessary. I see a lot of people saying they’ve learned similar things over the years here. Have we collectively mellowed out a bit?
My Daddy was a Marine. I heard (probably repeated) every dirty word, in a couple languages, you could hear as a child.
My kids know all these words. My Daddy said let them hear them. And, wisely told me make sure they understand they mean bad things.
We had rules in our house. Loosely, don’t call your sister a bitch or asshole, don’t bad mouth and name call your parent. Explain what they’re doing that’s horrible with cromulent vocab.
Then I’ll listen to your complaint and respond accordingly.
It’s childish for thinking adults to sink to such low levels. I stop hearing you if you’re calling me names.
What ever you say after that is smoke. No one sees it but you. It dissipates. Gone. No one cares.
(I’m not saying I’ve never sunk so low. But I’m not gonna do it again.)
We’re on the fucking internet, and we’re in the motherfucking Pit.
Have a nice day.
I bet you’re the kind of person that actually enjoys pornography.
/s
For like five minutes. Then I feel shame and guilt.
It’s called getting old. Next step after mellowing out is death, pretty sure.
For the most part I try not to. I’ve been relatively successful, in that since joining the boards in 2007 I can think of a handful of discrete instances in which I resorted to personal insults and nastiness. The most memorable was a guy destroying Great Debates threads about race with overt, 1850’s style “it would be better if Black people were slaves, they were better off then” racism, and I attacked him relentlessly in the Pit until he got himself banned. I also had an axe to grind against a certain now-banned poster who held repugnant views on sexual assault, who I doubt would irk me as much now, but at the time I viewed him as an existential threat.
The only time I have ever treated an actual human being that badly in person were the handful of times I went off on my mother. People always told me not to feel guilty for yelling at my mother because of the things she’d done to me. But every time I was like… ugh. I sunk to your level.
And I feel similarly when that happens here. The question for me isn’t whether the person deserved it for their repugnant views. It’s whether I want to be the kind of person that handles conflict in that way. And I especially don’t because that’s how it was handled with me when I was a child. Part of feeling like I’ve overcome my past is knowing I’m a different person than the woman who raised me.
I’m also just waking up to the fact that it doesn’t work. Shaming people doesn’t work. And I’m a pragmatist uber alles.
That may be the case here.
I know 3-12 yos who I could explain to, why dirty name calling is not how you speak to people you would like to call friends and people you’d like to associate with.
They understand. It may leave their brains when they are mad. But they are children. Just have to keep reinforcement going.
It’s not a hard lesson to learn. It takes loads of self control, that’s true. Especially if you’re mostly anonymous.
I’ve decided that what we reverentially call ‘wisdom’ is actually at least 75% fatigue 
A couple of things that are lacking in your analysis Octo.
First the purpose: a lot of the response to certain posters in the PIT has nothing to do with changing minds, it has to do with venting beyond the quite tight limitations of other forums. When I’m throwing personal insults (as opposed to requests to reconsider an action) I’m way past thinking I can fix or change someone. I’m venting, or if it’s one of those threads where the Pit-ee partcipates themselves, hoping they’ll see (briefly, before I put them on ignore) just how little I think of them. Or, more succintcly:
But really, it’s the second half of Octo’s quote I’m most concerned with. Octo seems to be leaning into a purity of motive that I think is nearly impossible. Here, I’ll use an off-board individual so we’re abstracting this a bit from “board popularity contests”.
Elon Musk is a controversial individual, many people laud him for his efforts and the results of the companies he largely owns, with many debates on his actual relation to said innovations. Many people loathe him for his actions against individuals, hypocrisy on subjects such as free speech, his conspiracy rantings, or on his refusal to adhere to basic contracts. Again, controversial (this is just a summary folks, we have multiple threads on details and nuance, so trying not to refight them).
If you were to go into an Elon Musk thread here in the Pit slamming Elon Musk, I see five-ish major groups of likely responses (huge spectrum, but again, loose large groupings).
- Poster loves Elon Musk IRL, but wants to “fit in” with the thread and the presumed “greater consensus”, or as I understand Octo’s points, score points with the “in crowd” and thus points direct, personal attacks on Elon and everything about him.
- Poster has no real opinion either way on Musk either way, but just as above wants to fit in, score points, and hang out with all the “cool kids” and does the same.
- Poster had no opinion on Musk prior to the thread, reads the thread (and hopefully a wide variety of articles on Elon from more-or-less neutral sources) and decides they revile Musk, and state so in a scathing manner - they may or may not care about showing off.
- Poster had prior hatred of Musk (one of his test Cybertrucks ran over his dog!) and doesn’t care about the rest of the conversation, actions, etc of EM, and rants on Musk in every thread, every opportunity, regardless of facts or community opinion.
- Poster had previously heard horrible things about Musk, and applies scorn and insults for each NEW offense, or repeats of old offenses, but in the sake of intellectual honestly, contradict other posters who bring MISinformation to the thread about complaints brought by other posters. This is likely to cost them “points” with the haters, but they do so because accuracy and truth matters to them.
So, yeah. For some posters, there is an effort to conform. Group 1 is doing so the point of being contradictory to their own opinions, a truly mercenary approach. Group 2 is doing so IMHO in a way that most closely seems to match Octo’s definition of “virtue signalling”. Group 3-5 though, may show the same final posts but with a huge degree of difference in reasons, none of which are false to THEM, but may or may not score points with the tribe.
And even if they are doing so IN PART to score points with the tribe, it’s a gross exaggeration to say that’s their only, or even Primary motive in doing so. I’ve said this in other Pit threads, but IMHO almost no one POSTS entirely out of an motive that’s perfectly pure, we are human beings, we love attention, respect, adulation of our peers, and the chance to impress others, even if we maybe never see the results.
So what? I’m a human being (woe is me), not a perfect buddha, have not reached a state of no-being/no-ego, or otherwise transcended humanity to become a being of pure rationality. I don’t think anyone in this thread is claiming to be either. So, feel free to ascribe some fraction of my motivation to be a human’s endless need for recognition. But to say that it’s the only component, or even the major component of most posters, especially here as opposed to places in search of endless +1s, is just as insulting and as much a personal attack as the nasty names you and others claim to hate.
Those who pride themselves on being annoying (they call themselves ‘iconoclasts’) usually attribute others’ attempts to be fair, dispassionate, and polite as “group think” and pathetic conformity. This attribution in itself is irritating enough that it both achieves their goal and neatly excuses them from making any effort to understand others’ points of view.
Even though I can be annoying, it is hardly an aspiration, and the whole idea of hoping to get others angry with you as part of your core identity is both mystifying and repellent.
Personal attacks that are divorced from reality and unhinged rants are not synonymous with fair, dispassionate, or polite and calling out said tactics as unproductive is not at all equivalent with the behavior that is being called out.
So you are going to stop with all this “hive mind” crap? Good to hear.
We’re here because we enjoy disagreeing with each other, not because we enjoy agreeing with each other
That isn’t it At. All.
I’m not here to disagree…I may be found disagreeable. 
I’m here because I wanna say words. I wanna read words.
And I love @Cecil_Adams♥️
Speak for yourself, please. I don’t enjoy disagreeing with people. I enjoy learning about stuff and being witty.
A friend of mine once called me litigious and I resisted that characterization so hard. But goddammit I think he’s right.
I do see a difference though between respectful debate and nastiness and insults.
Curious, I found that you have used the word “Daddy” in 325 posts to date.