You can be an ass without trolling, sure. But suddenly acting aloof in an argument you started, and blaming the other person for being too emotionally invested? What purpose does that have other than trying to get under the other person’s skin?
It’s a classic trolling maneuver. I’ve seen it time and time again by people who then use other trolling techniques.
It’s a classic defense mechanism when you realize you’re losing. Don’t admit you’re wrong, just pretend you don’t care.
On the topic of people who aren’t trolls but deserve to be pitted anyways, is there a thread for gross old dinosaurs who spend far too much time worrying that they’ll be the next “innocent” victims of the #metoo movement?
“Unions (almost) killed my MA!” is giving strong “DrDeth’s Dad Wins Arguments” energy, I must say.
I’m guessing, for me, it was the timing of the reveal - why waste so many pixels ranting about one slightly dodgy garbage worker’s strike when, you know, actual mob-affiliated-union violence is a much stronger sell? Only bringing it up as you’re clearly losing the argument is a bit … convenient.
I have nothing against bringing up actual real-life events to make your case in debates (see: every racism or rape thread I participate in, practically) but it’s much better to do that from the start, or to have a history here of being open about it. Otherwise it’s a potential Dr Deth’s Dad or Slacker’s Dead Rapist Friend situation.
Yeah. I don’t think he’s lying, but I suspect, based on every other interaction with him, he’s leaving out some details and he’s making things sound as bad as possible.
Sure, maybe his dad scabbed a struck site, and some union thug threw a brick through their window and nearly hit them. That’s terrible. Or maybe the events happened two years apart, and he’s leaving that out. Or maybe it was a high-crime area, and there were lots of things that happened in that neighborhood unconnected to the strike. Or maybe his dad had beat the shit out of a picketer the day before.
If nearly any other poster on the board told the story, or even if wolfpup told it in a different context, I wouldn’t be so skeptical. But he’s got a long-established history–and a habit well-demonstrated in that thread–of misrepresenting things and twisting them around, of making uncited claims that turned out to be completely wrong. And, as you say, the timing of that story is super sus.
I don’t know that he’s a stone-cold liar, but he’s sure not a paragon of honesty or integrity.
At this point, I don’t know what I love more: his insistence that Martin Luther King would agree with him about the garbageworker strikers being thugs, his bizarre self-identification as a union supporter, his proud use of ChatGPT as a rebuttal to actual writers on the role of writers in television productions, or this juxtaposition a recent post:
Starting the post by mocking his critic, he wrote, “A fine bit of hyperbole there…” He goes on, in the same post, to refer to “invested union supporters going into paroxysms of hysteria.” His self-awareness is zero.
Troll? I dunno. Supercilious twit who has no idea what a fool he constantly makes of himself? Absolutely.
Phew, it was good to get that off my chest. He’s right on the edge of being worth pitting in his own thread, but I lack the energy for that right now.
…oh yeah, I remember that! “Ouch.”
Note: the event might have been before my time. I know about it because someone mentioned it and I went looking.
Oh my God, that thread is disgusting. Our society is rotten to the core when it comes to these issues.
I’m surprised we tolerate that kind of victim shaming. I thought at one point, we had a policy that we don’t automatically doubt accusers. Maybe not. Seems we should.
That was 7 years ago. I don’t believe it is tolerated much any more.
Slacker was banned for crap similar to that IIRC.
Holy crap, it was 7 years ago. I remember that discussion and it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago.
I mean, we DO have a thread about a case of sexual assault whose title is, “is it possible to have unwanted phone sex”. I don’t see what reading of that title is possible other than a question about whether the person alleging unwanted phone sex is lying.
I know it’s not quite the same, but that thread is pretty distasteful (and brought out a surprising amount of misogyny)
I haven’t seen that thread, but we have a thread in GD currently about Rape and no misogyny in that I’ve seen. Would that have been true even 4 years, nevermind 15?
I’m actually just catching up reading the threads I tracked. I’m enjoying a weekend away at a B&B. So I don’t plan to review the thread you mentioned.
Ugh, no, don’t ruin your weekend! Stay away from the thread! Enjoy your time.
I’ll look at it if someone points me to something, but otherwise, it’s a busy week at Chez Aspenglow. 
Don’t get me wrong - things are definitely a hundred times better than they were in the past, and in large part that’s thanks to the efforts of you moderators. You guys rock! And you’ve done a good job of making this place much less toxic over the years. Thank you for that!
I don’t know that it’s anything that needs to be moderated - just misogynistic creeps who think that calling out rape culture is a direct threat to them (and given how they can’t see what’s wrong with clearly disgusting acts, maybe they’re right).
Slacker was (eventually, much later) banned for antisemitic trolling. Nothing similar.
However, center left via a vis american politics also would not get away with being center right. In the UK it would mean being the Conservatives who are socially anti woke and fiscally voodoo economic, and in many if not most countries in the EU by population it would mean toying with actual fascism since fascist parties by definition spill into the center right since they are more than 25% of the electorate.
Maybe you’re remembering it because he mentioned it more recently in a 2019 thread.
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/woke-me-when-its-over/842159/71?u=max_s
~Max
A little late, but I’ve just seen their “CathGPT disagrees with what the writers and showrunners have actually said” bullshit, in the WGA strike thread. That was some troll bullshit, for sure.
Since then, he’s somewhat moderated his position–but he’s not recanted his completely offensive language in which he called WGA picketers
“perniciously malicious.”
“activist jerks.”
“hooligans with no legitimate business.”
“that’s not right.”
The best he’s said is that he’s not diplomatic. Which is just not enough for me to bring myself to give him a cookie.