Yeah, tho it was so tiny I never paid much attention to it or tried to figure out who it was, until the thread in question.
I have some experience with that poster, from a thread this past summer in which he suddenly started attacking a point I made with gratuitous hostility and sarcasm. It was a thread discussing whether the ‘American experiment’ had failed, and I had made a comment that I was still cautiously optimistic about the condition of our country. He came at me with a “so you’re saying…” and proceeded to completely twist and mischaracterize what I actually said.
I don’t think he’s a troll in the sense that he’s intentionally saying inflammatory things that he doesn’t necessarily believe, in order to stir things up, and sit back enjoying the show. I think he really believes, and needs to believe, he’s the smartest person in the room, chat or otherwise, a master debater who is able to destroy opponents with his unassailable logic and sharp, rapier wit. But in doing so he uses many of the tools in the troll’s toolbox, including strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks, and of course, plenty of sealioning in the ATMB forum after he’s called out.
He also has a peculiar rhetorical flourish, I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but he did it to me and I noticed he did it in the Oswald thread as well: it’s a jokey sarcasm in which he pretends to misunderstand one’s meaning in order to respond to the misunderstanding. For example, @Northern_Piper said SA was describing the Dallas cops as being semi-literate morons in order to fit his preconceived notions, and SA came back and said “it’s unfair to imply they were completely illiterate; please reconsider the extremity of your post”. He did a similar thing to me-- when I was getting frustrated with his attacks, at one point I said “oh, good lord”. He said “you may address me as slicedalone”. I said " whut whut?" having no idea what he meant. He said “you addressed me as your good lord. slicedalone is fine”. It’s like the rhetorical version of a playground bully grabbing your wrist, jabbing your hand against your body and saying “stop hitting yourself!”
Well put. I have a pretty high threshold for what’s bannable, but the impression I’m getting from the mods is this guy is more trouble than he’s worth.
And I’m a firm believer that if someone accomplishes the same outcome that a no-doubt-about-it troll would have—that’s close enough for me. I really don’t care if their hearts are true and their intentions pure if their contributions tend to stir up shit, frustrate people, and derail discussions.
So, is Chris taking a journey out the door?
“So you’re saying…” in GD is rarely followed by a good faith summary of what the other poster wrote.
I always noticed who it was but I never made the connection because I never call him “Sly” and only rarely see it used at all nowadays.
So what you’re saying is that everyone in Great Debates is always honest and scrupulously respectful in paraphrasing and restating one another’s arguments?
Not disagreeing with you; but he also showed up just a few months after JimB was banned. In JimB’s case I had a sense of unease from the outset because I never did quite know whether he was trolling or not. I still feel that way, actually. And that’s exactly how I feel about this guy. Obviously the two are very different in some ways, but…
Just sayin’.
j
YouTuber trippychris needs to stop emulating Data and lose the transphobic “humor”
Is that the same guy as the bird video fetishist?
Yep.
I never watched any of his videos, but I guessed “creep” instantly.
Mr. Stallone has been knocked out.
Shame. He coulda been a contender.
!! ADRIAN !!
[&discourse]
Ain’t gonna be no rematch! (read: he’ll be back)
If he wasn’t already a sock, he will be now.
Watch the “How It Should Have Ended” for Frozen. It’s exactly on point.
TrockyBalboa?
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Get fucked.