# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 387
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2026, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8111 "2026-08-26T17:12:20Z")
Aww, shucks. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2026, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8112 "2026-08-26T21:03:05Z")
Meanhoo, in other nooz, the _Der Trihs Experience_ has been temporarily (?) shuttered: > [@Poster Der\_Trihs suspended for 3 days and may extend to more pending Mod Loop discussion](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poster-der-trihs-suspended-for-3-days-and-may-extend-to-more-pending-mod-loop-discussion/1032572): > > @Der_Trihs is suspended until Aug 28, 2026 at 6:00 pm. He has received 6 warnings in the last year. This is mostly for political hijacks and/or at least pulling focus with extremists rants. Besides the warnings, there were a lot of modnotes that clearly didn’t work to help him. Yesterday’s was way off-topic and a rant. Apr 16 Leave birthrate alone thread: Hijack and a lot of whining after it via PM. Blew through a modnote to get this warning. Mar 16: Nov 30 2025: Sep 10: Aug 31: … He has chronically been on and off my ignore list, most recently on, and yes it is just as much for his incessant victim complex whining as for his content. Single note on the piano. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8113 "2026-08-27T05:03:54Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Why is anyone engaging with that brick wall in that Carney thread?? It’s real easy. Have the OP say they only want confirmation of their views because that is what most of the issues are around. ‘Why are you challenging what our exalted leader is telling us or their motives?!’. The reality is if they could actually defend their viewpoints with unbiased facts I’m likely the first to acknowledge it, my INTP nature requires it, unlike most on the other side. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8114 "2026-08-27T07:50:03Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > my INTP nature Aah, adding pseudoscience to the general nutjobbery, nice one! ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8115 "2026-08-27T08:22:34Z")
Yeah I know it is pseudoscience, proving that when people posts actual facts I’ll agree with them. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8116 "2026-08-27T08:25:45Z")
No, proving that you’ll post any old bullshit, regardless of what you know to be true, until you get called on it. Basically, classic trolling. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8117 "2026-08-27T09:26:11Z")
Then all you have to do is post the evidence that my claims are wrong and call me on it. Should I expect the same? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8118 "2026-08-27T09:30:37Z")
> [@Uzi](#): > > Then all you have to do is post the evidence that my claims are wrong You _yourself_ admitted this one was bullshit. Could give a toss about engaging your Alberta hobbyhorse, mate. I don’t even like the _American_ Texas. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8119 "2026-08-27T10:44:48Z")
Not sure that The Other Waldo Pepper goes here–does he have value on the board otherwise?–but he’s once again shitting up a thread on immigration with his sociopathic views. After the since-disappeared thread where he spoke approvingly of shooting young children in the head and drowning immigrants in razor-water traps in rivers, I try not to engage with him; but yesterday I failed at that, as he replaced a metaphor of nationstate-as-home with a thinly-veiled metaphor of immigration-as-rape. So maybe I go here. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8120 "2026-08-27T10:51:24Z")
You should put him on ignore. I did, so long ago I sometimes forget he’s even a poster. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8121 "2026-08-27T10:56:47Z")
That’s wise. I only have one other poster on ignore, and I still sometimes read their posts–but having them on ignore reminds me that they’re an asshole whom I’ve decided not to respond to. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8122 "2026-08-27T12:05:36Z")
I find TOWP to be usually OK as a poster, except when it comes to immigration, where he’s a murderous psychopath. It’s very weird. @Uzi, I’m also not going to bother engaging in your bullshit here, either. I have brick walls in real life I can bang my head against, if that were my wont. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8123 "2026-08-27T12:40:32Z")
So I shouldn’t expect the same? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8124 "2026-08-27T13:42:51Z")
Expect in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up quicker… ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8125 "2026-08-27T20:14:52Z")
Speaking of the time I had an ignore list, I had two categories. Ignored forever for posts I felt were consistently in bad faith and/or trolling. Ignored for two weeks/month - for posters who were, along the lines of this thread, worked up and making asses of themselves on topic or emergency of the day and were bringing it around _everywhere_ on the boards. Just to give it enough time to burn out. My prior coping mechanism, YMMV of course, and nothing said to which posters it was applied to. As always, if you guys think a poster is not having a rare or one off, they probably deserve their own Pit thread or the Trolls thread. A self own here is of course, totally appropriate! ---
**Author:** ![Jihi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jihi/32/17768_2.png) [@Jihi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jihi)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2026, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8126 "2026-08-28T05:26:56Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Not sure that The Other Waldo Pepper goes here–does he have value on the board otherwise?–but he’s once again shitting up a thread on immigration with his sociopathic views. After the since-disappeared thread where he spoke approvingly of shooting young children in the head and drowning immigrants in razor-water traps in rivers, I try not to engage with him; but yesterday I failed at that, as he replaced a metaphor of nationstate-as-home with a thinly-veiled metaphor of immigration-as-rape. > > So maybe I go here. So I just caught up on the thread in GD on immigration and Waldo is continuing on it seems. Yes, the “country as house” metaphor was bad enough, but could possibly be dismissed as simply ill thought out or boneheaded. The “immigration as rape” metaphor is one of the most disgusting and ethically bankrupt arguments I’ve ever encountered on the board. And that’s saying something. And then he insists that that wasn’t the metaphor he was intending to make. I call bullshit on that. He knew what the implications would be regarding the language he chose to frame the argument. He knew how it would be interpreted. That is straight up gas lighting in my book. And now he seems to be saying that he couldn’t possibly have made any other argument because of the board’s TOS rules against advocating for illegal activity? Am I missing something here? Is he seriously arguing that he couldn’t have made any other arguments because pointing out that even illegal immigration has positive benefits, unintended or not, is advocating for illegal activity? I’m posting this here because the whole thing feels like a massive hijack to me. To their credit, oher posters keep valiantly trying to pull it back on track but he keeps shitting up the thread. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2026, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8127 "2026-08-28T07:50:25Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > After the since-disappeared thread where he spoke approvingly of shooting young children in the head and drowning immigrants in razor-water traps in rivers, The remnants remain, > [@Dehumanizing language should not be allowed](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dehumanizing-language-should-not-be-allowed/985435): > > The thread about using language like “invaders” to describe immigrants was derailed, imo, by the strawman that we’re not in the business of creating a banned words list. Attacking groups you don’t like by abstracting them to things like “invaders” or “insects” is a well worn tactic on the road to violence. We don’t need a list of proscribed terms but we should absolutely have a rule against that type of language. Edit: changed “people” to “groups” for clarity. > [@"Illegals" and "invaders" should be moderated as hate speech in the context of immigration debates](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/illegals-and-invaders-should-be-moderated-as-hate-speech-in-the-context-of-immigration-debates/985244): > > I’d like to talk about three terms that show up in discussions of immigration: Illegal immigrants Illegals Invaders (and “invasion”) First, “Illegal immigrants” is a term that is falling out of use among experts in the field. [The DOJ no longer uses it](https://www.npr.org/2021/04/19/988789487/immigration-agencies-ordered-not-to-use-term-illegal-alien-under-new-biden-polic). [The AP Style Guide hasn’t used it for ten years](https://blog.ap.org/announcements/illegal-immigrant-no-more). Linguists decry it as “[neither accurate nor neutral](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/06/illegal-immigrant-label-offensive-wrong-activists-say)”.But I don’t think it should be considered hate speech. It’s the equivalent of an outdated term like “Negro” to describe a Black person: use it… > [@Severe Hijack, about US borders, moved to pit](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severe-hijack-about-us-borders-moved-to-pit/988949): > > What, even at the border? which contains these gems, > [@Severe Hijack, about US borders, moved to pit](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severe-hijack-about-us-borders-moved-to-pit/988949/4): > > Denying legal asylum and setting up death traps in the river has nothing to do with law and order, and everything to do with sadistic cruelty. > > > [@Severe Hijack, about US borders, moved to pit](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severe-hijack-about-us-borders-moved-to-pit/988949/5): > > > > And giving aid and comfort to illegal aliens by the million is, of course, more reprehensible still. > > > > > [@Severe Hijack, about US borders, moved to pit](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severe-hijack-about-us-borders-moved-to-pit/988949/6): > > > > > > More reprehensible than injuring and killing refugees?? > > > > > > > [@Severe Hijack, about US borders, moved to pit](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severe-hijack-about-us-borders-moved-to-pit/988949/7): > > > > > > > > Ushering lawbreakers in by the million? Uh, yeah. > [@Severe Hijack, about US borders, moved to pit](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/severe-hijack-about-us-borders-moved-to-pit/988949/35): > > I genuinely despise illegal aliens of all races equally. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8128 "2026-08-28T16:45:04Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > He has chronically been on and off my ignore list, most recently on, and yes it is just as much for his incessant victim complex whining as for his content. Single note on the piano. I have mixed feelings on this. I’ve had good interactions with Der\_Trihs in the past, and honestly I’ve never even felt the urge to put him on ignore. On the other hand, I’ve had some very strong clashes with him, especially when he goes overboard with paranoid negativity. And I mean absolute, the world is ending, there is no point to existence anymore negativity. To the extent that it seems like a threadshit now and then. And looking at the posts that he received warnings for, **I’m not at all surprised by those posts**. They seem totally in-character for him. On introspection, I suppose one reason why I give him a pass in general is because most of what he complains about, I agree with him. Just not to the extreme that he goes to, bordering on (or even blatantly engaging in) outright lunacy at times. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2026, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8129 "2026-08-28T20:24:55Z")
The extremity … meh. Usually it is said and not excessively belabored. But at some point it is like a couple and PDA? A bit of a smooch in public is not objectionable but at some point … get a room and there are ones readily available … the activity is fine but not there. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2026, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8130 "2026-08-30T15:35:38Z")
That last sentence has got to be the biggest “I got mine-fuck you” I’ve seen in a long time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=386) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=388)