Velocity never struck me as a troll, just as a sheltered person who’s learned about reality second hand. He’s a cloistered cleric, if you will. He annoys the fuck out of me sometimes, but I have some sympathy for him. Also I think he’s grown a bit.
Agreed. A lot of his answers seem to be what he guesses but has no actual experience with or knowledge of.
Well, there is the Toxin removing candles for the mold in his house which he himself caused by driving into his garage and flooding the house “ruining the floors and carpeting”.
Blowed a wad on candles and pee testing from a scam company.
Meh. I once let a dietician convince me to get LEAP testing, which is where they test your blood for food allergies, which is not a real thing. I suspected I was being scammed but I paid her $800 anyway, because that’s how conflict-averse I am, and then I went to my doctor and said, “that was a scam, wasn’t it?” And he would not come right out and say it but yes, it was a scam.
Some of us are just, uh, more scam-prone than others.
I’m sure you weren’t buying candles at the same time. The company also has supplements. For those so disposed.
A dietician or nutritionist telling you is one thing. Falling for an obvious online scam website, to the point of sending your pee, is another.
I fell for the stickers you put on the bottom of your feet to pull out toxins. They certainly didn’t cost $200+. Plus I called within 15 minutes and got two for one, only had to pay twice the shipping fees. 
ETA: I’m still toxic at times.
Yes, he’s naïve; he was raised in a completely different, insulated culture, as he’s described. Not really a reason to make fun of him.
I was extremely sheltered and I took good natured ribbing. Some poking snark and have been laughed at.
In RL and here.
Also some downright mean-ness.
There’s a difference.
I noticed years ago that he thinks that everything might kill him all the time. I pointed it out in the thread titled “Freezer suddenly has white clouds upon opening door”, the latest at the time of many “is this household appliance going to kill me?” threads. (A few before and after include “Using dryer after walls were bleached”, “Interrupting dryer mid-drying cycle is a fire hazard?”, and “Leaking refrigerant; avoid cooking?”.) But I stopped snarking on it when I realized that it probably isn’t just a funny personality quirk but a serious problem (a conclusion I reached before he started “Please help me understand some things about schizophrenia and Bipolar-2”. So I give him some slack on the motivation for those posts.
Well, I’m not passing any judgement for getting hit by a scam, we’ve had plenty of threads on that where if you get hit at the right time, the right mood, or the right uncertainty, that smart people get sucked in. Heck, it’s happened in my own family, and IMHO, I’m the dumb (or, at least, less practical/focused) one in my immediate relatives!
Just concerned about the posting pattern and habits. I said edgy and cringe, which would tie into some of the mentions of someone sheltered, and growing who is trying to assert themselves, which is by no means limited to young people and teens.
Again, not a troll, or I wouldn’t have mentioned them in this thread, but it was a behavior to call out, and W_E had rightly shut down a discussion of it in the cited thread, so here we are.
If you’re reading this @velocity, again, not yelling at you, not dismissing you, but yes, criticizing you. In the same sense that I would anyone else I know could or should do better, and bringing it to your attention as directly as I can, hopefully (
) in a vaguely productive manner.
He was raised by extremely strict, fundamentalist religious Chinese or Taiwanese parents with no doubt very backward superstitions about modern science and appliances. Similar to the Korean belief that running a fan in a room with closed windows will suffocate you. He’s never had reason to rethink these beliefs before now. So he’s a late learner. I suspect (or maybe he’s written) that he’s a bit on the spectrum.
Honestly, I’ve heard worse from a post-doc Indian microbiologist acquaintance who never stepped outside his own little bubble until he came over here.
< tangent >
My son had a group project in high school (age 15) One of the group members was of East Indian decent (born in this country though). His parents would not let him out of the house without one of them present. No having anyone over to his house. Not allowed to go to anyone else’s house. No internet. No TV. No clubs, groups, social interactions of any kind. I assume he went to some sort of weekly (daily?) religious event with his parents.
I often wonder how that kid turned out.
Ouch, that sounds racist. Surely you didn’t mean it that way?
I don’t think that the “no doubt …” relates to the “Chinese or Taiwanese parents” in
that way, ie … you’re taking it in the wrong context.
You managed to alter the meaning of my post by selectively cutting off the first half of the sentence. I trust you didn’t do that on purpose.
And the following sentence which gives a well know example of exactly what was being referred to.
I thought the comment was being prejudiced against parents.
Including the following words that I cut off, I still think it sounds racist. So no, I didn’t do it “on purpose” to twist your meaning. Mainland China and Taiwan are very different places - when you aren’t even sure which country his parents are from, why do you need to bring it up?
I was sincere in thinking that you didn’t mean it to be racist, I just wanted to offer a chance to clarify. A response of “oh FFS no, I didn’t mean it that way at all - if it sounded that way, either you are too sensitive or I didn’t explain myself well enough. What I meant was…” would convince me that you didn’t intend any racism.
Velocity himself has on many occasions written about his very odd and very socially limited parents. He makes them sound like they grew up in thatched-hut mud floor village of maybe 30 people and despite years of living in modern urban America they’re still mentally / emotionally stuck in the village.
If someone has never read any of Velocity’s posts on his parents it’d be real hard for them to read @needscoffee’s comments from within a relevant perspective. Having read Velocity’s parental posts, I for one had no problems understanding and accepting that @needscoffee meant no malice or racism.
YMMV of course.
Yet you did twist my meaning. Maybe you don’t think it changed the meaning, but at least 3 other posters did aside from me.
Let’s just change "no doubt very backward superstitions " to “possible”. If you have ever read ANY of his *many, many, many, many posts about his mother, you would know what I was referring to.
The reason I said Chinese or Taiwanese is because he refers to them both ways. I wouldn’t presume to pick which one he prefers I use.
Thanks, that’s all the insight I needed - it was good of you to add the missing context.