“…and poverty-stricken Irish selling their babies is a terrible idea that would never actually work to address the problems of income inequality in Ireland.”
He wasn’t right for this century. SA really needed to have been born in the 30s, for his own sake, anyway. He always thought society peaked back then. Wouldn’t make his personal views any better but at least he’d have plenty of like-minded company.
And drinking from a contaminated well that nobody else will touch doesn’t make one a free-thinking iconoclast.
They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
To be paraphrasingly socratic, I know what I know, but, increasingly the stuff I don’t know is growing.
I’m surprised that you don’t remember that. The original thread was years before my time but the blowback from it rattled around for years. Even during my early time here people were prohibited from even mentioning it. Note the number of hits in ATMB.
I do! I cut my teeth bashed my skull ‘’‘debating’‘’ SA and I learned much.
SA made me the poster (for better or wurst) that I am today!
But I won’t blame SA for me committing awful wordplay.
I did not often find it worthwhile responding to SA as I did in that thread, but I’m glad I wasn’t defending the indefensible.
Didn’t realize it was so long ago. Getting older is not as fun as I thought it would be in my youth.
…yes, that’s the entire point of the story.
He actually spoke of you quite often, with affection and respect. Part of why I had to alleviate your suffering 
I intentionally avoided most of his posts here, as he acted quite differently here than in person. And he’s definitely still prone to idolizing “back in the day” but generally is a positive, up-beat person. It is quite odd knowing someone in person and online and for there to be such diverging personalities between the two. I’m not sure if his persona here was more of a fixation (and he’s definitely prone to fixations IRL) and he couldn’t stop doubling down on it or what. But I suppose that really he’s the only one that will ever know which version of himself is closest to the real one.
I know him to be a kind, intelligent, generous-to-a-fault person. And he is capable of changing his mind on things - he said he couldn’t bring himself to vote for Trump in 2020 after some rather heated discussions with my sister and I. Although we haven’t discussed the current election… I’ve got a couple of weeks to badger him yet if needed!
Oh, my, thanks for telling me that, and please give him my warmest regards. I’m sorry our friendship had to end on such a sour note and wish him all the best – especially since he’s come around to Our Side on Trump!
It’s beyond weird to see people playing up his persona off the board, given that the one he put on display here was extremely odious-he got onto my ignore list rather quickly, and I learned to groan inwardly whenever I saw someone else quoting him. If I were forced to judge him strictly on that basis, I would have less than zero desire to engage with him in meatspace, assuming both would have to be one and the same.
Note this was apparently also true of Clothahump.
[I’ll also note that mods traditionally have tended to quash banned user retrospectives, and one will likely be along soon to remind us all of that.]
Just agreeing…
I think I once said to him “You CAN’T be like this at home…” Glad to hear he wasn’t!
Doper me is a nicer, calmer, less aggressive version of real me. If you imagine Doper me with 3 martinis in him, that’s real me at breakfast. Later in the day I get harsher. Once in awhile full frontal me comes out late at night and I get fussed at by mods or members. And deservedly so; that persona is a difficult personality at best.
It’s refreshing / fun to play live the other character. Y’all are lucky I chose Doper me to be nicer than real me. Folks that choose the opposite combo (Doper worse than real) tend to get banned. As poor SA apparently chose to do with the predictable outcome.
I can remember reading that thread in real time, and being absolutely flabbergasted. I think I was still just lurking then.
The folks who Cannot. Admit. They. Wrote. Something. Stupid. are a real sight to behold.
I wonder if that behavior would change if folks had the right to delete (or edit into nothingness) a post they later regretted? I’m not advocating we make this change for all the obvious reasons. Just wondering if the inability to fully bury your mistakes is one of the drivers behind folk’s doubling down on theirs.
Yes, I think that’s human nature for all of us to varying degrees. As I’ve gotten older, it’s been absolutely liberating to say things like, “You make a fair point. I guess I overstated…” or whatever.
Not as much in my younger days when the point of most discussions was winning. In those days, I bet I absolutely would have cornfielded a few of my posts, having dug an insurmountable hole.
Thereby guaranteeing that those mistakes remain fresh in the memory, and get reviewed by more folks who are asking themselves “I don’t understand this controversy, what did they really say?” and then go look it up. I have learned at least this much: if you make a mistake, even if you don’t feel like apologizing, just shut up about it. It will soon sink beneath the waves of new posts and be forgotten.
And this was a mistake; it should have said “if you realize you made a mistake…” If you can’t admit to yourself that you made a mistake, there isn’t much hope for a better outcome.
This is so true. I just cannot understand the folks that keep beating the dead argument. (warning, bad analogy ahead) It’s like they vomit on the street, and then stand by the vomit yelling at all the passers-by that they did not do that and anyway, it’s probably not even vomit, and it’s not their fault they felt sick. And they keep this up for weeks, continuallyl drawing attention to the vomit.
That was…disturbing.