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Notes -
I missed anything approaching a point there.
If you want to quibble metaphors, sure, we can change metaphors. I'm not that attached. But none of that addresses the issue we've been discussing. From here, you say that you think you've been 'optimally charitable', and ask me where you've lacked sufficient charity.
In response, I point to the playground insults. You are engaging in more aggression than is necessary. Even right now, in the post I'm replying to, you're mostly just insulting me.
I do believe that "playground insults" is the level we're at now - your response to the point that you've been throwing insults around is to say "I'd almost certainly kick [Scott's] ass lmao". To put it bluntly - grow up.
You know what the light/heat and scout/soldier metaphors mean. They mean that the purpose of a forum like this supposed to be seeking understanding. Not attacking or vilifying those you hate.
I take this criticism seriously, rest assured. I would never knowingly make a post that is "mostly just insulting" anybody here, as that would be pointless /pol/ bickering which has its place but is, as haphazard as this forum's goals are, still beneath them and my participation here. Thus, in order to test your claim, I will audit my own post by compiling the percentage of "just insulting" you in it. (So given that "just insulting" means (according to my reading of the plain meaning of the words) insulting for only the purpose of insult (without a valid rhetorical purpose, or whatever portion is without a valid rhetorical purpose), I will also weight each "insult" appropriately according to its level of genuine insult and rhetorical invalidity.):
Now while the "insult detection filter" applied here could certainly be extended or contracted a bit according to preference (and certainly one is free to disagree with my insult level or invalidity level ratings), I think it's a good overall measurement of what could be construed as "just insulting" in my post.
Adding all of the weighted characters up, we get (0.81 + 11.22 + 0.22 + 0.212 + 0.135 =) 12.597 (which we'll round to 12.6) weighted characters of "just insulting".
With the post having 6,779 characters total when excluding portions quoted from you (according to my text editor's count), that gives a total percentage of 0.19% (rounded) of text in my post that exists to "just insult" you, making the other 99.81% valid rhetoric by any standard.
Or if you don't like my weighting (though I think some weighting is needed, again going based on the notion of "just insulting"), we can instead just go based on raw, unweighted characters, in which case we get (27 + 51 + 11 + 53 + 3 = ) 145 characters out of 6,779 devoted to "just insulting" you, or around 2.2% of the total text, making the other 97.8% valid, not "just insulting" rhetoric.
Given that I don't think that a range of 0.19% - 2.2% meets most anyone's definition of "mostly", I'm afraid I must rate your claim that my post is "mostly just insulting" you as false. I do appreciate you bringing the concern to my attention though. As stated, I hold myself to a higher standard than to "mostly just insult" people here or online in general.
If you disagree with my figures or evaluations, please feel free to dissent. (Also please excuse any math errors as unfortunately I cannot devote maximum error correction capabilities to calculations that aren't doing something like making me money.)
What does growing up or not have to do with imagining kicking a man's ass in the context of you suggesting he might want to fight me? What am I as a "mature" individual supposed to imagine then? Him kicking my ass instead? Or no physical confrontation whatsoever... when you were the one who introduced the very concept of physical confrontation into the conversation?
You seem rather disturbed by me elaborating on the very theme you introduced. Can you explain? Why suggest physicality at all if you just think it's actually mere brutish immaturity? Was it just to poke at me or mog me, to get me by suggesting that I was in fact the one hinting at it or acting like some sort of neanderthal who would embrace such a thing? And then you were surprised when I yeschad.jpg'd it instead of running away from the barbaric notion? Even though you then later said you thought it was exactly characteristic of those belonging to what you perceive my ideological orientation to be? Genuinely curious what your rhetorical strategy was here and how this led to your responses.
You said you might desire to punch me (and then said you didn't). You then said that what you really meant is that my words were fighting words in regards to Scott Siskind. And then I said, okay, I will fight Scott Siskind and probably win then if it comes down to it. I'm just not sure of the issue here? How do I need to "grow up" exactly in regards to this? Isn't a large part of the point of "growing up" to become stronger so that you can fight at least well enough to beat nerdy Substack bloggers?
That's the claim. And yet it is those who established this forum and its alleged purpose (and those who apparently agree with them, like you) who seem to want the least to seek any understanding of my points, or actually meaningfully engage with anything I'm saying, because they'd rather act oh-so-put-off by the absolute mildest adversarialism (living as they are it seems in a magical world where ideas and claims can conflict as they oh-so-frequently do without adversarialism). It does not seem like your cult of "light" is helping expose you to any new light, just the same small light you already slavishly worship. Any other light, your eyes get irritated I guess, and you run away muttering complaints about how erratic and impure it is. How does that help the pursuit of truth?
In any case, if you just want to ignore my points and any further consideration of your convenient and oh-so-important dogmas, then I suppose this conversation is indeed over, because continuing it further would be wasting my time. As I said to our moderator friend above (and I will simply quote myself for the sake of expediency as it is the same point):
Perhaps we could try again some other time when your thoughts are more open to being provoked and your mind is not so quick to snap shut like a bear trap (just my interpretation of how things progressed, no insult intended).
Hopefully none of the above is too uncivil for you, as I tried to prepare things extra mildly this time. But hopefully you also understand that my food doesn't taste "bad"; it just has a little more seasoning than you're used to. I would serve you a plain burger, no cheese, as you seem to prefer, but I would probably just stop serving food here at all before doing that, as I did for around a year or so (and perhaps will again). (But it's okay. Nobody ever said anybody is immoral for just liking plain burgers.) Maybe in the long run this brief exposure to some culinary diversity will stick around in your mind and benefit you. Maybe not. Maybe a reader out there will benefit from more careful consideration of my words even if you (and most of the moderators here, who seem to me to be entirely closed off to actually reading any of their users' posts that they don't already agree with other than to look for the classic enough to hang him over in the six lines written by an honest man) do not. We can only be who we are. Peace.
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