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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28109 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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Point taken on rising to bait, but for clarity what were the times that I was antagonistic other than asking gdanning if he was a moron after he asked me if I was one?

You didn't answer the question.

...

BTW one of the most consistently annoying aspects of conversations with you

I will push back on these -- there is a difference between antagonism and feedback. Gdanning does in fact have a consistent pattern of responding to posts with long lists of nitpicks that are often technically correct but have little to do with the thrust of the discussion; at other times they veer towards strawmanning. (as in this case when he spends quite a bit of time arguing that the Interpol 'warrant' doesn't prove anything for certain; like, yeah?) This is annoying, particularly because he does also often make interesting points -- but struggling through the tangents is an obstacle towards getting there.

In any case, accusing one's conversation partner of annoying behaviour is surely better than accusing him of being a moron -- is it your position that it's OK to call people morons then back off, so that they will be the ones catching mod flak if they remain annoyed?

I tagged him in the original mod comment to let them know that the antagonism was noticed and not appreciated. But I also couldn't tell that he specifically meant to call you a moron. He called Canadians morons, and often when I see people doing that they are often talking about the people in the government of that country. That seemed like it was potentially the case here.

Your phrasing was more of a problem than the thrust of your criticism.

(BTW one of the most consistently annoying aspects of conversations with you is your tendency to veer off the main point to nitpick things like calling an Interpol Red Listing (or whatever they call it) a warrant -- if you are going to do that you should at least take pains not to refer to it that way yourself at other times)

Switched to:

(I've noticed in conversations with you, that you have a tendency to veer off the main point to nitpick things like calling an Interpol Red Listing (or whatever they call it) a warrant -- I'm going to try and ignore all of these nitpicks unless I can see how it clearly relates to the main discussion.)

All fine, but the fact is he definitely did ask whether I was a moron -- I am openly Canadian and if Canadians are morons, that means I am too. If I were talking to TracingWoodgrains and ask if gay guys are mormons, I would not be surprised if this annoyed him for longer than it took to write the next comment.

Dunno what the rules have to say about plausibly deniable insults, but I'd think they are better avoided.

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