The Cramulus Debacle

[No u]

<------------low post count.

<------------properly tested.

<------------has nothing of value to add.

I like seeing you here, like a trophy from tcc.

A war-bride, really.

[Captain Obvious]

REPUTATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT THINGS
POSTING AS AN ALT REMOVES ALL CONTEXT AND ADDS TO CONFUSION

[Captain Utopia]

REPUTATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT THINGS
POSTING AS AN ALT REMOVES ALL CONTEXT AND ADDS TO CONFUSION

The 'confusion' often arises from a negative response to the question "should I invest time trying to understand what this person is saying?", and reputations are the most important variable in the social calculus which goes on there.

Some people are total idiots, there's no getting around that, but for most people if you invest a considerable amount of time, you can at least see why they aren't stupid for thinking a certain thing - even if you disagree completely with their conclusions.  That isn't practical or scalable though for something like a web-forum because the amount of time required for everyone to fully understand everyone else follows "N!"  I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and I don't have a ready answer.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

What he said.

If a person you know well comes up to you and says something, it is very likely that it will be thought about with more consideration than if someone you barely knows says it. How well-regarded a person is by their peers is part of a social filtering effect  that helps us decide whose opinions we should value and whose we can dismiss. This is a very valuable tool, though not without drawbacks.

[Pæs]

REPUTATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT THINGS
POSTING AS AN ALT REMOVES ALL CONTEXT AND ADDS TO CONFUSION

The 'confusion' often arises from a negative response to the question "should I invest time trying to understand what this person is saying?", and reputations are the most important variable in the social calculus which goes on there.

Some people are total idiots, there's no getting around that, but for most people if you invest a considerable amount of time, you can at least see why they aren't stupid for thinking a certain thing - even if you disagree completely with their conclusions.  That isn't practical or scalable though for something like a web-forum because the amount of time required for everyone to fully understand everyone else follows "N!"  I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and I don't have a ready answer.

I didn't entirely understand your post, but I assume it has something to do with the mahdgickalz internet rising up and overthrowing the government as if by magic bringing a much desired end to their cruel reign and replacing the tyrannous system with a new perfect solution, bringing in a new age of peace and love for all and convincing the world leaders to disarm. It's always 'magic internet this' and 'magic internet that' with you.

That doesn't sound very likely, CU.

(Not really. I actually like your ideas but the 'magic internets' response felt obligatory, in context.)

[Captain Utopia]

At first I was like  , and then I was like 

[Rod Stewart]

REPUTATIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT THINGS
POSTING AS AN ALT REMOVES ALL CONTEXT AND ADDS TO CONFUSION

Also scotch. 

[LMNO]

If I recall, there have been plenty of posts in OKM by double- or even single-digit postcount n00bs where our response has been, "Whoa!  Check out the brains on the n00b!  Right on!"

The only concession I make to low postcounts is that I quickly skim over the post first to see if there's anything there that has already been debated to death that they may not have been aware of.  Otherwise, the post sinks or swims on it's merits.

I will concede that there are certain posting habits on PD that make it easier to slip an idea through, and that n00bs who do not know these habits may encounter a bit more resistence.  But by and large, if it's a good idea, I let it ride.

[Kai]

I for one don't regret what I said. I said what I said because I meant it, regardless of who was on the receiving end. And using an alt to make a point is stupid.

And another thing, yeah, I'm tribal, just like the rest of you wannabe-human apes. Of course I'm going to respect the opinion of someone I have more experience with than someone I don't. If cram would have outright posted the same things under his name, I would have said the same things back, albeit with less cursing. If I've made a mistake I'm going to wallow in it, rather than pretend I'm sorry. Because I'm not sorry. It felt good, and I'm totally sick and tired of false dilemmas and fake explanations and bad generalizations and even worse extrapolating mixed metaphors. Any discomfort I might feel at it is completely from social expectations and not a bit from any sort of personal guilt I have about it.

I'm also going to ignore the Emergence thread from now on, because it was a stupid concept and while I still like my Process of Sustaining as literature, it would just make yet another shitty pagan-esque religion to go along with all the rest of the shitty pagan religions out there which ride on top of thousands of years of shitty religious rule doing shitty things to people.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I for one don't regret what I said. I said what I said because I meant it, regardless of who was on the receiving end. And using an alt to make a point is stupid.

And another thing, yeah, I'm tribal, just like the rest of you wannabe-human apes. Of course I'm going to respect the opinion of someone I have more experience with than someone I don't. If cram would have outright posted the same things under his name, I would have said the same things back, albeit with less cursing. If I've made a mistake I'm going to wallow in it, rather than pretend I'm sorry. Because I'm not sorry. It felt good, and I'm totally sick and tired of false dilemmas and fake explanations and bad generalizations and even worse extrapolating mixed metaphors. Any discomfort I might feel at it is completely from social expectations and not a bit from any sort of personal guilt I have about it.

I'm also going to ignore the Emergence thread from now on, because it was a stupid concept and while I still like my Process of Sustaining as literature, it would just make yet another shitty pagan-esque religion to go along with all the rest of the shitty pagan religions out there which ride on top of thousands of years of shitty religious rule doing shitty things to people.

[Captain Utopia]

I'm totally sick and tired of false dilemmas and fake explanations and bad generalizations and even worse extrapolating mixed metaphors. Any discomfort I might feel at it is completely from social expectations and not a bit from any sort of personal guilt I have about it.

I am sorry that I am intellectually inferior, Kai, but you can't have it both ways.  The other day you told me "You misunderstood his comment. No, I won't explain."    If your rage is not tempered with an equal amount of education, then it seems to me to be more of an excuse to rage rather than being a result of the way a particular subject matter is being discussed - since you are exacerbating the problem.

it would just make yet another shitty pagan-esque religion to go along with all the rest of the shitty pagan religions out there which ride on top of thousands of years of shitty religious rule doing shitty things to people.

It's okay to be shitty to people as long as it's not religiously institutionalised?  I guess I can see the logic in that, but I still prefer not being shitty to people.

[LMNO]

Do we really need to continually repeat the litany of debate fallacies in every single thread?

Look what I googled:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ip/fake_explanations/
metatalk.metafilter.com/10572/Sweeping-generalizations-bad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor

If anyone bothered to research the terms Kai used, they could figure out the problem themselves.

[Captain Utopia]

A problem I have, is that although I know those fallacies, I don't always spot when they are being used by someone else or myself.  It's not laziness.

[LMNO]

Ummm...

From the Secret History #1 thread:

What you are stating above is a black and white false dilemma, not optimal, and it doesn't even cut to the point of the problem:

WRONG LEVEL OF ORGANIZATION.

And as for /complexity/, FAKE EXPLANATIONS, MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU KNOW THEM?

You didn't have to spot them.  Kai explicitly referenced them.  He did the hard part for you.

[BadBeast]

Using alts is fine on other boards, IMO, because the way we use other boards, there is always the banhammer to consider. Also, backup accounts are an excellent Trolling tool. But on PD, there are very few things that will get you banned, and Trolling here just puts you on a long, messy downwards spiral of fail, and pain.
I can see the temptation of posting as a completely different persona, but there are ways to do that without making other users feel used, or deceived.  Dok did it with TGRR, and that was fine because it involved no subterfuge, and there was a definite process of transition that yielded all sorts of insights.
On a board like this, using an alt is fraught with potential consequences that need to be taken into consideration. Just doing it on a whim is probably never going to end well. Especially for a veteran poster.
PD is somewhere that we need to be able to drop our guard now and then, without having to worry too much about subterfuges, alts, or all the Bullshit we see that goes on in other boards, (admittedly, we're generally Trolling, and out to expose low quality bullshitters ) which is why I don't see the point of doing it here.

And I suspect Cram realises that alting here is not a good idea. And on an oppositional view, everyone's allowed to make an arse of themselves now and again. Amirite?