Matt3737

You said in a forum: "It saddens me (sometimes infuriates me also) to bear witness to people's inability to accept and cope with the mundane, trivial, and boredom that encompasses so much of life that they willingly exaggerate and deceive themselves and others towards something they perceive to be more meaningful than what is already abundantly clear and set before them."

I was curious if you could expand on them, on what you meant. I am only asking because the every day mundane is important for the inner life.

ROOOOOOOOOOOOFL!

"I really enjoy how you say you don't care what the opinion of others are, and then immediately follow that up with how much you care about the manner in which opinions should be conveyed and why."
Yeah. I care more about the manner. Actions affect others. Your thoughts don't as long as you keep them to yourself.

"Taking all bets! 3-1 odds in favor of idiocy over lying! Taking all bets!"
Yeah I feel like an idiot reading that back. I misread or somehow didn't understand. I did assume you thought he was incapable.

You intended to argue that 'calling OP a troll is very bad,' and not 'I was just trying to be good and learn what could be an error in the construction or interpretation of our messages'.
Yeah, if I read our correspondence back I notice a wrong turn when you catch me on changing my opinion about the OP. At first I thought him a douche, but that gradually shifted as I actually read the thread more closely. I apologise for this switch. After you caught me on this change (I admitted it right away), the topic shifted to semantics and whatever. That was not my initial intention. However when I noticed our disagreement and your claims of my inconsistency I tried to find the source of it. I mean, right now, when I just described this shift in mine opinion, I am doing exactly that. Trying to learn what could be an error in the construction of our messages that caused this shift. I guess intentions can change over time.

Because that's not what I said nor what I meant. It was a correct interpretation, but not the only correct interpretation. This is my meaning when I say you use your words inconsistently, i.e. you change to a different interpretation when it suits you better.
I assumed your statement directly implied future incapability. You then said you didn't directly imply future incapability. I was wrong, but it took you a few messages to tell me that. I don't get what you mean with 'not the only correct interpretation'. Surely mine was wrong?

How should me calling him out as a troll change from "When others are rude to me, I am incapable of being nice in return." to "I was capable of civil discussion, and hence I am at fault for 'negativity,' 'badness,' 'wrongness,' 'meaness,' or whatever the hell facade of a point you're trying to troll me with?
If you are capable of saving a drowning person from a pond and you don't, I'll condemn you. If you are not capable of swimming, I won't condemn you. *shrug* It seems common sense to me. Not a hell facade.

It's an arbitrary, semantic, and irrelevant point. The rules of the forum neither the opinions of others make exceptions for an 'incapability to follow rules or the opinions of others.' as you seem to imply they should.
I care about ethics when I argued that calling OP a troll is very bad. So yeah, I imply that those should be included. However I also think these are too subjective to be used as a rule on a casual forum.

You intentionally changed your meaning to suit your whim.
I disagree. I might have changed it, but not intentionally.

The OP was never formally reprimanded, but informally given negative opinions in response which is perfectly valid. You wish to give positive reinforcement to negative behavior because 'goodness,' 'niceness,' 'kindness,' or something. This is perfectly fine in and of itself, but is irrelevant to the argument against having a negative opinion of someone else.
Yeah, I don't care what your or anyone elses opinion is about him. But I think he was getting too many and repeated negative opinions (of which yours was most reasonable). The tone of most of those informally given opinions were unnecessarily harsh, sarcastic or snarky jokes. If people want to criticise someone else I prefer it if they do it politely and clearly. Criticise that is brought in a kind and polite way has more chance to stick in the mind than snarky jokes. (Random googled source that explains it.)
You give feedback pretty decently, others didn't though. You could add some more positive stuff though.

I'm incapable of taking him or you seriously, but I might be capable in the future if you cease your childish behavior.
Why? I'm not being childish. I'm answering all your questions in a polite manner. I might not be the most consistent arguer, but I try. All your comments and questions on my arguments are valid and I adress them, because I failed to do so when I first made my arguments. I appreciate the fact that you point to weaknesses in my arguments. This way I can rectify them and learn to be more consistent.

You have given no valid justification for the distinction, i.e. by what mechanism is one or does one become incapable or capable: I am incapable of flying unassisted. If I jump off the roof and flap my arms, will I become capable? No. You reason that calling the OP a troll is counterproductive to the OP's ability to become 'capable' of civil discourse, but reason that being nice will produce the desired change without reasonably justifying why the OP is 'incapable' in the first place or why your response is somehow more effective than calling him out on the behavior.
We already discussed this: (un)intentional trolls, you asked how instead one should reply to him. I answered all that. I doubt it was enough to convince you though.
Scientific papers don't have to explain why the earth is round. It's generally accepted. It's inefficient to justify that all over again. In this case I assumed you agreed on that the OP was incapable of discourse, I thus didn't justify that claim.

As I stated at the beginning with respect to the distinction between 'intentional' and 'unintentional,' it is entirely irrelevant. You have failed to give sufficient cause for why the distinction is relevant in the first place, and then have inconsistently used the word to suit your argument as justification for some as yet unstated purpose (supposedly 'niceness' or 'kindness').
I believe intention is relevant. I see myself as a subjective consequentialist rather than an objective consequentialist or deontologist. Intention is a core part of the ethics of subjective consequentialism. Check here for explanation. Chapter 4 leads up to and mentions subjective consequentialism.

"... "When others are rude to me, I am incapable of being nice in return." If he is incapable based on the appearance of his attitude, then by what manner do you judge other forum members as being 'capable' of being nice even if they display a similar attitude?"
This is a valid point and one I can answer. It has to do with expectations. My expectations of the average person is that they are capable of nice. I have no proof or evidence. It's just an expectation. I had gathered some info on this guy and noticed that he wasn't capable of civil discourse or being nice.

If you state: "I'm incapable of being nice." I'll appreciate your honesty, change my expectations of you and not "judge you" or call you out on that behaviour (because you're already aware), but I would try to teach you to be nice.
However in this case others weren't aware they were doing something wrong (calling him a troll was done by many and seemed normal/accepted), so I called them out on it. He was very much aware he was doing something wrong, because others already said so. Because he was aware I moved on to teaching him. Note that I'd probably still call people out on it if they're aware of it, but I don't know that they are already aware of it.

You have given no valid justification for the distinction, ... without reasonably justifying why the OP is 'incapable' in the first place or why your response is somehow more effective than calling him out on the behavior.
We already discussed this: (un)intentional trolls, you asked how instead one should reply to him. I answered all that. I doubt it was enough to convince you though.
Scientific papers don't have to explain why the earth is round. It's generally accepted. It's inefficient to justify that all over again. In this case I assumed you agreed on that the OP was incapable of civil discourse, I thus didn't justify that claim.

"I did not directly imply future incapability when I questioned you about your word choice. That was your interpretation. My point was that you use the words 'incapable' and 'capable' inconsistently with respect to your arguments. Given your example it is equally valid to state: I am capable of learning German."

Why didn't you say so right after I interpreted it incorrectly? That would've safed us a lot of unnecessary stuff.
"Given your example it is equally valid to state: I am capable of learning German."
Correct.
I am currently capable of learning German. I am currently unable to speak German.
He is currently incapable of civil discourse. He is currently capable of learning civil discourse.

I don't see the inconsistency.
Then again I know of myself that I can be quite inconsistent in longer messages. I often just follow ideas when I write or speak. In the end I take some time to structure it and do some proofreading, but I don't do that enough to make sure there's no inconsistency. So I won't deny that I've been inconsistent at some point. You seem to think this is because I want to annoy you. That's a pretty cynical perspective. If I was inconsistent it's because I'm incapable of making highly consistent and structurised texts and arguments. That's certainly one of my flaws. I don't do it because I want to annoy you though.

Please read...

Either "incapability" imples future incapability or it doesn't.
If it does I apologise for my mistake in that subtle meaning which I don't know. My ignorance might be caused by the fact that I'm not a native speaker.
If it doesn't imply that I urge you to read/interpret better. Because I never stated that he wouldn't be incapable of being kind/nice in the future, yet you did conclude that from my words. In this case the fact that I'm a native speaker and don't understand more subtle meanings is irrelevant, because I understand all the currently used meanings.

These are different situations. I do not know which one applies, therefore I wrote about both.
You assumed they are the same situation. They are not.

Although I'm not a native speaker I feel I understand and can write/speak English very well and thus am not afraid to engage into semantic arguments. However when you concluded future incapability when I just claimed incapability I doubted about my English profiency. And used non-native speaker as excuse.
If I'm honest I'd say I understood the meaning of capability correctly, but you just twisted my words to make your argument.

You make a good point. Later when I started discussing with you and read the thread back I didn't notice as much rude behaviour on his side as I assumed first. So yeah I first condemned his behaviour in agreement. Subconsciously this might have been an attempt to appear as to be siding to you. That's not really an honest tactic and you are right to call me out on it.

About capability. In his current state he's not capable. In the future he might be capable. I dont think he's a sociopath.
Maybe (in)capability implies future (in)capability to you. I'm not a native speaker, so I don't know all of the more subtle meanings.
However, if it doesn't imply the future I urge you to read/interpret better (no sociopath conclusions) and don't call me a troll for trying to reasonably discuss. I know I can ramble a bit (or forget what I wrote earlier) sometimes as Ni-dom and appear inconsistent, apologies if it annoyed you.

If you still read the thread, I called him out on his mistake (in his rant/idea) and he agreed with me for at least some part. Seems he's more reasonable that he appeared at first. I'm very positive he's not a troll now.

Intentional trolls want to annoy or prank others. He acts ignorant and offensive, but actually know better. When he is unmasked as troll, his fake appearance doesn't hold and people won't take him seriously anymore. The goal of the intentional troll is to have people take him serious and then ridicule them. If it is known that he's a troll, people won't take him serious. These people know they are trolling. Some intentional trolls will take it further and say that they aren't trolling in an attempt to regain his fake appearance, this might work, but people are sceptical and it's a lot harder for the troll to get people to take him serious.

Unintentional trolls are simply dicks. They don't have a fake appearance. They are ignorant and offensive. If you call them out they won't have an insightful and reasonable moment and decide to stop being ignorant and offensive. It doesn't work like that. Ignorant and offensive people won't stop being ignorant and offensive if you tell them that they are ignorant and offensive (a troll). Actually I believe he'll become even more offensive as people have just made a personal attack on him. An exception would be if you kindly and clearly explain that he's hurting other people with his behaviour. You have to bring that message with great social tact, so he won't interpret it as personal attack.

Heck if I read it all back I'd even say he wasn't that rude.

The golden rule has nothing to do with this. Even then it would be equally bad.
I also judge people on their capabilities. He's not capable of being nice, but the others are. You should be as nice as you can be. He's never been loved (likely) so he doesn't know how to be nice. If we aren't nice to him, he'll never learn how to do it.

I can answer that. I also judged him for being cynical. I downvoted his rude posts and I replied in the thread calling him on his negative behaviour. I passed judgement on both.
I took a different approach with him than with the others. That's because I think the others are reasonable and nice people. He is not. I feel reasonable people respond to something if they're called out on something. I don't think he would. He's not as reasonable. So a direct and personal approach won't work. I dont have the idea I'm explaining this very well. It might be some Ni thing, that I just "know" how to approach different people.

Calling someone a troll is an easy way out. You discredit everything the person says. Mostly it's done without reasoning. You were the exception, except I disagree with your reasoning. He wasn't as rude as you said. Everytime he was rude to a person it was superceded by some nasty or passive-aggressive comment or joke by someone else. People called him a troll, called him boring, called him out on his age. Made passive-aggressive remarks about his intentions of this bad thread. Just look at the correspondence with SealHammer on the second page. After being mocked by someone who's verbally much stronger tham him, he makes a very reasonable comment (post #29). I actually upvoted it.

Calling someone a troll is the internet equivalent to starting to shout LALALALALALALALA in a child discussion. LALALALA I WON LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. I WON LALALALALALA.
You just kill the discussion. There's no return. I think that's quite bad.

Then at post #31 you get ProfoundHappiness starting with the text: "ohhh honey who hurt you?"
This is a personal attack. He never attacked ProfoundHappiness in anyway.
These are just two examples. He's being bashed all over the place for his primitive and negative view.

Unfortunately I'm working on some projects for work right now, but if I can I'll poke you on Steam later. Hammerwatch sounds good!

Yep we disagree on the intention concept. I think if someone is just a dick and ignorant it isn't trolling. Trolling to me means on purpose annoying other people, while actually you are very capable to be nice. These people have the intention of annoying others. Whereas ignorant assholes don't have the intention, they are simply not capable of being nice or don't know how. They are "themselves". Trolling is something fake where you post stupid questions or comments with the purpose of being a dick.

Yeah I had an issue with judging whether a certain post deserved a negative rep comment. Some were on the line or close to it. Yours certainly was. I drew the line somewhere and went with it. I know reality isn't this black and white.

His initial negative perspective was quite broad. He thought all Fs were stupid. He assumed NFs thought that all NTs are stupid. He assumes that only cynical people are honest. He said that nobody cares about anyone. You could call it what you like, but I summarised it as 'negative perspective'. He saw it confirmed because people weren't nice to him, but called him a 14 year old (which he might be?) and a troll. Some were sarcastic. I guess you could say that his initial assumption was that humans are not nice/caring. And people still didn't care about him. Besides, he wasn't and isn't actually making things personal. He was just very negative about humans in general. He started to act more like a troll after o_q claimed on the first page without explanation that he was a troll. He was not aggressive or attacking anyone personally. He was just really cynical.

I understand and that's the only legit reason if you ask me. I just think the downsides are worse. Especially if someone is an unintended troll. He'll only turn worse. An intended troll might notice that people caught him and quit acting like a dick.

I think it mostly comes down to our disagreement on whether he fits the definition of a troll.

Totally. I believe though that he was an honest and ignorant cynical immature person. And posting without the intention of trolling. I must say I admire your posts for their thoroughness and rich explanation. You also invested all that time in this guy, although that might've been a bad investment as he doesn't seem to understand it. He came here with a negative perspective and saw it confirmed. Obviously a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I'm sad that the INFJ community didn't see through that and disproved his perspective by being nice instead. Well some were nice enough, but he's only going to remember the negative stuff as would any normal human.

Elegant Winter got the game too, so maybe we can have a 3 person room.

Excellent. I'm gonna be snowed in this weekend, so I'll be around to play!

A rock...er! Underground house...Somewhere! Aaah I wish.

I haven't seen those two movies. I kinda live under a rock. >-> I am thinking of joining sites where people chill and stream movies, so I'm not completely out of the loop.

I played I and II, and Oath as translations long before they reached the US. Then I got Oath for PSP. I kinda enjoyed the fan translation over the official US release. The characters were a lot more expressive and less robotic. Dogi was a firecracker, kind of hilarious, he had a potty mouth in the fan translation and acted like a firecracker XD Origin I have on Steam, that one ended up being my favorite. I didn't think I'd enjoy it much but it ended up throwing me for a loop. I thought I'd play as axe girl too, but uuuh I ended up playing the mage because the eyeball satellites hovering over his shoulders ended up being surprisingly fun to shoot stuff with!