Sometimes it’s best to feed the trolls?

LTers are civil folks for the most part. When I've attracted the attention of someone who is not (usually elsewhere), my default is to ignore them. Researchers say that is not always the most effective response, but blocking sure seems to spare me from those who will not.just.let.it.go--IMHO, anyway! What works to limit harm without destroying fruitful exchange of information and views?

*******************************************************

Troll Wrastling for Beginners
Data-Driven Methods to Decrease Hatred Online (1:11:45)
Susan Benesch
Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/03/benesch (bottom of webpage)

********************************************************
A summary of Benesch talk, which is more than an hour long,
by Ethan Zuckerman, Director, Center for Civic Media at MIT
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2014/03/25/susan-benesch-on-dangerous-speech-...

********************************************************
Also discussed at:

Sometimes it’s best to feed the trolls
Responding to online rants and insults can change behavior, data show
by Rachel Ehrenberg
12:43pm, April 24, 2015
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/culture-beaker/sometimes-it%E2%80%99s-best-feed...

...In a talk at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society last spring, American University’s Susan Benesch highlighted some of this emerging research exploring how countering inflammatory speech on social media with more speech can change the discourse. (For a summary of her talk, see this post by Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2014/03/25/susan-benesch-on-dangerous-speech-... Benesch pointed to several instances where people’s responses to inflammatory speech ballooned into a larger civic shaming that resulted in apologies and a desire by the speaker to take back their words.

...The gaming data suggested that roughly half of the toxic messages weren’t from trolls, but from those who might be better described as people who were having a bad day and lashed out.

These results all raise an important point: trolls are people. Like many groups of people, they aren’t homogenous, but have a variety of world views, intentions and goals. (This taxonomic diversity is why people who study trolls often define them by their behavior; there isn’t a single category of person that is Troll). Online harassment that is truly scary and dangerous exists. But there has always been scary and dangerous speech; the Internet just makes us privy to it in a new, and very public, way. (Benesch notes that many of us might have never heard someone tell a rape joke before the Internet, but that doesn’t mean those jokes weren’t being told). These early data suggest that when dealing with hateful speech, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’s words from long before the Internet still hold: the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

...Benesch also notes that efforts to change the mind of extreme haters online are probably futile. But shifting community norms often isn’t about silencing extremists, it’s about influencing a critical mass — “the malleable middle.” And that’s where a lot of trolls seem to live.

So the next time you read a hateful remark, try reaching out. Feed that troll. Some of them are just people who are hangry.

I guess I see a difference between "angry" and "troll." The former is a frustrated person invested in certain point of view. The emotion is honest. The latter likes to pick fights, but is not interested in resolving them. They are more interested in creating chaos than in hashing it out with anyone or coming to some sort of understanding. So their participation is malicious.

>1 margd: That may be good advice if what the community really wants is an apology, but it comes at the expense of completely derailing the conversation of the group to educate one person.

the BBC has an article about the human side of the Trolls too. Probably a point worth remembering whenever you're in an interent discussion with "someone" is that they are human too.

>4 reading_fox: Wish I could find it, but there was a radio story on The Moth about a blogger who attracted more than a few trolls. When she finally responded--to a fellow who trolled about her recently deceased father--she got an apology from an apparently nice young man who seemed to have forgotten that the blogger was a person, too. She was chipper online, and he was going though a bad period in his own life.

BBC article captures troll behaviour, I think--get their attention then try to lock them into a brutal argument (about politics).

Constructively dealing with trolls in science communication
By Aaron Huertas

...Scaled responses to trolling...

Ignore...

Block buttons exist for a reason...

Minimize responses...

If you absolutely must respond to a troll, just make it a one-and-done:

“Hey – That’s not what I meant, but thanks for stopping by..”
“That’s certainly a perspective. Thanks for sharing.”
“I’ve heard that before. Here’s a link…”
“Haha. Good one.”
“Interesting. Thanks.”
“Hmmm.”...

One link to rule them all....

http://sciencecommunicationmedia.com/constructively-dealing-with-trolls-in-scien...

Where is Jesse? He's the star troll of LT.

>7 barney67: And you miss him, don't you?

>2 southernbooklady: >3 jjwilson61:
I recently argued more or less that the distinction is not very clear. It was in response to someone calling Baney a troll, which I think is absurd. He's a participant, his views are consistent, and until his latest post I don't recall him really going after anyone.

I also admit to selective trolling. Those of us who cannot always contain our emotions get embroiled in various skirmishes and I have, for reasons I would to some degree defend, trolled Spalding. I recently noted StormRaven trolling Iriley and then Spalding trolling StormRaven.

It's a good thing we have several people here who NEVER allow themselves to get embroiled, but I think a bit of the barroom livens the site up. Derailing isn't so bad, either, as getting back on the rails is simply done.

Where is Jesse? He's the star troll of LT.

And yet his commentary was always of far superior quality to yours. Perhaps you might want to think on that.

>8 RickHarsch:
I also admit to selective trolling. Those of us who cannot always contain our emotions get embroiled in various skirmishes

Meaning, it stops being about the issue and starts to be about sticking it to someone who has pissed you off? I don't think personality conflicts are trolling by default. Just not very constructive arguments. I guess I associate trolling with a deliberate campaign to make people angry but no inclination to actually engage in a real conversation. relentless provocation is kind of boring as a conversational tactic.

>10 southernbooklady: Mostly I wish to say that the real troll on pro and con is rare. I probably am admitting to paying extra careful attention and looking for a chance to take a shot. And I of course don't think that personality conflicts are trolling, but they can lead to what I guess I should call 'light trolling'. What appears to fit all definitions of trolling has been rare here--I recall a bunch of dimwits going after Simon (Simon11?), a collective personal assault reminiscent of a poorly rendered bunch of southern thugs in a b movie about small town southern lunacy in the US.

>7 barney67:

Funny, I never thought of Jesse as a troll. While I didn't always agree with him, usually it was, as >9 StormRaven: says, a quality commentary.

>10 southernbooklady: I don't think personality conflicts are trolling by default. Just not very constructive arguments

Agreed.

>10 southernbooklady: I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, at least once, sometimes a few times. I remember there used to be a poster on here whose views got him into quite a lot of heated arguments that could have seemed troll-like, but even though I often disagreed with him, he and I had some productive private conversations.

But it's very difficult to converse with someone who cherry picks points but refuses to respond to others, who constantly uses belittling or insulting language, etc. While they may not be trolls in the classic definition of doing it for the lulz, their behavior is still troll-like enough as to make no difference. They also show no signs of wanting to have a real conversation. I see no point in trying to interact with them. I'm not learning anything from them, or getting anything out of it other than frustration. I'd rather spend my time actually talking to people.

>11 RickHarsch: This place is definitely not infected with the kind of troll that has led me to give up on most of the rest of the internet.

>13 sturlington: They also show no signs of wanting to have a real conversation.

In which case one is justified in ignoring them, absolutely. Conversations are interesting. Monologues are boring.

>7 barney67: I have had a visitation from Mr. Wiedinmyer, the nature of which I shall not describe for fear of ridicule from the more 'reality-bound' commentators hereabouts, but I will say that to me it seemed a sort of warning against invoking a spirit with a malevolent aspect that needn't be aroused.

I don't know if he'd qualify as a 'troll'-- I think that term is subjective, and only applied to people you disagree with anyways-- but do you remember Lawecon? He fought with everybody and was blocked by half the people in the group, but Pro and Con sure was a lot more fun when he was here.

Sure, Lawecon. He courted me. It was pretty funny.

>16 madpoet:, >17 RickHarsch:

As with Jesse, I don't consider lawecon to be a troll. I disagreed with him on just about everything and found his persistence to be intensely annoying, and I seem to recall I did block him at times just to get some relief from it all, but I believe he was genuine and sincere and not just trolling.

I didn't even know the term troll at the time, so as far as that I can't opine.

You have to distinguish between people who provoke for the sake of provocation and people you find provocative because you disagree with them.

Provoke: Latin provocare, to call forth, to challenge.

But today nearly everyone uses the word as a pejorative.

>20 barney67: You know, Barn, lots of words have changed to one degree or another since they were used by the Romans.

>21 RickHarsch:

Yes, I still have difficulty getting used to the new meaning of troll. My first inclination is still to think of them as ogres that live under bridges (or in caves, following Tolkien's expert opinion on the matter) and eat people.

>22 John5918: There is no evidence that they don't.

>23 RickHarsch:

Indeed. And then of course there's also the old Polari slang meaning, to say nothing of a form of fishing.

Here's a memorable Python homage on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMEe7JqBgvg

>25 davidgn: Nice, but I think it makes you a troll for posting it.

>26 RickHarsch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTSA_sWGM44

Never fuck with davidgn never fuck with davidgn never fuck with davidgn

‘Don’t feed the trolls’ really is good advice – here’s the evidence
Evita March | October 6, 2016

...Trolling behaviours typically include deliberately posting inflammatory comments and argumentative messages in an attempt to provoke, disrupt and upset others. “Trolls” may pretend to be part of the group, but their real intent is to create conflict for their own amusement. Shockingly, more than a quarter of Americans have admitted to engaging in trolling behaviour at some point.

Most concerning, however, is that harassing behaviours online (such as cyberbullying and trolling) are shown to have psychological outcomes similar to those of harassment offline. These outcomes can include depression, social anxiety and low self-esteem.

...Who are the trolls?

...Is there a trolling ‘type’?

...What’s the ultimate motivation?

...Personality vs motivation

...while antisocial personality traits do play a role, what really influences trolling behaviour is the social pleasure derived from knowing that others are annoyed by it. The more negative social impact the troll has, the more their behaviour is reinforced.

Fighting back

Happily, this discovery suggests an easy way to deal with trolls: ignore them, rather than giving them the satisfaction of an angry reaction.

Individuals seeking a negative social reward may still engage in trolling. But if they don’t receive that negative social reward, then their motivation to engage in this behaviour will likely diminish.

So it appears that the classic internet adage really does hold true: don’t feed the trolls. Deny them the pleasure of an angry reaction, and they’ll probably leave you alone.

https://theconversation.com/dont-feed-the-trolls-really-is-good-advice-heres-the...

It means you don't want to debate. I guess you know everything already. So you made this your blog. That way you will never be challenged or questioned. Life in a bubble.

But what good is an opinion if it can't stand the slightest scrutiny or disagreement?

The idea here, Barney, is you express an opposing opinion, you express disagreement, you scrutinize. Or you stumbletroll.

>31 barney67:

When one scrutinises and disagrees it would be useful to give reasons, rather than just dismissing it in a borderline ad hominem manner, or just posting a dozen articles all saying basically the same thing and all copied and pasted without any comments, explanation or opinion.

Are you referring to someone else in this forum?

>34 barney67: If you said what you meant, it would help.

You can't think of anyone? No one?

What a good idea: make workplaces etc. as pleasant as possible...

Making Civility the Norm on Your Team
Christine Porath, Harvard Business Review | Jan 2, 2017

...(e.g.,) Bryan Cave’s Code of Civility

We greet and acknowledge each other.

We say please and thank you.

We treat each other equally and with respect, no matter the conditions.

We acknowledge the impact of our behavior on others.

We welcome feedback from each other.

We are approachable.

We are direct, sensitive, and honest.

We acknowledge the contributions of others.

We respect each other’s time commitments.

We address incivility...

https://hbr.org/2018/01/make-civility-the-norm-on-your-team

How does making a forum your blog fit into civility?

>38 barney67: Hi Barney. You ask an odd question, either rhetorically or with intentional reserve. I have no idea, but I do get that you are calling this thread a blog. See, the thing is, a blog is written--in most cases, all that I know of--by one person. Here, 12 different people have posted. So I guess I just wanted you to know that whatever you are trying to say, it is not getting across.

>39 RickHarsch: "See, the thing is, a blog is written--in most cases, all that I know of--by one person."

Wikipedia: "Crooked Timber is a widely read left-of-centre political blog run by a group of (mostly) academics from and working in several different nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and Singapore."

Wikipedia: "The Scholarly Kitchen (TSK or 'the Kitchen') is a blog published by the SSP. Contributors include senior professionals in scholarly communications."

Wikipedia: "The Volokh Conspiracy is a blog, founded in 2002, covering legal and political issues from an ideological orientation it describes as 'generally libertarian, conservative, centrist, or some mixture of these.' . . .
Contributors
Eugene Volokh . . .Jonathan H. Adler . . . Kenneth Anderson . . . Randy Barnett . . . Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz . . .Stuart Benjamin . . .David Bernstein . . .Dale Carpenter . . .Paul Cassell . . .Tyler Cowen . . .Orin Kerr . . .David Kopel . . . Jim Lindgren . . .Eric Posner . . .Ilya Somin . . .Todd Zywicki . . .Clayton Cramer"

>39 RickHarsch: Obviously he means that margd is a woman who talks (posts) too much and that bothers him.

>41 jjwilson61: Of course I know that, but his blatantly nonsensical posts seem to require an indirect touch at times.

>40 cpg: Well, by golly I thank you because nothing I learn today could possibly equal in importance this new knowledge that blogs written by more than one person do indeed exist. Thank you very much for that particular feeling only a few posters can provide me, that feeling that I am extra grateful today to be me. Keep up the good work.

>42 RickHarsch: Well, by golly I thank you

THAT's the spirit! (I think. :-)

Ask AI: How not to kill online conversations
At least on Reddit, certain responses may leave you without an audience
Maria Temming | January 3, 2018

...Computer scientist Qiaozhu Mei of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and colleagues trained a machine-learning program on about 63,000 Reddit threads to learn what dialog-ending responses look like.

...chat-savvy computer code...could someday notify users before they hit “submit” if a post is likely to shut down discussion. Such feedback could lead to more satisfying and productive online conversations.

...AI’s guide to being an online conversationalist

Stay on topic. Posts that repeat words used elsewhere in a thread or use more related terms are less likely to end a conversation.

Share experiences. Comments that include words such as “talked,” “heard” or “seen” are liable to incite further discussion.

Keep it moving. The more time that elapses between a post and a reply, the more likely that reply will go unanswered.

Elaborate. Unlike in-person chats, where long monologues can bore those within earshot, lengthier online posts tend to get more responses.

Be polite. Posts that include words like “Mr.” and “Mrs.” are more likely to encourage a back and forth, compared with responses that address people with insulting or intense language, such as curse words or an all-caps “YOU.” ...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ask-ai-how-not-kill-online-conversations?

Citation

Y. Jiao et al. Find the conversation killers: A predictive study of thread-ending posts. arXiv:1712.08636. Posted December 22, 2017. https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.08636

>44 margd: It seems incumbent upon me to reply as quickly as possible to such a post once I see it. Thanks, first. Second, I wonder if you have come across anything that discusses the likelihood of someone engaged in discussion actually changing his or her mind? Of course, it isn't likely to happen within a thread about Trump's mental condition (though it should, as new information has come in fairly regularly, much of it alarming); but something people tend to be less vested in and less aware of, a good instance being conditions in Puerto Rico: do people respond now and then with, say, 'Thanks, I had no idea...'?

>45 RickHarsch: likelihood of someone engaged in discussion actually changing his or her mind

Except for one recent study, evidence I've seen is discouraging re people actually changing their minds. (I'll post if I find any rays of hope.)

A class I took eons ago on persuasive writing (columns, etc.) taught that we argue from one of three perspectives, and that of these three, emotion ("pathos") is the most powerful. The other two are one's personal authority ("ethos") and facts or logic ("logos"). I think the vaccination debate exemplifies the power of emotion. So, too, game theory.

(Obviously my sharing of facts and perspectives that I encounter (logos) on topics that engage me, hasn't won over those who hold opposing viewpoints... Because I block routine unpleasantry, e.g., those who practise argumentum ad hominem, I'm unfortunately missing any rational counter-arguments or corrections that they might offer... I consider unblocking, peeking at one occasionally, but three almost never...)

ETA
>45 RickHarsch: do people respond now and then with, say, 'Thanks, I had no idea...'?

Actually, one "blockee" did respond graciously to something I wrote, once. Maybe that's why I occasionally peek with eye to unblocking him--I'm human--plus I think that he has made useful points in past, though too often mixed with unfortunate invective.

>46 margd: Your contribution via logos is likely doing quiet work. Louder people like myself and, for instance, Barney, will let you know what we think (probably too often in both cases), but to again use Puerto Rico as an example, I am sure a lot of people learned a great deal from Puerto Rico posts on your thread--I know I did. And Davidgn posts more than I can keep up with. I think for everything response you get, there are perhaps 10 (more?) readers who quietly take it in, and most without a mad, blocking ego.

>47 RickHarsch:

I hope I'm one of those more than 10. I try to read most of it (while admitting I can't always read it all). If I find it to be either really excellent or really appalling I may post a response, but if I don't have strong feelings nor anything specific to add to the conversation, I don't respond. I often learn something and have my horizons broadened. I also recognise that even if I have no interest whatsoever in a particular post, others probably do, so I have no cause to complain. LT talk is not the property of any single individual and there's bound to be a diversity of interest.

>48 John5918: You are too vocal for a part in the silent minority or majority. But you do display an open mind and an obvious willingness to learn. You've taught me a few things about my social media behavior--to the betterment of them.

This is a conversation you will never see:

"I absolutely agree with you. Brilliant insight!"

--"Go away troll!"

In other words, a troll is never someone who agrees with you, which makes the term 'troll' rather suspect, in my opinion.

>51 madpoet: That's not remotely true. Trolling is a behavior, not a point of view. You can agree with the things someone is trying to get across while disagreeing with the fact that they are doing so while being a jerk.

>51 madpoet: A troll is never someone who agrees with anyone, except in the rare cases where it's another troll or can otherwise cause problems. A troll is not there to spread good feelings or say things like "Brilliant insight!". A troll is there to cause problems.

Naming it. For purposes of this thread, see sections on conservative blogging techniques (the playbook for trolls?).
Also, troll-busting techniques, and whataboutism/whataboutery:

Tinfoil Hat
Mind Control and Coercive Psychological Systems
Dissent

....conservative blogging tactics this author encounters regularly on social media forums:

Engage. Demand an elaborate, time-consuming comparison / analysis between your position and theirs.
Entangle. Insist that the Liberal put their posts “in their own words”....
Demoralize. Dismiss their narrative as rubbish immediately...
Attack. Attack the source...
Confuse. Challenge the Liberal position with questions, always questions...
Contain. Your job is to prevent the presentation and spread of Liberal viewpoints...
Intimidate. Taunt the Liberals....Play upon any identifiable idiosyncrasies, character flaws, physical traits, names, to their disadvantage...
Insult their Movement. Assign as many character and moral flaws to Liberals as you can...
Deceive. Identify yourself as a “moderate”, “centrist” or “independent”...
Patriotism. Always claim the high ground of pro-military, low taxes, strong defense, morality and religion...
Smudge the Lines. Say that there is no difference between the two parties...
Infiltrate. Inquire as to the personal lives of Liberal posters...
Demean. Always refer to the other side as “Liberals”, “Lefty Liberals”, “Libbies”...Never assign them respect.
Opportunity. Be alert for ways to insert our catch phrases into your narrative....

Virginia Hoge... “16 Essential Troll Busting Techniques” ...

One: A show of strength: I think the most important thing with trolls, is to be like a brick wall against them...
Two: All trolls can pretty easily be tripped with their own words...
Three: Humor is a great tool with trolls...
Four: Handling insults and lies...The best way to counter insults, is with humor and irreverence...When a lie is told about you, say one time only “No dude, I didn’t do it”. And walk off. No arguing.
Five: Never show anger...
Six: Never show hurt...
Seven: Mocking...
Eight: Ignore them...
Nine: The LOL. Learning the different meanings of lol (laugh out loud) are important when dealing with trolls. Lower-case “lol”, shows humility...“Lol” is used for stronger emphasis and best used on its own...Upper-case LOL means the full out “laugh out loud”...
Ten: Back up other posters they are attacking...
Eleven: Persistence...Time is something you can use in your favor, take time off, make the troll wait for you, don’t reply to every comment of theirs, be selective, reply to none sometimes. Talk about something completely different. That puts you in control.
Twelve: Love. ...do not use it early on, do not try to “win the troll over” too soon. That will not work. Only keep it in the back of your mind and in time, it can be possible to break through and find your common humanity...
Thirteen (related to the above): Reconciliation/Understanding...Its important to distinguish between a troll that has a good person underneath and a malicious hater...It is possible to make peace with someone you do not agree with, to find common ground...
Fourteen: Keep your replies as short as possible... gives them less to work with and nails your point more efficiently.
Fifteen: Troll Crying. Crying, in troll terminology, is over-complaining, crying about someone (if the troll is your combatant, you)...Once a troll starts crying, you know they are weaker than you are...
Sixteen: Have fun with it. Read up on debate tactics, study the masters...

Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent’s position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union, the Soviet response would be “What about…” followed by an event in the Western world...

https://archive.li/tOHxP#selection-5258.0-5278.1

>54 margd:

Looks like http://www.librarything.com/topic/265533 could have been one of the case studies they used!

>54 margd: Really useful stuff. I've been aware of this kind of stuff but couldn't put a name on it. Thanks.

Who knew there were linguistic nuances to "LOL"?

I think the key to trolls is a combination of ignoring them (don't feed...) and humor. Humor is kryptonite to someone trying to piss you off.

>54 margd: Thanks for nothing, margd. LOL (or should that properly be LOL). Now I have a whole new area to give me anxiety. Am I using shorthand acronyms correctly?!?

Semi seriously, though, is there a similarity when using IMO/imo or is imo (the humble version) superseded by IMHO? Does the all caps IMO indicate an opinion that won't change while imo is open to persuasion? I need to know 'cause I have a lot of opinions and I want to announce them properly.

I googled "capitalizing lol", and found divergence of opinion. I had no idea. Don't think I'd sweat it! ;-)

>59 margd: But I sweat all manner of issues remotely connected to grammar. Insert LOL or lol as appropriate for a rueful chuckle.

>60 pmackey:

In many of the posts on Pro & Con, LOL usually seems to be used as a put-down rather than genuine humour, in the sense of, "I can't actually refute your well-expressed opinion but I disagree with it and I'm frustrated that I can't explain why in a civil and rational manner, so the best I can come up with is to laugh at and try to ridicule you".

So many nuances for abbreviations. MHS! My head spins. Let's not even get into emoticons.

IMHO, https://xkcd.com/1989/

that flippin' dress was white and gold and I don't care what the original dressmaker says.

>63 bnielsen: Funny and true. I very dimly recall the 1990s when I, too, may have used IMHO to mean honest opinion, but I very definitely mean humble now. Seriously, this is why I don't use emoticons to communicate anything meaningful. IMVCO&IKIR*, pictographs can be misinterpreted.

*In My Very Considered Opinion and I Know I'm Right

>65 pmackey:

I try not to use any of them, but then I don't use any social media except LT, e-mail, and two or three discussion boards where people tend to write in full. ASAP is about the only abbreviation I use with any regularity, in professional circles where it is pretty well understood, I think.

I do use IMO on LT and Facebook. At work, in addition to ASAP, I use FYI and FYSA. For your information and for your situational awareness.... Usually something my colleagues or bosses should have in their back pocket if needed, but no direct action. I would never use an acronym for something when a misinterpretation might have unintended consequences. The exception to that rule is to spell out the acronym the first time such as Ministry of Silly Walks (MoSW), or Lord of the Rings (LOTR).

>67 pmackey:

Ah yes, I do use FYI, but I wasn't aware of FYSA. I wish I could find an excuse to use MoSW more often...

SCUBA! SNAFU!

As long as we are going down this road let's not forget the two most often used methods for proving something is either right or wrong: BOGGSAT and TLAR ....Bunch Of Guy'n Gals Sitting Around Talking and That Looks About Right. ,,,and when those two methods fail there is away proof by VVI - Violence, Volume, Intimidation.

Hmm, if I read my trolls' posts, I'd be tempted to follow up with evaluation, e.g.,

Conservative Troll Report Card

___ Engage. Demand an elaborate, time-consuming comparison / analysis between your position and theirs.
___ Entangle. Insist that the Liberal put their posts “in their own words”....
___ Demoralize. Dismiss their narrative as rubbish immediately...
___ Attack. Attack the source...
___ Confuse. Challenge the Liberal position with questions, always questions...
___ Contain. Your job is to prevent the presentation and spread of Liberal viewpoints...
___ Intimidate. Taunt the Liberals....Play upon any identifiable idiosyncrasies, character flaws, physical traits, names, to their disadvantage...
___ Insult their Movement. Assign as many character and moral flaws to Liberals as you can...
___ Deceive. Identify yourself as a “moderate”, “centrist” or “independent”...
___ Patriotism. Always claim the high ground of pro-military, low taxes, strong defense, morality and religion...
___ Smudge the Lines. Say that there is no difference between the two parties...
___ Infiltrate. Inquire as to the personal lives of Liberal posters...
___ Demean. Always refer to the other side as “Liberals”, “Lefty Liberals”, “Libbies”...Never assign them respect.
___ Opportunity. Be alert for ways to insert our catch phrases into your narrative....
___ Other (explain)

As adapted 5/7/2018 from
https://archive.li/tOHxP#selection-5258.0-5278.1

Maybe LT should issue report cards or performance reviews, but it would have to be reversed. A good grade as a troll would be a bad thing

>72 pmackey: Hmm, a yearly "Troll of the year" award? I'd like to see the badge. Maybe both a "Best troll of the year" and a "Worst troll of the year"?

Most improved? ;-)

>73 bnielsen: Absolutely need different categories... Maybe have "international/language" categories, such as "Most Obnoxious Troll on English-Threads...

>74 margd: That's what I like about you -- you're positive attitude!

The Antidote to Tr(olls) Is Decency
David Frum | June 1, 2018

The president and his movement are empowered by ugly talk—the most effective rejoinders are factually precise and emotionally restrained.

...During Soviet times, the communist authorities expressed themselves in operatically vehement language. Noncommunists were denigrated as hyenas, jackals, vultures, and other disgusting animals; as bandits, fascists, Nazis, and other enemies of humanity.

In response, Soviet dissenters developed their own language: factually precise, emotionally restrained. The most important dissident publication carried the determinedly unexciting name, The Chronicle of Current Events.

There’s a lesson here. Donald Trump and the political movement behind him are empowered by ugly talk. Their own talk stands out less sharply in contrast. “You did it first … you did it worse … you do it more” are accurate enough answers, but they are not as powerful as not doing it at all.

Let Trump be Trump.

Let decent people be decent.

Trust your country—not all of it, sadly, but enough of it—to notice and appreciate the difference.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/fighting-fire-with-water/56...

>76 margd: It's very challenging to remain emotionally restrained and factually precise when confronted by gross human indecency. That said, you are correct that that's the only way to effectively combat trolls.

I see it on both sides where the parties are more intent on mudslinging and one-upsmanship, than persuasion. The world didn't end under George W. Bush or Barrack Obama even though the opposing side spoke in apocalyptic language. Both were child's play compared to the ugliness we're seeing now under Trump.

I detest the current administration for so many reasons, but know too many supporters who, though I disagree with them, are well-intentioned. One is not a fascist just because one holds conservative views. I WANT dialog with them. Left and Right have to communicate so, ultimately, we can meet in the middle. Until we do that, we'll continue hearing end-of-the-world rhetoric from both sides when the opposite party is in power.

>77 pmackey: I see it on both sides where the parties are more intent on mudslinging and one-upsmanship, than persuasion.

If the personal is political, then every disagreement feels like a personal attack, and we are quick to respond in kind. I think we've lost the ability to tolerate disagreement, and the will to expose ourselves to responses we don't like. At least in the United States it feels like that.

>78 southernbooklady: Agreed. IMO there's been a hardening of the lines with less toleration. I don't know why other than once these trends get started, they feed themselves. I think humans are tribal by nature and we view anything coming from another tribe as threatening.

Human tribes are very fluid things in that one's allegiance can switch from moment to moment along racial, socioeconomic, or other lines. At any given moment I'm a member of American, Marylander, Middle Class, Christian, Social Liberals, Baltimore Oriole-supporting, book-loving, knitting, and birding tribes. The trick is to expand our boundaries and become comfortable with people who share fewer tribes in common. IMO, travel is one of the best (and humbling) ways of expanding our individual boundaries to realize we are all members of one vast, human tribe.

>78 southernbooklady:

... "If the personal is political," ...

States things backwards. And the political aspects felt personally needn't necessarily be taken personally; that they now commonly are taken personally is a fact and some lament it. Not everything need be taken personally--even things intended to be taken so. But some of the things meant personally ought to be taken that way.

It really depends on making reasonable and valid distinctions. And, currently, there are many, many thin-skinned people who are shit at making reasonable distinctions in such matters. And many of them are now very obviously part of the so-called political Left or liberal element of the body politic.

All times are in various ways stupid and idiotic. But these times are stupid and idiotic in ways which previously--a couple of generations or so ago--weren't quite like this.

Comparing the American experiences of the Black liberation movements and the Women's liberation movement of both the 1970s and today's amazingly ill-considered version is rather instructive.

Blacks --from the 1940s through the late 1960s-- rightly condemned social and political privileges held and used in discriminatory ways by White people to the systematic and long-term deteriment of Black Americans. But Blacks, while calling this discrimimation by all the terms which fit it, didn't, for all that, assert flatly that White people were simply inherently and incorrigibly fundamentally evil -- as certain portray men in general, Trump supporters in general, etc.

>79 pmackey: I don't know why other than once these trends get started, they feed themselves.

There is a short step from individuality to entitlement. But I think part of the problem with "tribes" is that they can be defined not just by who is and what it means to be a member, but by who is not and why they are not. Consider the baker who just won his case in Supreme Court. His Jesus was a model of universal love. He, however, won't bake a couple a cake. His faith is now defined by exclusion, not inclusion. And sure, this is seen as a gay rights issue, part of the struggle for gay people to achieve equal standing. Still, it's not a great hardship--there are other bakers gay people can call. But it is a sad state of affairs for that baker, who has fought for and won the right live in a narrower, poorer world -- forever defined now by who he rejects, not who he loves.

IMO, travel is one of the best (and humbling) ways of expanding our individual boundaries

Not being a traveler, I think more in terms of sharing a meal. It's hard to hate the person willing to pass you the potatoes.

But underneath all that is, I think, all those rituals we create around hospitality, and why they are so sacred to us. Such rituals are meant to create trust between strangers, at a time when each is very vulnerable: the guest in your home may be a friend or an enemy, the guest is himself alone in the domain of another. And yet you will eat together at a table, perhaps even sleep with a stranger under the same roof.

I think "hospitality" and the things it is meant to teach us, is a lost art in our current society.

>81 southernbooklady:

It is humbling to experience hospitality in Africa, and that includes Africa's Arab cultures such as Egypt and Sudan. When asked to sum up Sudan in a single word I think not of war, famine or Islamism (all of which exist there) but of hospitality.

On Christianity, I feel that anything which makes anyone feel excluded is far from the message of Jesus - I know, we still have a long way to go. When Jesus was asked about the great commandment, he chose love, not whether or not to bake cakes for certain people. In his whole ministry he set an example of seeking to include those who were marginalised by society and religion, which in his day included women, lepers, and foreigners. Jumping forward to the present day it would certainly include gay people.

>81 southernbooklady:

"Not being a traveler, I think more in terms of sharing a meal. It's hard to hate the person willing to pass you the potatoes."

_______________________________

"But underneath all that is, I think, all those rituals we create around hospitality, and why they are so sacred to us. Such rituals are meant to create trust between strangers, at a time when each is very vulnerable: the guest in your home may be a friend or an enemy, the guest is himself alone in the domain of another. And yet you will eat together at a table, perhaps even sleep with a stranger under the same roof."

Really: Go and live on the street for a year. And don't take your American Express card with you. Don't go as a "tourist", do it exactly as those who have no alternative do. Try that. Don't tell others around you that you're doing research for a book or a magazine article or that this is your class-project for the term. You don't get to keep a lot of cash on you--or, well, hmmm. try that and observe your fellow potato-passers' reactions when they discover that you have a lot of cash. (I do not recommend that!) Try living with no money; take the bus--but don't pay the fare; when you need to use a toilet, find one somewhere; look for a place to sleep and sleep there. Do this for a year without a "net" and then, please, come back (or report in situ) and, after a your year's apprenticeship, I'll listen all day to your homilies about how"underneath all that is, I think, all those rituals we create around hospitality, and why they are so sacred to us. Such rituals are meant to create trust between strangers, at a time when each is very vulnerable: the guest in your home may be a friend or an enemy, the guest is himself alone in the domain of another. And yet you will eat together at a table."
___________________________________

I bet you've actually gone "slumming" in a soup-kitchen or even done some volunteered food- "serving" in one. If so, I'm sure you'll cite this as a 'bona fide' in your background.

But standing behind the counter and serving food to people who otherwise would be scrounging discarded leftovers from bins and dumpsters or stealing it from grocery shelves--unless they eat only on those occasions when a stranger offers them either money or food--is one thing and having to rely everyday on food served soup-kitchen style is very much something else.

"It's hard to hate the person willing to pass you the potatoes." is pure Leftist sentimentalist bullshit.

In the first place, most charity food is served via a serving line, not "family-style" at a table. LOL! I'm trying to picture the staff at the soup-kitchen I frequent actually putting the food itself out for direct access by the hungry people who come in to eat! What a riot! That alone illustrates your simplistic view of people.

Guess what? Your halo-wearing neighbor at the table is quite capable of 'passing you the potatoes' one moment --in the fairly-tale scene in which there is a bowl of potatoes on the table-- and the next, when your back is turned, taking the most prized thing off your food-tray and stuffing it into his backpack or plastic bag before you've turned back around. I suppose that you'd say, "But someone would see that!" Oh, Hell yes! Of course someone would. But that doesn't mean that those who saw it would actually say something--alert you. It doesn't work that way. In the soup-kitchen, the person who'd snitch and report another who swiped food off an unguarded tray would be more roundly and deeply despised than the person who took the food.

There are people who actually offer others food because they've stuck something on or in it and their point is to hope that they can get their mark to take this and eat it. In that case, they've played the person. That would never happen!, you say? Please. You are very, very naive.

I've on occasion been refused food by the volunteer food-serving staff! when I asked for more of it and it's been suggested that I go about the "dining room" asking (begging, in effect) for whatever others at a table might be willing to give me of whatever they might not want to eat--though they've taken it on their trays. (I did not take up that suggestion.)

And, it's true: many of them do dump large portions of their tray's contents into the garbage as they go out. And sometimes, before doing that, they offer others part of or all of what they're about to dump out. But, in general, unless it's whole, untasted fruit, bread or something in a package, it isn't the least bit appetizing. One has to be fairly desperate to take others half-eaten portions--though I have seen that done again and again. As I eat once a day, I eat everything I take and waste or throw out nothing.

But it's just not as simple as taking anything and everything another might offer. I can't simply assume that anything I'm offered by others in the dining room is safe to accept and eat because, my dear, there are people at my table every fucking day who don't like me, never have liked me and would be delighted to give me something tainted just to see if I'd be naive enough to eat it.

It's my responsibility to myself to recognize and distinguish these people from the others, the ones from whom it would be safe to accept something to eat.

Because the idea that it's all a festive brotherhood and sisterhood of goodwill around the table at a food-kitchen is a wildly absurd fable that wouldn't survive two minutes of real-life experience.

Fucking sheesh!

>83 proximity1: Wow. That's a lot of negativity to dump on some kindly meant comments. Many people try to make a difference in their communities by giving time or support. Do you really want to denigrate those who help in soup kitchens? Not everyone who does so is in it for the self-congratulations and the self-pats on the back. It bothers me that you make such sweeping, negative assumptions. While I agree that not everything is "sweetness and light", neither is it all dark bitterness.

>81 southernbooklady: But underneath all that is, I think, all those rituals we create around hospitality, and why they are so sacred to us. Such rituals are meant to create trust between strangers, at a time when each is very vulnerable: the guest in your home may be a friend or an enemy, the guest is himself alone in the domain of another. And yet you will eat together at a table, perhaps even sleep with a stranger under the same roof.

Your comment is insightful. I'd say the best lessons I've learned about getting along in a different culture be it Europe or Kentucky have stemmed from hospitality and courtesy. It's easy to be rude to one another on social media and LT, but much harder face-to-face, and to the faceless others we see in the news. Much harder when they're sharing there home and food with you....

>83 proximity1: Really: Go and live on the street for a year. And don't take your American Express card with you.

My biggest criticism with Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich was the author's inability to really live without her safety net. Despite her best intentions, she had fallbacks, and she used them. She always had an apartment of her own, for example. Was never forced to share a small space with strangers she might not even like or might scare her. So her expose of life on minimum wage, while generally honest and well-intentioned, was diluted from the reality.

I bet you've actually gone "slumming" in a soup-kitchen or even done some volunteered food- "serving" in one.

a good friend of mine does have a food service charity and yes, I help sometimes. I have never "gone slumming" in my life. It's a detestable phrase.

>81 southernbooklady: & >85 southernbooklady:

But your attempted analogy of "sharing a meal" simply fails the real-word test by virtually every aspect.

If the potatos aren't those of the person passing them, then there is little or nothing so laudable in the mere fact that a person should be able and willing to pass them to another person (his effective equal at the meal)--and one who he can quite well regard as despicable and might just do so--pass, that is, food which isn't his to give or withold in the first place; so "sharing" doesn't really apply here since the food wasn't prepared by him or at his expense. There is no "hospitality" going on here. For the case where sharing does apply, see the following.

If, on the other hand, you're describing a case of genuine hospitality--in which the person passing the food actually prepated it and is hosting others in sharing it with them, then that person is in the place of an owner, and as host to "guests", real or figurative, he has real authority over these guests. They are at his table-- not the case at a soup-kitchen; and their presence there is completely dependent on his whims and sufferance. He can at any time dismiss his "guests" if he so chooses and they're aware of this fact.

Furthermore, when the meal is done and finished, the "guests" shall eventually have to leave; for they're not on their own home ground and they have no rights, no power and no privileges there beyond what the host may be willing to temporarily extend to them.

If, for example, the guests weren't satisfied with having potatoes alone passed to them but were also looking for and demanding from their "host" what we call justice in the larger social scene, it is not likely that the host would show himself so accomodating. And you know that--whether you bothered to think that far about it or not--now that it has been pointed out to you.

Your scenario isn't just sentimentalist hogwash, it's nefarious in its moral naivety and positively harmful as a basis for practical moral thought and action.

>86 proximity1: If the potatoes aren't those of the person passing them, then there is little or nothing so laudable in the mere fact that a person should be able and willing to pass them to another person

no, you've missed my point. Rules of hospitality create a situation where two strangers in a vulnerable situation can establish trust. At the most basic level, we are vulnerable when we are eating -- hands occupied with food can't hold weapons. The attention we give to our food is attention not given to watching for an attack. And naturally, we are vulnerable when we are sleeping -- so we do what we can to create a place that is safe for us to sleep in.

So all the rules and virtues we create around "hospitality" and the sacred importance we invest in them -- it's all fundamentally about engineering a way for strangers to encounter each other safely. To turn them into not-strangers. People who can be trusted.

And regardless of what you say, it has little to do with who cooked the food or how authentic their feelings or who has authority in the exchange. At the most basic level, if two people eat willingly from the same bowl, they are each assuring the other the food is safe to eat.

I'd say that's about as unsentimental a take on hospitality as it gets. Although I think you're wrong about the potential for shared meals to overcome barriers and establish connections between people. For one thing, people who feel safe with each other are more likely and willing to interact with each other. For another, human beings are basically social creatures. "Tribal" as pmackey says. So they gravitate towards social situations and are inclined to participate in them.

ETA: and incidentally, I also think you're off base when you cite food charities as examples of hypocritical hospitality. A person standing at a table ladling out soup and potatoes is not engaging in hospitality, they are engaging in food service. The interaction is not fundamentally different than the kind I had with the cafeteria ladies when I was on the school lunch program. Sure I knew their names, made fun of their hair nets, groaned at the third day of mac and cheese. But I wasn't eating with them. I was eating with my friends, some of whom brought their own lunches, and some of whom didn't.

If that person volunteering at the soup kitchen, though, after he finishes serving everyone else, takes a bowl for himself and sits down at the same table with everyone he's just served and eats with them -- well that's hospitality.

>87 southernbooklady:

"no, you've missed my point. Rules of hospitality create a situation where two strangers in a vulnerable situation can establish trust. "

No, actually, I saw your point as you call it and describe it there. Please, these are my daily circumstances.

There are, in general, no such established "rules of hospitality" in a situation where homeless people, none of whom has any particular agency as "host" to any others present, eat in a common mess-hall where, despite your fairy-tale vision, none of them owe any other stranger the slightest "hospitality" since none are "hosts" of the others present. What's in fact at work here is a competitive situation, not a cooperative one. This doesn't mean that no cooperative act is ever possible. It is and it does occasionally happen. But far, far, far more oten--many more times a day than cooperative acts towards others--are competitive acts. People cut in line, show no consideration of others--except those who are already established members of their 'friendship' (I use that term here _very_ loosely) networks.

People do form bands: the social power-relations would be familiar to anyone who has served time in prison. And they give and take offense according to which band they belong or don't belong. But typically these are commonly groups of two to four people on an everyay basis. More than four is unusual. Six or seven is very unusal to have together at once. However, two small groups of three or four may present some cross-connections in which one of the members of one group will feel some alliance with one (or two) members of a second group. So, in giving offense to one group, a person can also alienate third-parties outside that group who are 'friendly.' But you should not take 'friend' and 'friendly' in the usual middle-class or upper-class sense. There is very little genuine friendship going on here. But it does occur. Far more often, no one will exhibit any concern for, care for, attention to, any other person except for some calculated and self-interested motive which is short-term and not mutually-generous.

"...we are vulnerable when we are eating -- hands occupied with food can't hold weapons."

You don't eat in a mess-hall as an indigent person. You don't know these circumstances as do those who are actually experiencing them from 'the inside.' You clearly not only have no idea what you're talking about, you're not even accurately imagining these conditions.

LOL! A food-tray is a weapon. A plastic fork or knife is a weapon. And people have real knives in their bags--which, in the heat of anger--as I am witness--they'll lunge for, making ready to use it on another who has given offense.

As soon as you'd written of a scenario in which a common-bowl of food is on the table--and the homeless hungry are supposedly passing it around, I knew you were prognosticating from cloud-cuckoo land.

So, point by false point:

" At the most basic level, we are vulnerable when we are eating"

No, "we" are not. And any person who clearly exhibits his vulnerability to others in the mess-hall is literally inviting trouble. This is the real world, not your moronic liberal crowd-hugging fantasy.

... "hands occupied with food can't hold weapons."

Uh, FALSE. Indeed they can and they do.

"The attention we give to our food is attention not given to watching for an attack."

Well, excuse me but it's simply not like that. Actual attack --especially spontaneous and unprovoked-- is extremely rare. But aggression--verbal and gestural aggression--is not that rare. And this can and does occur while people are dividing their attention between their food-trays and those around them. On a typical day, everyone eats without a lively expectation of being attacked in the mess-hall itself--where staff are present precisely because without them there would be frequent violent fights. But the staff whose duty it is to prevent that in the mess-hall generally succeed in preventing it.

"And naturally, we are vulnerable when we are sleeping -- so we do what we can to create a place that is safe for us to sleep in."

Right. You, for example, I gather, sleep in a room with a door on it which closes--should you choose to close it.

Now I actually am vulnerable to approach by anyone who's in the vicinity. Not very long ago, for example, out of sheer spite, someone--I didn't stir when I heard the person-- 'treated' me to a deliberately insulting gesture; it was done by any one of several people who are quite open about their dislike of me. The idea is simple: create an insulting scene by leaving something done or undone that suggests that I have behaved irresponsibly by making a mess. This is completely typical of the kind of spiteful vicious-circle behavior which puts the lie to your idiotic fantasies of brotherhood around the mess-hall table where "strangers establish trust" among each other.

"so we do what we can to create a place that is safe for us to sleep in."

Yeah, "we do what we can." Mm-hmm. It sounds so simple when you put it that way.

"So all the rules and virtues we create around "hospitality" and the sacred importance we invest in them ..."

Do you even hear yourself pronouncing this sickeningly smarmy rubbish? "the rules and virtues we create around 'hospitality'? Don't you hear (read and comprehend) well? Absent a real host who has ownership, authority and control over the premises, there is no such 'hospitality' since the homeless, lacking property to 'host' others. also lack by the same token the agency of a host. I cannot 'invite' another as a real host might and can do because the 'table' isn't 'mine', the sleeping-space is open and, in general, I'm not in a postition to deny or forbid others from impolitely invading it without my asset even if I were inclined to put up a fight. If I'm allowed to avoid a fight, I'll do what's reasonable to avoid it. If I have no other ready option, then there's going to be a fight.

"-- it's all fundamentally about engineering a way for strangers to encounter each other safely."

I think that, really, I speak from more direct and realistic experience than do you when I tell you that, from what I've seen, the very best "way for strangers to encounter each other safely" is to try and not 'encounter' each other if possible and, if not possible, then to do the absolute minimum 'encountering'. We really not at all pleased to have to be in the mess-hall in the first place. It is not a pleasant experience. People are there to get their meal and leave with as little effort and trouble as possible. The food is nothing very good or appetizing and certainly nothing to linger over. Many of the people around are nothing which adds any pleasure to eating. On the contrary. Nor are they, as 'strangers,' any more interested in socializing with me than I am with them. This is not a brotherhood's lodge-meeting, it's a group indigent homeless people--nearly all are homeless; though those with children are in some kind of shelter--charitable or their own make-shift shelter, as in a camper-van. Some in fact have real lodgings and they come to the mess-hall to eat just in order to make ends meet.

"To turn them into not-strangers. People who can be trusted."

There's a Grand Canyon which separates the "not-strangers" from "people who can be trusted." On the street, before very long, if you stick around in one place, you're going to become at least visually familiar with practically everyone in your circumstances. You're going to at least recognize practically all the other homeless on sight. There is nothing about that facial recognition which implies anything even remotely to do with trust.

In general, it works like this--and anyone who has actually lived on the street will understand and recognize this routine:

you observe others for a rather extended time from a distance and that usually means without any direct social intercourse at all--not even or, at most, a "hello." There are people I have seen eight out of every nine or ten days for more than two years to whom I've never addressed a single "hello" and nor have they addressed any "hello" to me. But I've observed these people--all of them--and formed a basic judgment about what I regard as their probable trust-worthiness or the lack of it.

After this period of observation, based on what you see these people do and say with and around others you form an opinion as to their general habits of fairness and honesty, their trustworthiness. And you can do all this without ever exchanging a word with them. And this is typically what each one does.

in 98 out of 100 cases, there's not going to be any significant trust established. And that is for the simple fact that in that proportion of the cases, people correctly assess that there is simply no sound basis for any.

Lets' be honest and realistic for a moment: practically speaking, virtually everyone living on the street is there out of not only misfortune--of which there is plenty-- but also and at least if not more important, out of personality disorders, character faults. Trusting and honest fair-play are frankly not these people's stong suits. They are damaged and many of them are very seriously damaged. They are not looking for your friendship or your trust. And they are typically not interested in being either of these toward you--not in the sense that you, as a gooey-eyed liberal dreamer use and think of these terms. I know because I came from a background similar to what I gather was the one in which you were formed. And now I live in another world entirely. And your fantasies have nothing to do with it. Indeed, your fantasies are postively dangerous delusions in this world.

_________________________________

"Although I think you're wrong about the potential for shared meals to overcome barriers and establish connections between people." ...

They aren't "sharing meals"! There's generally no "sharing" going on of any kind that is typically intended by that term. Not even the mess-hall's space is "shared". People where I eat are in competition to sit down FFS! There's a line to go in and when the tables are fully occupied, people outside are obliged to wait. Where the fuck is this "sharing" going on?!

"For one thing, people who feel safe with each other are more likely and willing to interact with each other. For another, human beings are basically social creatures."

There's no particular "safety" felt--and certainly not as a part of and a consequence of their simply being "with each other" in the mess-hall. Your tone-deafness is really amazing. Didn't it strike you that you've simply presupposed this as a condition with no basis at all for presuming it is the case: "people who feel safe with each other." Just who said they did "feel safe with each other" ?--apart, that is, from the fact that there is staff present who have to occasionally intervene to prevent or to break up actual fights. People who happen, by necessity to simply be in the same room at the same time and who have no control of their own over their circumstances while they are in the same place don't at all necessarily feel any sense of "together-ness". Where do you get this idiocy?

" 'Tribal' " as pmackey says. So they gravitate towards social situations and are inclined to participate in them."

They "gravitate" towards social situations? and are "inclined to" "participate"?

"Inclined"? We're hungry! Period. There is no "gravitating"! FFS! We come and eat for lack of any other alternative which is better.

ETA: and incidentally, I also think you're off base when you cite food charities as examples of hypocritical hospitality. A person standing at a table ladling out soup and potatoes is not engaging in hospitality, they are engaging in food service. The interaction is not fundamentally different than the kind I had with the cafeteria ladies when I was on the school lunch program. Sure I knew their names, made fun of their hair nets, groaned at the third day of mac and cheese. But I wasn't eating with them. I was eating with my friends, some of whom brought their own lunches, and some of whom didn't.

If that person volunteering at the soup kitchen, though, after he finishes serving everyone else, takes a bowl for himself and sits down at the same table with everyone he's just served and eats with them -- well that's hospitality.

First, while that may be the case where you are, it simply doesn't happen where I eat--ever.

The volunteers never sit at the mess-hall tables with the indigent people for whom they dish up food and, even if they did, I am hard-pressed to imagine more than a vanishingly small number of the regulars giving the least damn about it. Those who would find it a mark of 'hospitality' are already among the extremely rare considerate people among the mess-hall's needy.

But your assumption seems to be founded on the idea that there exists some sort of genuine comraderie between the needy and those volunteers. Where I eat there's really none of that to speak of. As for the volunteers--not the establishment's regular management, but the transitory volunteers who come and go, there's a distinct sense of separation from those they to whom they're serving food. There's a distinct felt-awareness of being on one or the other side of an invisible barrier. I have no hesitation in telling you that, if invited to actually sit down at the tables and eat with the needy, these volunteers would first decline and, if pressed, flatly refuse.

An 'us' and 'them' distinction is not lakcing at all.

FWIW, I suffer from chronic malnourishment. That means that, physically, my condition is poor because I do not get enough nourishing food routinely and, in what I do get, there are serious nutrient deficiencies which are so routine that the lack of these has caused permanent damage to my health. I have physical ailments now which I'll live with for the rest of my life because I've gone so long in chronic malnourishment.

Now, there is, unfortunately, nothing unusual about my case. I see plenty of others who are not very far above skin-and-bones, that is, people who have no body-fat to lose and who therefore lose muscle-mass when they miss meals. They're thin, gaunt, drawn. And their general health is now, like mine, irreparably broken.

There are others who know how to game the system and who do that and, because they have very different metabolisms, it means that, fortunately --or not, depending on how you look at it--rather than being underweight they are fat-- much overweight. Indeed, some of these people are obese. So their health isn't very good either. But they are not starved or suffering from ailments which are due to under-nourishment in the gross-weight quantity they're served. They do, of course, also risk health problems due to a lack of certain particular nutrients which the diet lacks. There is very little Vitamin A, E, or D. most of the food is pasta in a thin tomato-based "sauce" --every day. A lot of the food is discarded or salvaged from grocery chains where it never sold because it simply wasn't appealing enough. Fruit, vegetables and breadstuffs which are at the end of their shelf-life or past it --and visibly rotting.

"Lunch is served!"

Once a month, my church hosts a community cafe where all comers are fed for free. You come in, sit down, and tell your server what you would like to eat from the limited menu. As SBL says, it's a food service, but there's hospitality, too, because helpers or parishioners eat as well. I've observed a lot of hospitality and interaction based on the times I've volunteered or was passing through doing something else like preparing for Sunday.

SBL is right. Hospitality does help break down barriers.

In harsh and dangerous environments (eg deserts), offering hospitality is literally offering life, while refusing to offer hospitality leads to potential danger and even death. I have benefited from time to time from the former, and I try my best to offer hospitality when the opportunity arises.

My favorite potlucks were at son's university pre-kindergarten childcare with its multi-national families and a church with similarly diverse parishioners. There is nothing like new food items to bring people together, spark discussion! (I'm afraid I torched a priest--the person who saved him a plate overlooked 'spicy hot' warning on Thai food I prepared. :-)

In northern Ontario, years ago at least, cabins were left unlocked with food, firewood, bedding.
I remember coming across one on a canoe trip not that far north. (We peeked, didn't touch.)

>91 margd:

In Britain we had a long history of "torching" priests, albeit in a different context, and we always made sure it was a priest of a different denomination...

Anthony Bourdain, the celebrity chef, has died (suicide). He was the host of Parts Unknown. A paragraph from the Washington Post article is related to our recent conversation about hospitality and sharing a meal:

“What I do is not complicated,” Bourdain told the New York Times in 2005. “Any stranger who shows an honest curiosity about what the locals think is the best food is going to be welcomed. When you eat their food and you seem happy, people sitting around a table open up and interesting things happen.”

Link to article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2018/06/08/anthony...

>93 pmackey:

I've never heard of the bloke (RIP) nor of whatever it is he hosted, but I think he's right. I've eaten many dishes which were initially strange to me, and always enjoyed them. I reckon if local people can eat something, so can I. But people are often surprised that a foreigner does eat their food. I've often been asked, "Can you eat this?", and people have been both surprised and pleased when I say yes. On more than one occasion the news has been excitedly shouted all over the room, "Hey, the white man eats {whatever the dish is}?"

One also has to be aware that many of the houses one might visit are very poor, but hospitality demands that they provide their best food to the visitor. It would be doubly offensive to refuse to eat something which might be all the food they have. I was vegetarian for a while when I was out for two or three years in the USA and UK, but I went back to eating meat as soon as I returned to Africa. People might have killed a goat or a chicken just because a visitor has arrived in their family or community; one can hardly say, "Sorry, I won't eat what you have prepared because I don't eat meat".

The other thing I've learned is that when you're really hungry (not just feeling hungry, but when you're in a survival-type situation where your body knows that you're not getting enough nourishment to keep you going) you'll eat just about anything, and be thankful to get it.

It's funny that a thread about feeding trolls has morphed into one about feeding people.

>95 jjwilson61:

One of the great things about LT, in my view - you never know where a thread might lead!

These replies are a lot of fucking nonsense which have next to nothing to do with reality. Time to talk turkey.

A lot of so-called "liberals" have been showing what all this virtue-signaling talk here is really worth when the real world intervenes. How many of them--of you--earnestly seek to befriend this stranger in the White House, chosen by your fellow-Americans--who you wasted no time in denigrating en masse as "deplorable"--that was one of the kinder words you had for them-- yes, elected under the well-established electoral rules--rules which you then promptly and clearly showed you were quite ready to repudiate and countermand when they produced an outcome which went against your hopes and expectations; you'd have certainly not done that had your darling HRC been elected instead-- and who you've labored day and night to villify over the past two years, not stopping at spreading half-truths and outright lies about him? Hmm? :

"So all the rules and virtues we create around "hospitality" and the sacred importance we invest in them -- it's all fundamentally about engineering a way for strangers to encounter each other safely. To turn them into not-strangers. People who can be trusted."

(-- to see things our way, since, otherwise, well, it's just clear: they can't be trusted.)

Clearly, this lovely virtu-signalling orgy doesn't apply to Donald Trump. But, much more to the point, it doesn't apply to Trump's electorate, his supporters, the fellow voters about who m I can no longer recall the number of times I've read so-called liberals publicly state and write "I don't even want to understand these people!"

Leonard Pitts: I'm Done Trying to Understand Trump Supporters

Hillary Was right all along: TRUMP Supporters Are Deplorable

Nearly half of US liberals don't want to be in the same room as Trump supporters, finds survey

"Liberals don't just hate President Trump; lots of them don't even like the idea of being in the company of his supporters.

That's the big takeaway from a new Pew Research Center survey, which is just the latest indicator of our remarkably tribal and partisan politics. And when it comes to Trump, it's difficult to overstate just how tribal the left is and how much distaste he engenders. Indeed, that distaste apparently extends even to people who decided they would like to vote for Trump."

Trump's election one year on: What do Americans think of him now? (9 November 2017) ||

“ 'It’s not so much that people love their own party more than they used to, but that they really, really hate the other party,' Seth Masket, Director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver, tells SBS World News."

Nowhere is that clearer than in online slanging matches and confrontations at political protests in the US.

Progressives are often branded ‘libtards’; a derogatory term blending the words liberals and retards.

Republicans who oppose Trump are labelled ‘cucks’; literally meaning a submissive man who is sexually cuckolded by a woman, but used by some in today’s alt-right circles to call out those showing weakness.

Meanwhile, Trump supporters are often slurred as racists, sexists and fascists.

“That kind of hatred runs pretty deep, and it’s going to be something that’s very hard to get past,” Professor Masket says.

I'm having no trouble imagining what Trump's supporters must think as they read these comments about openness and understanding of others, the stranger in our midst, etc.

They must think they've wandered into an episode of The Twilight Zone.

I suppose I'll see it objected, "That's different!--that's politics!

Oh really? And since when is life otherwise different from politics? Take these blogs here for example.

I don't see these open-hearts, warm hearts, gushing with a readiness to accept and welcome barney67. He gets exactly the treatment which I've described is very common and typical among strangers in the real world who in fact clearly indicate that, as they see it, they don't owe each other much of anything. They're not sharing anything.

It actually turns out that, when push comes to shove, many, many so-called "liberals" are not really all that interested in being open, kind, patient and understanding--unless they're comfortably in charge of calling all the essential shots. When they aren't in charge, it's clear that, as the saying goes, politics is war by other means.

>97 proximity1: I think you have a partially valid point. Being anti-Trump can be divisive, but I don't see that as the problem. It's when one side, be they liberal or conservative, disregards the "other". Incivility breeds incivility no matter what the origin.

That said, I find it laughable that Trump supporters resent the way people attack him. I remember that not so long ago the same sources (such as some personal friends, Fox News, and Facebook) were vigorously bashing Obama. It wasn't right then and, yes, it isn't right now. Bash the ideas, not the person.

It actually turns out that, when push comes to shove, many, many so-called "liberals" are really all that interested in being open, kind, patient and understanding--unless they're comfortably in charge of calling all the essential shots. When they aren't in charge, it's clear that, as the saying goes, politics is war by other means.

I think that observation is true for liberals and conservatives. Individuals want their "tribe" to be in charge. Which is how we segued into hospitality. At least hospitality is an attempt to build larger communities rather than hiding in our personal "ghettos".

>97 proximity1: I don't see these open-hearts, warm hearts, gushing with a readiness to accept and welcome barney67. He gets exactly the treatment which I've described is very common and typical among strangers in the real world who in fact clearly indicate that, as they see it, they don't owe each other much of anything. Their not sharing anything.

I do see quite a few people trying to take seriously what Barney says, trying to take him at his word and trying to engage with him by asking questions, challenging, disagreeing, seeking clarification and explanation, and perhaps chiding him a little when he declines to engage and responds with an offensive one-liner. The same courtesy was extended to you, proximity, by many posters for a long time.

>97 proximity1: Nearly half of US liberals don't want to be in the same room as Trump supporters, finds survey

After Trump was elected I withdrew from a lot of socializing with my neighbors, because I was just so, so angry. It took me months to calm down enough to risk walking back into social gatherings where politics was likely to come up. It was the first time I really understood, on a visceral level, how political views could destroy friendships -- it really took an act of will on my part to look past their vote and reclaim what mattered to me about the person. (and incidentally, it was food and books that provided the path. I'm a stress baker, so I churned out a lot of sourdough bread and banana-amaranth muffins and cranberry quickbread and it all had to go somewhere, so it often went next door)

Since then, I've been interested in how we communicate and live with people with whom we disagree -- even profoundly disagree. And the more polarized our political discourse has become, the more pressing it has seemed to me that we all need to find a way to talk to, understand, and accept the presence of those people we utterly disagree with. That disagreement does not lead to some kind of inevitable ostracization or battle lines drawn where we all camp out safe behind our self-imposed barricades of acceptable ideas.

So in that vein, one of the more interesting projects I've seen has been something called the Bridging the Divide Book Club, created by Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC.

https://www.quailridgebooks.com/bridging-divide-book-club

Sarah, the store manager whose idea it was to create the club, talked to a group of our southern booksellers about it, and the kind of work she had to do to make it a success, with a regular group of attendees and growing interest. In the first place, she had to abandon the idea of having "left" and "right" moderators for each discussion that would simply try to make their own case, or shout down the case of the other. Instead, she found she needed neutral moderators where the goal was not to foster debate, but to foster an atmosphere where everyone was willing to talk. "The aim of each discussion is to promote understanding" she said, "... “Ah, now I understand how they can think that!” ... rather than to convince anyone of a particular point of view."

She also, unsurprisingly, had to work at getting conservative people to attend, since indie bookstores are generally considered bastions of echo-chamber liberal-thinking. And she admitted that the biggest hurdle was to convince participants to read things that made them uncomfortable. This included not just liberal-leaning books like Between the World and Me but also conservative perspectives like The Intimidation Game.

It's been so successful that the American Booksellers for Free Expression are using it as a model to encourage similar book clubs in other places, what they call "The Open Discussion Project."

It says something about our society, though, that in order for a discussion to happen around a divisive issue, the moderators need to be not experts in the topic, but trained in conflict resolution techniques.

>100 southernbooklady: the goal was not to foster debate, but to foster an atmosphere where everyone was willing to talk. "The aim of each discussion is to promote understanding" she said, "... “Ah, now I understand how they can think that!” ... rather than to convince anyone of a particular point of view."

Wouldn't it be nice if this LT Pro and Con thread could be like that? I suspect a few of us have hoped over the years that it would, but no luck so far.

>101 John5918: People have said that about the LT Religion threads, but to be honest, they functioned exactly that way for me. I came away from most discussions feeling like I had a better understanding of what people meant by faith and belief, although without ever being convinced or converted.

Ironically, I think the more I have had my positions challenged, the more I had to defend what I thought, the more grounded and confident I became, and thus the more willing I was to talk to others and be challenged further. It's like the goal for me became not "win this argument" but "can you convince yourself?" And really, you know, Rome didn't burn because I discovered irreconcilable differences with some posters. It's just an internet forum, after all.

>102 southernbooklady:

Indeed. I don't disagree with you on the end result. It just doesn't always feel like that when the unpleasantness (as opposed to disagreement) is ongoing.

>100 southernbooklady:

Thank you but, that is just so patronizing of you* that I finally see that I cannot continue this "exchange" (LOL!) in good faith. Your comments lack a certain depth, urgency and sincerity which I can more readily find from watching The Hillside Singers' wonderful explanation of how they'd really like to teach the world to sing--in perfect harmony--watching it over and over and over again, followed by watching the Grammy-award winning charity song-fest, "We Are the World (We Are the Children)" over and over again; it seems to me that I have a much greater chance of getting through to the video-screen and receiving, in answer, something pertinent that indicates that a point has actually gotten through.

"In all, more than 45 of America's top musicians participated in the recording, and another 50 had to be turned away."

If they'd all personally given 1.5m USD, they'd have raised more than the initial 63m USD raised for charity. Or they could have done "stress-baking."

________

* After you'd (at least internally, to yourself) condemned your neighbors for their having supported Trump, you then found that you, not your neighbors—who perhaps weren't aware that they'd done something terrible, leading to what you first saw as your justifiable estrangement from them—you required a long process of expiation; and, to accomplish that, you baked a lot of stuff and offered it to them.

Weird! And patronizing! And you've accomplished some sort of remakable patronizing triple-play: you've revisted the former case involving your neighborhood Trump supporters, and you've renewed it now again by making them, once more, a prop in your never-ending self-satisfying virtue-signalling, and, finally, you've added me to the crowd of props in this scenario which seems to run in your head like an endless loop.

Your neighbors didn't need any of that. And I certainly don't need it.

Instead of having actually worked through and gotten past your insulting attitudes toward your neighbors, you used the very people you'd misjudged and treated shabbily as instruments in a mental exercise to double-down on your having been right, so, in the end your constantly reasserted virtue-signaling is reconfirmed, making others the instruments of this process as usual. Why? Because you're going to overlook their 'faults', their failed judgments and in effect you're going to do what amounts to forgiving them of these—these faults and failings in which they're sure to continue—and go back to neighborly relations in spite of the neighbors' faults.

It seems that at no point do you ever raise an effective note of self-suspecting reflection. You're apparently completely impervious to getting outside this pathetic persona of yours and holding it up for some serious critical review.

>104 proximity1: What a nasty little post.

>105 RickHarsch: Yes, >104 proximity1: was a thoroughly nasty post. Reminds me of Ebenezer Scrooge before his change of heart.

Mysogynists at the UN call her style "schoolmarm"--refreshing c.f. her boss, even if I may not agree.
Here's Nikki Haley's intent:

Haley tells high schoolers to avoid 'own the libs'-style online behavior
Maya Lora | July 23, 2018

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley kicked off a conservative conference of high school students on Monday by urging attendees to avoid inflammatory language in favor of demonstrating real leadership.

"Raise your hand if you've ever posted anything online to quote-unquote 'own the libs,' " Haley asked at the High School Leadership Summit at George Washington University.

The vast majority raised their hands in response, and then erupted into spontaneous applause.

"I know that it's fun and that it can feel good, but step back and think about what you're accomplishing when you do this - are you persuading anyone? Who are you persuading?" Haley asked. "We've all been guilty of it at some point or another, but this kind of speech isn't leadership - it's the exact opposite."

"Real leadership is about persuasion, it's about movement, it's bringing people around to your point of view," she added. "Not by shouting them down, but by showing them how it is in their best interest to see things the way you do."...

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/398466-haley-tells-high-schoole...

Not specific to trolls. Analysis of Twitter language fits with my observations when I moved from Canada to US eons ago, though no doubt there have been changes. Canadian perspectives weren't that different from Americans', but expression ("linguistic behavior") of them sure were! (Remember Trump:Trudeau interactions?) Lots of opportunities to misread one another... Sometimes I felt that one of my more useful functions at work meetings was to "translate" on the sidelines during breaks.

Canadians' and Americans' Twitter language mirrors national stereotypes, researchers find
November 21, 2018, McMaster University

...Canadians were far more positive on Twitter, using words such as: great, thanks, good, amazing, and happy. Americans tended to use more negative words like: hate, miss, mad, feel, swear, tired. Americans preferred emojis, whereas Canadians preferred emoticons. Americans also used more netspeak like 'lol', 'idk', and 'af'.

..."There isn't any hard evidence to support that an average American's and average Canadian's personality traits are different."

"Someone who uses very Canadian words has a personality matching the stereotype of a Canadian, and someone who uses very American words has a personality matching the stereotype of an American."

"The team argues that their results show an identity construction strategy in action: Canadians and Americans may create their national character stereotype through their language use."

https://phys.org/news/2018-11-canadians-americans-twitter-language-mirrors.html
__________________________________________________________________

Snefjella B, Schmidtke D, Kuperman V (2018) National character stereotypes mirror language use: A study of Canadian and American tweets. PLoS ONE 13(11): e0206188. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206188 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0206188

Abstract

National character stereotypes, or beliefs about the personality characteristics of the members of a nation, present a paradox. Such stereotypes have been argued to not be grounded in the actual personality traits of members of nations, yet they are also prolific and reliable. Stereotypes of Canadians and Americans exemplify the paradox; people in both nations strongly believe that the personality profiles of typical Canadians and Americans diverge, yet aggregated self-reports of personality profiles of Canadians and Americans show no reliable differences. We present evidence that the linguistic behavior of nations mirrors national character stereotypes. Utilizing 40 million tweets from the microblogging platform Twitter, in Study 1A we quantify the words and emojis diagnostic of Canadians and Americans. In Study 1B we explore the positivity of national language use. In Studies 2A and 2B, we present the 120 most nationally diagnostic words and emojis of each nation to naive participants, and ask them to assess personality of a hypothetical person who uses either diagnostically Canadian or American words and emojis. Personality profiles derived from the diagnostic words of each nation bear close resemblance to national character stereotypes. We therefore propose that national character stereotypes may be partially grounded in the collective linguistic behaviour of nations.

Women are abused every 30 seconds on Twitter, according to a new investigation
Emma Newburger | 12/19/2018

...Amnesty International and Element AI, a global artificial intelligence software product company, surveyed millions of tweets received by 778 journalists and politicians from the U.K. and U.S. in 2017. Using machine learning to analyze the data, the group extrapolated just how wide-ranging abuse toward women is on Twitter.*

...1.1 million abusive tweets were sent to the women in the study throughout the year. Abuse towards women of color, especially black women, was worse. Black women were 84 percent more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets related to gender, race and sexuality, and one in 10 tweets mentioning black women was abusive or problematic, compared to one in 15 for white women.

The research revealed that abuse occurred equally across the political spectrum. Female journalists in the study wrote for ideologically varied publications including the Daily Mail, The New York Times, the Guardian, The Sun, Gal-Dem, PinkNews and Breitbart.

...The investigation focused on women journalists and politicians, but women from all walks of life experience online abuse.

...Glitch, a U.K.-based non-profit organization working to end online abuse.

...Amnesty's "Troll Patrol," a crowdsourcing project designed to process large-scale data about online abuse.

...In its latest biannual transparency report, released last week, Twitter said it received reports on over 2.8 million "unique accounts" for abuse, nearly 2.7 million accounts for "hateful" speech, and 1.35 million accounts for violent threats. Of those, the company took action — which includes up to account suspension — on about 250,000 for abuse, 285,000 for hateful conduct and just over 42,000 for violent threats.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/18/women-are-abused-every-30-seconds-on-twitter-new...

_____________________________________________________________________

*TROLL PATROL FINDINGS
Using Crowdsourcing, Data Science & Machine Learning to
Measure Violence and Abuse against Women on Twitter

... 7.1% of tweets sent to the women in the study were “problematic” or “abusive”. This amounts to 1.1 million tweets mentioning 778 women across the year, or one every 30 seconds.

Women of colour, (black, Asian, Latinx and mixed-race women) were 34% more likely to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets than white women.

Black women were disproportionately targeted, being 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets.

Online abuse targets women from across the political spectrum - politicians and journalists faced similar levels of online abuse and we observed both liberals and conservatives alike, as well as left and right leaning media organisations, were targeted...

https://decoders.amnesty.org/projects/troll-patrol/findings

Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong
Brian Resnick | Jan 4, 2019

Why it’s so hard to see our own ignorance, and what to do about it.

...there are three main challenges on the path to (intellectual) humility:

In order for us to acquire more intellectual humility, we all, even the smartest among us, need to better appreciate our cognitive blind spots. Our minds are more imperfect and imprecise than we’d often like to admit. Our ignorance can be invisible.

Even when we overcome that immense challenge and figure out our errors, we need to remember we won’t necessarily be punished for saying, “I was wrong.”
And we need to be braver about saying it. We need a culture that celebrates those words.

We’ll never achieve perfect intellectual humility. So we need to choose our convictions thoughtfully.

...a method of thinking. It’s about entertaining the possibility that you may be wrong and being open to learning from the experience of others. Intellectual humility is about being actively curious about your blind spots. One illustration is in the ideal of the scientific method, where a scientist actively works against her own hypothesis, attempting to rule out any other alternative explanations for a phenomenon before settling on a conclusion. It’s about asking: What am I missing here?

It doesn’t require a high IQ or a particular skill set. It does, however, require making a habit of thinking about your limits, which can be painful.

...(Yanny/laurel, the dress) naive realism: the feeling that our perception of the world is the truth.

...When people talk or write about the Dunning-Kruger effect (That’s where people of low ability — let’s say, those who fail to understand logic puzzles — tend to unduly overestimate their abilities), it’s almost always in reference to other people. “The fact is this is a phenomenon that visits all of us sooner or later,” Dunning says. We’re all overconfident in our ignorance from time to time...“But the problem with it is we see it in other people, and we don’t see it in ourselves. The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club.”

... Adam Fetterman, a social psychologist at the University of Texas El Paso, has found in a few studies, wrongness admission isn’t usually judged harshly. “When we do see someone admit that they are wrong, the wrongness admitter is seen as more communal, more friendly,” he says. It’s almost never the case, in his studies, “that when you admit you’re wrong, people think you are less competent.”

...some people who will troll you for your mistakes. There might be a mob on Twitter that converges in order to shame you. Some moments of humility could be humiliating. But this fear must be vanquished if we are to become less intellectually arrogant and more intellectually humble.

...two solutions — among many — to make psychological science more humble, and I think we can learn from them.

One is that humility needs to be built into the standard practices of the science. And that happens through transparency.

...And two, there needs to be more celebration of failure, and a culture that accepts it. That includes building safe places for people to admit they were wrong

...For a democracy to flourish, (Michael Lynch, a University of Connecticut philosophy professor) argues, we need a balance between convictions — our firmly held beliefs — and humility. We need convictions, because “an apathetic electorate is no electorate at all,” he says. And we need humility because we need to listen to one another. Those two things will always be in tension.

The Trump presidency suggests there’s too much conviction and not enough humility in our current culture...

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/1/4/17989224/intellectual-humility-e...

>110 margd:

Thanks, margd, for a thoughtful piece.

two solutions — among many

Very important point. Often there is no single "correct" answer. It doesn't always have to be a zero sum game, black or white, either/or. Me being right doesn't necessarily make you wrong, and vice versa. We may both be right - or both partly right, leading us to a "third way" which is even better than either of our individual answers.

>110 margd:

Smug certainty is one of the defining scourges of our time. Of course there were other periods of "high-water marks" in this phenomenon but our contemporary version is pathetic and disgusting. THIS SITE is a poster-child picture of this tendency. In particular, highly-credentialed fools are specialists in unwarranted certainty and a lack of intellectual humility.

Ours is a crushingly conformist time, a paradise for over-achieving impostors, people who never outwardly show any sign of doubts or any circumspection. Admitting that one is wrong is one of the most taboo of current behaviors. It's the practically unforgivable sin of our time. We deserve all the many-faceted ways in which this idiocy wrecks havoc upon us. It's fully self-inflicted.

That you should post on this topic is truly hilarious.

>112 proximity1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gT1m8tKlL4

An insult, I'm sure, but this one from Brexit thread (Boris Johnson to Jeremy Corbyn) made me laugh:
"Call an election, you great big girl's blouse."
__________________________________

Some more, I assume mostly from England, including my favourite, mumpsimus:

Rare and Amusing Insults: Cockalorum, Snollygoster, and More
How dare you called me a ninnyhammer you pillock!
Last Updated: 1 May 2019

...Mumpsimus - a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong

Supposedly, this insult originated with an illiterate priest who said mumpsimus rather than sumpsimus ("we have taken" in Latin) during mass. When he was corrected, the priest replied that he would not change his old mumpsimus for his critic's new sumpsimus...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/top-10-rare-and-amusing-insults-vo...

>114 margd: How dare you called me a ninnyhammer you pillock!

There's an old story told to me many years ago by a Geordie* priest about the rugby match where one of the visting team called one of the home team a sod. The referee called him over and rebuked him, "You shouldn't have called that bugger a sod!"

* North east of England

Every Monday morning I enjoy Miss Manners. She has a wonderful way of either helping people handle awkward situations or putting them in their place. This past Monday was one question that made me think of one particular person.

Dear Miss Manners: I swear too much and act like a jerk online.

Gentle Reader: Then please cut it out.

Ba-dum-bum

>116 mamzel:

"Every Monday morning I enjoy Miss Manners."

Well, that fucking figures. You and the comedy show "Saturday-Night-Live's" Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" so enjoy Miss Manners.

Now "isn't that special!?"




_____________________

* (Judith (Perlman) Martin)

Note: ... "August 29, 2013, Martin's children, Nicholas and Jacobina, began sharing credit for her columns." (Wikipedia)

>116 mamzel:

Back in the days when I used to frequent the cocktail bunfights at the British Embassy, the colonel's wife was a really polished socialite who could keep any conversation going with the response, "Oh really? Do you think so? How interesting". One evening I witnessed an Irishman who had had one or two too many tell her to her face that she was a stuck up snob. Sure enough, she replied with a bright smile, "Oh really? Do you think so? How interesting".

>117 proximity1: "Oh really? Do you think so? How interesting."

>119 mamzel:

And not just interesting--hilarious. You, "Miss Manners" and "the Church Lady" of "Saturday Night Live"' s Dana Carvey make a hilarious threesome.

_________________________

RE the title of this silly thread, see:

(Wired Magazine) "Nobody Knows What 'Troll' Means Anymore"

Stop engaging with online trolls altogether, public figures say (Guardian)

Actors, television personalities and politicians are calling on their colleagues to stop giving fuel to online trolls in an effort to stop the spread of hate and abuse online.

The former England footballer Gary Lineker, the former home secretary Alan Johnson, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, the anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali and the comedian and actor Eddie Izzard are among those uniting on Monday to advise people to stop engaging with trolls altogether online.

Izzard told the Guardian that acknowledging them was to effectively hand over a “megaphone” so they could spread their views to an even larger audience.

The call by these public figures is part of the launch of a new guide for victims of online trolling called Don’t Feed the Trolls, launched by the new Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)...

"Internet 'troll' " : a person whose perceptive critical analyses annoy complacent fools by reminding them of the inconvenient truths and facts they are so stubbornly trying to ignore.

>122 proximity1:

Hm. I'll be surprised the day I come across a troll whose analyses are perceptive or critical (in the sense of critical thinking as opposed to just negative criticism) nor whose posts are founded on truths.

The best way to deal with online trolls? Do like Rachel Riley – starve them of oxygen (Guardian)

As Countdown’s human calculator has shown with her Twitter abusers, blocking them – and not engaging – is a better way of dealing with them...

Barack Obama calls out 'politically woke' social media generation
Guardian | Oct 30, 2019 (1:53)

The former US president Barack Obama has spoken against call-out culture. 'I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people ... that the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people and that's enough.' Obama said that achieving change was a much more difficult issue than simply using social media. 'That is not activism, that is not bringing about change. If all you're doing is casting stones, you are probably not going to get that far,' the 44th US president said at the the Obama Foundation summit on Tuesday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM

(Cue caster-of-stones.)

>125 margd:

Wise words.

I was surprised that someone on LT, who regularly pops into a thread I'm on and trolls me (with the most inane comments) alluded to me as a troll. I guess 'troll' is in the eye of the beholder.

>127 madpoet:

Completely.

A D political consultant's whimsical rationale for blocking individuals on Twitter--at least he's given it some thought!

Philippe Reines @PhilippeReines |
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
Rules are rules. No exemptions.

g
Image ( https://twitter.com/PhilippeReines/status/1229767070495191040/photo/1 )

He sounds like the kind of windbag who can ruin a whole party on his own by shouting a protracted, uninteresting story he absolutely refuses to wrap up, even after it's clear no one cares. Small wonder he dislikes the Donald, whose tweets are always snappy and to the point.

How You Can Fight Russia's Plans to Troll Americans During Campaign 2020
Marek N. Posard, James V. Marrone, Todd C. Helmus | July 14, 2020

..Reflexive control is, in part, the intellectual basis for current Russian efforts to more broadly interfere with U.S. elections and democracy. If you understand reflexive control then you can better understand Russian strategy—and devise ways to combat it.

The theory is mathematically dense, drawing on models from the study of graphs and abstract algebra. But the core idea is simple: The theory assumes that people live in a polarized world of cooperation versus conflict. And it describes how people make decisions based on who they view as friends or enemies—and how they think others view them. The Russians are trying to feed information to distort these views.

The end goal for these efforts is to trigger emotional reactions and drive people to ideological extremes, making it nearly impossible to build a consensus. The Russians also hope those who are not driven to extreme positions will throw up their hands in frustration and check out. The result is political paralysis.

...Tech firms have a responsibility to root out Russian social media content and ensure their users are who they claim to be. Political, religious, and civic leaders could bring people together and help build consensus on divisive issues—like race relations, immigration, and economic inequality—that Russia may try to exploit.

Americans are less likely to have their emotions manipulated if they are aware that manipulation is the goal.

Most importantly, users could be more careful about what information they share online. Don't forward content from unknown sources. Don't post content that you have not fact-checked. Be aware that even a humorous meme may have an underlying dark goal—to make you think less of another group.

Americans are less likely to have their emotions manipulated if they are aware that manipulation is the goal. Behind the veil of extreme positions are groups of people who may well have much in common. It's important to recognize that disinformation efforts targeted at emotional beliefs could further decay the national discourse.

https://www.rand.org/blog/2020/07/how-you-can-fight-russias-plans-to-troll-ameri...

'Purveyors of hate have turned trolling into a business. We have the power to turn the tables' (Guardian)

There’s a hot new profession on the rise with incredible career prospects, flexible working hours and the opportunity to work from home. A fast-paced job in a rapidly growing industry that can catapult you from pen-pusher to proprietor without a single second of overtime. What is this highly desirable position? I present to you the dastardly role of the outrage-monger.

They are the purveyors of hate who have turned trolling into a business model; the intentionally racist and strategically classist bloggers, columnists and frequently reported Twitter accounts, triggering your impulses and eliciting your responses. Responses that provide that coveted currency of the social media age: engagement. So with every furious tweet or seething screenshot we do little but increase their stock value. But it is also we who have the power to turn the tables...

Brittlestar @brittlestar | 10:59 PM · Mar 24, 2021:

A REMINDER ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA...
1:44 ( https://twitter.com/brittlestar/status/1374918807840559107 )

>133 margd: Absolutely love this. I’ve been taking my Extra Strength dosage and I feel so very much better.

Thanks for a day brightener.

Don’t Let Anyone Normalize January 6
David Frum | Aug 1, 2021

...The post-Trump right has a style as distinctive as its authoritarian substance: trolling, ironic, evasive. It expresses itself in rhetorical questions, in false alternatives, in sleights of phrase, in mocking deflections. It does not openly declare its intentions, in part because it does not dare to—and in part because it itself does not yet fully know. Those of us who have walked away from this betrayal of our earlier beliefs can discern the resemblance to the fascism of the last century. But those heading toward the new destination do not see so clearly, distracted as they are by the wisecracks that they are tweeting as they trudge...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/january-6-minimizers/619634/

Ten Rules of Twitter
David Frum | Oct 25, 2021
https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1452532317176713216/photo/1
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David Frum @davidfrum | 3:07 AM · Oct 25, 2021
Years ago, I developed 5 rules to guide my own use Twitter. I've since revised and expanded them to 10. I used some of the time freed by Nigerian government Twitter censorship to codify them. I cannot say I never lapse. But for those who might find them useful, here they are.

>136 margd:

LoL! I have only one rule to guide me in re using Twitter.

1. Don't

Being trolled online? Here’s the best solution: Walk away.
Megan McArdle | July 7, 2022

...Trolls are not misguided people who accidentally hurt your feelings. They are rage-filled narcissists who want two things: your attention and your pain. Any response you can think of just gives them what they want.

When you argue, they rejoice that you care about their opinion. When you complain that it hurts, they revel in your agony. When others leap in to explain how traumatizing this all is, they’re even more satisfied — now they have everyone’s attention! The only way to punish trolls is to refuse to acknowledge that they exist. Better yet, don’t care...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/07/trolls-internet-tiktok-social...

Pyramid of debate:
https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1566475861653594114/photo/1

How to Change Minds? A Study Makes the Case for Talking It Out.
Researchers found that meaty conversations among several people can align beliefs and brain patterns — so long as the group is free of blowhards.
Virginia Hughes | Sept. 16, 2022

...A few years ago, Dr. (Beau Sievers, a social neuroscientist at Dartmouth College) devised a study to improve understanding of how exactly a group of people achieves a consensus and how their individual brains change after such discussions. The results, recently published online but not yet peer-reviewed, showed that a robust conversation that results in consensus synchronizes the talkers’ brains — not only when thinking about the topic that was explicitly discussed, but related situations that were not.

The study also revealed at least one factor that makes it harder to reach accord: a group member whose strident opinions drown out everyone else...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/science/group-consensus-persuasion-brain-alig...

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Beau Sievers et al. 2022. How consensus-building conversation changes our minds and aligns our brains. PsyArXiv Created: July 12, 2020 | Last edited: August 19, 2022. DOI10.31234/osf.io/562z7 https://psyarxiv.com/562z7

Preprint not yet peer-reviewed.

Abstract
How do people come to share a way of seeing the world? We show that consensus-building conversation can align future brain activity. We scanned participants' brains as they watched previously unseen movie clips with ambiguous narrative content. Participants then gathered in conversation groups with the goal of coming to a consensus about each movie clip’s narrative. Finally, participants were scanned while viewing the clips again, along with novel clips from the same movies. We found that group members' neural activity became more aligned after conversation, with groups achieving distinctive patterns of alignment reflecting their unique discussion. This alignment persisted over novel clips, framing new but related information. Groups with participants perceived as having high social status showed less alignment, while groups with participants who were central in their real-world social networks showed greater alignment. High-status participants signaled disbelief in others' proposals and spoke more, producing unequal turn-taking within their groups. By contrast, high-centrality participants encouraged others to speak, producing more equal turn-taking. Further, high-centrality participants were more likely to adapt their own brain activity to their group. These results suggest that the effects of conversation on private thought are a powerful determinant of social influence.

Made me laugh!

https://twitter.com/wonderofscience/status/1577637225671536640

The Ten Commandments of Logic

1. Ad hominem — Thou shall not attack the person’s character, but the argument.
2. Straw man fallacy — Thou shall not misrepresent or exaggerate a person’s argument in order to make them easier to attack.
3. Hasty generalization — Thou shall not use small numbers to represent the whole.
4. Begging the question — Thou shall not argue thy position by assuming one of its premises is true.
5. Post Hoc/False cause — Thou shall not claim that because something occurred before, it must be the cause.
6. False dichotomy — Thou shall not reduce the argument down to two possibilities.
7. Ad ignorantum — Thou shall not argue that because of our ignorance, claim must be true or false.
8. Burden of proof reversal — Thou shall not lay the burden of proof onto him that is questioning the claim.
9. Non sequitur — Thou shall not assume “this” follows “that” when it has no logical connection.
10. Bandwagon fallacy — Thou shall not claim that because a premise is popular, therefore it must be true.

https://medium.com/@kuangalia/the-ten-commandments-of-logic-d4c9f0e08482

As Musk reshapes Twitter, academics ponder taking flight
Many researchers are setting up profiles on social media site Mastodon
Kai Kupferschmidt | 4 Nov 2022

...(Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan) won’t leave Twitter as long as the good outweighs the bad. “If the people who like to tell me I’m a stupid/fat/ugly/old/unfuckable/unloveable/compromised/corrupt/conflicted/incompetent bitch get a free pass to say whatever without constraint or moderation, the cost-benefit analysis would change for me”...

https://www.science.org/content/article/musk-reshapes-twitter-academics-ponder-t...

Low self-esteem and high FOMO (fear of missing out) are psychological mechanisms that play an important role in trolling, study suggests
Eric W. Dolan | August 11, 2023
https://www.psypost.org/2023/08/low-self-esteem-and-high-fomo-are-psychological-...
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Isabella Leandra Silva Santos e al. 2023. Low Self-Esteem, High FOMO? The Other Side of the Internet Troll. Pychological Reports. First published online June 10, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941231183136 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00332941231183136