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JoshuaZ comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 3 - Less Wrong
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Slashdot threads have a bad enough signal to noise ratio as is. Please don't do that sort of thing.
Should I stop doing this too? Or at least wait until people start challenging the term "top theologian"?
Yes, as a regular reader of Slashdot, I'd prefer if you didn't do that. I don't see what you are accomplishing from these remarks. It really does come across as simple trolling.
You know what, bro? I'm not even going to ask your opinion about this.
Notable:
That's at least humorous although I have to inquire if the other AC who replies to you about also being a Christian on Slashdot is also you.
Edit: Also, to be clear: My general response whenever these sorts of dark arts come up is very simple: If one needs to do this to get people convinced of you position that's a cause to worry if one's position is actually correct.
Um, I don't believe the position I linked if that's what you're worried about...
No, I mean you are deliberately portraying an alternate position as stupid apparently hoping that people will think that reversed intelligence is stupidity. That's a serious dark art. So if one is going to do that sort of thing one should worry that maybe one's position is really not correct.
Hm, good point. I guess I am fake justifying. I'll admit, I like to troll, and I'm kinda let down that no one has ever objected to the term "top theologian", saying, "wait, what exactly do you have to do to count as a top theologian? What predictions, exactly?"
I actually participate as a "friendly troll" on a private board on gamefaqs.com. "Friendly troll" in that most everyone there knows I'm a troll and just makes fun of the people who make serious replies to my topics; and I casually chat with people there about what troll topics I should make. The easiest one is, "Isn't evolution still basically just a theory at this point?"
In high school (late 90s), I would troll chatrooms and print transcripts to share with my friends the next day. One of them was a real "internet paladin" type and said, "people like you should be banned from the internet". My crowning "achievement" was to say a bunch of offensive stuff in a gameroom on a card game site, which got a moderator called in; but by that point, everyone was yelling really offensive stuff at me, and got themselves banned. I was left alone because I made (mocking) apologies just in time, and the moderator couldn't scroll up enough to see most of my earlier comments.
I've mostly toned it down and gotten away from it but I still do it here and there. Well, not here, but you get the point.
It can be fun, I will guiltily admit, but not nearly as much fun as trying to present what you actually believe in a clever enough way that somebody goes... click. (In which endeavour, by all means be sarcastic and use pathos).
You have to do some sort of calculus on what the upshot of this trolling is though... if the upshot is increased irrationality, well, there isn't much functional difference between you and your alter ego.
And all the Anonymous_Coward arguments I've seen that you listed are BETTER arguments (sad as that is) than most sincere ones in support of similar conclusions. The Good Soldier Ċ vejk isn't actually supposed to be a good soldier. :P
Hm, so you're saying I should use my clever trolling skills to promote rationality, instead of to unsuccessfully satirize irrationality?
Because I used to do the reverse: whenever someone was making irritatingly stupid arguments, I would just add that technique to my trolling arsenal.