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mutterc comments on On Debates with Trolls - Less Wrong
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I'm unfamiliar with this particular instance, but I've engaged trolls on Fark before, for these reasons:
1) Some trolls just give up when taken calmly seriously at face value, as opposed to getting hit with indignation.
2) Bored at work.
3) They provide such wonderful strawmen against which to clarify my own thoughts and sharpen my arguments.
4) In some discussions (political ones especially), Poe's Law applies, oftentimes real people hold real opinions that are as blunt as trolls' opinions.
In the discussed case I have little doubts that the said troll indeed held most of the opinions he has expressed here. To clarify, by "troll" I mean someone who argues for fun of arguing and without caring a bit about the standards of a reasonable discussion; a troll needn't to pretend holding opinions which he in fact doesn't share. (My use of "not being sincere" in the OP might be misleading in this respect.)