David_Gerard comments on On Debates with Trolls - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (248)
Indeed. I'm not even sure the user in question was a troll by intention (even if they were one functionally) - being persistent and dense beyond reason is a highly plausible trait of participants in Internet philosophy discussions, after all, particularly when the participant has their very own site all about what they're talking about.
That is, the label "troll" assigns intent in a way that is not actually all that relevant to the problem, which is the behaviour, when you can accurately describe the problematic behaviour.
"I prefer trolls to cranks, because trolls sometimes rest." - Alexandre Dumas (fils) (loose translation)