Official War Room Awards 2017

[TheGreatA]

Not really. Once I figure out someone's not representing themselves honestly I lose all interest in them. I'll leave the online roleplaying games to others.

Sure, whatever. You've got your own little gimmick to protect here, as we all do.

 

[Trotsky]

I'm sure you do. Yet, you've probably reflected on many of your deeply embedded thoughts and been forced to strengthen your own arguments, as a result of such trolls, offering opposite view-points regardless of where they actually stand.

I simply acknowledge the obvious value that there is, beyond personal judgments. I've "trolled" many people into being better men than they were.

I think your view of the "troll" is distorted in its emphasis on promulgation of genuine, not artificial, political voice. When someone exaggerates a political opinion by supplementing it with disinformation, you think that's still valuable? When we know for a fact that huge swaths of the polity base their political judgments on outright untruths?

 

[VivaRevolution]

I didn't spend much time in the private chat, just towards the very end, right before it got deleted.


I never understood the need to role play online. I just don't get the attraction as it seems like a hassle trying to keep years worth of posts in sync. Then again lots of hobbies seem like a waste of time to me, and I'm sure some people would say the same thing about the time spent in the WR.

Yeah, I'll laugh at someone tripping someone, and the person falling and getting hurt, but I'm not ever the one to do that.

Some people are. It is part of their identity, just as not doing so, is apart of mine.

I imagine it is a similar dynamic at play.

 

[TheGreatA]

I think your view of the "troll" is distorted in its emphasis on promulgation of genuine, not artificial, political voice. When someone exaggerates a political opinion by supplementing it with disinformation, you think that's still valuable? When we know for a fact that huge swaths of the polity base their political judgments on outright untruths?

Sure, it's valuable, if it provokes discussion. All of us have surely exaggerated political opinions and supplemented them with disinformation. It's called "bullshitting your way through an argument" because your ego is too big to take a step backwards even when your knowledge isn't up to par. It's up to the other party to point out the bullshit. If they can't then they are too ignorant to really complain about it. I've bullshitted my way through many arguments, as I'm sure you have, and many others.

Correcting other people's bullshit, when the bullshit goes against our interests, is our duty as people. As long as we do our duty, we ought to be fine. The bullshit eventually gets called out.

If we are too ignorant to defend our interests, then well, that's just too damn bad.

 

[TheGreatA]

You get a really strange value out of the war room then. Yeah I noticed rip. I noticed him because, even by war room standards, he was remarkably stupid and a very clear gimmick. If you're only goal out of posting here is to get noticed, then yeah, I could see how you would applaud that. But I think, or at least hope, that you're in the minority here.

I've been posting here for way too long, but the value I get out of the war room is the same I get from any active discussion, in that I hear a wide variety of opinions. Some are intelligent and sway my thinking, some are worthless, and some, while I might complete disagree with them, at least give me an insight as to what other people might think. There's certainly more value in that than simply getting noticed.

I mean, in a real life interaction where you are trying to convince someone of something, do you try to lay out thoughtful insight, or just stare them in the eyes while you blatantly shit your pants? The second option will most certainly get you more noticed, but I'd be surprised if you truly value that more.

And christ, doing what rip did was hardly an intellectual feat. Anyone could just take some bombastic approach to discussion and spew out nonsense to attract attention. I mean, what does a troll actually provoke in terms of thought beyond "is this guy serious?"

When I try to convince someone, I look at the person at hand, and do whatever it requires to achieve the convincing, if the person is worth being convinced. Sometimes laying out "intellectual insight" isn't the way to go on about it. I would say that most people do not give a shit about someone laying intellectual insight on them, compared to other factors.

A well-timed joke, or a brutal trashing of some poor individual on opposite political side, can get the job done much easier, with less research done on the subject.

 

[Ruprecht]

Sure, whatever. You've got your own little gimmick to protect here, as we all do.

I think you're projecting. Although it's been a while, I've known enough sherdoggers in real life to know for a fact that not everyone here is full of shit and any "gimmick" I'm presenting is purely reflexive.
It doesn't stop with the legitimacy of beliefs either, but how much real interest and effort someone puts into an issue.
I argued with Gotti for ages about global warming while I was unsure of how legitimate he was, but when he made it obvious to me that he'd never even read the IPCC reports he was criticising, the discussion became completely meaningless and I stopped replying to him at all.
If you get your kicks from online roleplaying games and drama more power to you I guess. Certainly no shortage of that crap out there.

 

[Trotsky]

Sure, it's valuable, if it provokes discussion. All of us have surely exaggerated political opinions and supplemented them with disinformation. It's called "bullshitting your way through an argument" because your ego is too big to take a step backwards even when your knowledge isn't up to par. It's up to the other party to point out the bullshit. If they can't then they are too ignorant to really complain about it. I've bullshitted my way through many arguments, as I'm sure you have, and many others.

Correcting other people's bullshit, when the bullshit goes against our interests, is our duty as people. As long as we do our duty, we ought to be fine. The bullshit eventually gets called out.

If we are too ignorant to defend our interests, then well, that's just too damn bad.

If you don't mind my being curt, I think you're bullshitting your way through this argument. It's the philosophical equivalent of not just decriminalizing, but normalizing yelling "fire!" in crowded venues because, over time, people should find a way to discern genuine alarms, or else burn alive (then well, that's just too damn bad).

 

[TheGreatA]

I think you're projecting. Although it's been a while, I've known enough sherdoggers in real life to know for a fact that not everyone here is full of shit and any "gimmick" I'm presenting is purely reflexive.
It doesn't stop with the legitimacy of beliefs either, but how much real interest and effort someone puts into an issue.
I argued with Gotti for ages about global warming while I was unsure of how legitimate he was, but when he made it obvious to me that he'd never even read the IPCC reports he was criticising the discussion became completely meaningless and I stopped replying to him.
If you get your kicks from online roleplaying games and drama more power to you I guess. Certainly no shortage of that crap out there.

I think we all get a kick out of it, that's why we are here.

If you were looking for "rational, intelligent discussion", free of drama or online role-playing, you wouldn't be in a place called the freakin' "War Room" on a MMA forum.

 

[Ruprecht]

I think we all get a kick out of it, that's why we are here.

If you were looking for "rational, intelligent discussion", free of drama or online role-playing, you wouldn't be in a place called the freakin' "War Room" on a MMA forum.

Sure I would. Most people in here are in some fashion my peers, and I can discuss issues here without having to care about the fallout that comes from having these discussions with friends, family and work colleagues.
Like I said... projecting. I fully believe that's why you're here though.

 

[TheGreatA]

If you don't mind my being curt, I think you're bullshitting your way through this argument. It's the philosophical equivalent of not just decriminalizing, but normalizing yelling "fire!" in crowded venues because, over time, people should find a way to discern genuine alarms, or else burn alive (then well, that's just too damn bad).

I think my position on this subject is perfectly consistent.

Your example here misses the point. We are not residing in a physical place such as the theater, where the physical damage of doing such a thing can be catastrophic. I've already acknowledged the very real difference in a public forum, and the internet.

On the internet, one must be willing to "decriminalize" and look past the misbehaviour of people under anonymity, because in truth, that's what makes it a place worth staying. Without that feature, despite all of the obvious frustrations involved in managing such folk, the internet would not have been worth inventing, because then it did not serve to liberate them from the normal social circumstances that often serve to prevent any growth in their thought.

If the internet becomes simply an extension of "real-life" where we come to play all the same roles as we do in normal social circumstances, where our names and social standing is at stake, where pressure can be exerted to prevent us from "going too far", then there is no real benefit to its existence, outside of turning us more autistic and less capable of conducting face-to-face conversations.

 

[TheGreatA]

Sure I would. Most people in here are in some fashion my peers, and I can discuss issues here without having to care about the fallout that comes from having these discussions with friends, family and work colleagues.
Like I said... projecting. I fully believe that's why you're here though.

So essentially you're playing an exaggerated version of yourself here, saying things that you would not dare to say in real life, due to real life implications?

Good. That's precisely my point.

 

[unimackpass]

"Disciplined" is spot on. I tend to take people on here at face value unless they show inconsistencies, and Rip was consistently the type of odd duck religious dude I've ran across in real life.

Debunked or not, I'm curious.

You pretty much understood rip where others missed it.

 

[Ruprecht]

So essentially you're playing an exaggerated version of yourself here, saying things that you would not dare to say in real life, due to real life implications?

Good. That's precisely my point.

You mean you'll shift the goal post.
There's no exaggeration. If I encounter strongly opposed views on a subject with a colleague, and to a certain extent with friends and family (depending on whom and on what), I don't keep pursuing the argument. "No religion, no politics" is the basic rule. That's completely different to exaggerating, faking opinions or putting on a character.

 

[Darkballs]

When I try to convince someone, I look at the person at hand, and do whatever it requires to achieve the convincing, if the person is worth being convinced. Sometimes laying out "intellectual insight" isn't the way to go on about it. I would say that most people do not give a shit about someone laying intellectual insight on them, compared to other factors.

A well-timed joke, or a brutal trashing of some poor individual on opposite political side, can get the job done much easier, with less research done on the subject.

I get your attitude but fail to see how it connects to trolls.

Look at it like titling an article with a sensational headline. A good reason to do that (although I'm against it in general) is to provoke someone into paying attention. You have something inflammatory, or sensationalist, and it draws people to give it a read who otherwise might just pass over. But buried in the meat of the article is a compelling argument that you hope to get across. Ultimately, that's where the worth lies.

That's not what a troll like rip is doing. He never digressed from his character to make some worthwhile remark that got people thinking. It was just to get attention for himself. And there is a pretty clear distinction in that. I get that maybe as a poster you could lead with an inflammatory statement like "democrats/republicans are ruining this country" as a way to get people to engage with you while you step back and lay out a reasoned opinion against a party's position. But if you fail to do the later, you've just said something stupid with nothing else.

Compare rip to a partisan poster like Heretic (and I'm not picking on the guy, just a top of my head example here). Now I disagree with Heretic in regards to just about anything he posts, and I often see him lay out some pointed one-liners. But when pressed they guy will at least try to justify his position. Whether he convinces me or not, there's still some value there for the both of us in the sense that we learn about the other's stance if nothing else. But for a troll, the only value is one sided, and it's nothing more than the attention that troll gets for a brief moment. I suppose there's gotta be something of worth there, at least for them. But it really just seems sad and attention starved.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

What page is the results?

 

[TheGreatA]

You mean you'll shift the goal post.
There's no exaggeration. If I encounter strongly opposed views on a subject with a colleague, and to a certain extent with friends and family (depending on whom and on what), I don't keep pursuing the argument. "No religion, no politics" is the basic rule. That's completely different to exaggerating, faking opinions or putting on a character.

You do not have the balls to talk politics with your colleagues or your friends or your family, so you come here to talk about it. I'd say that's putting on a role.

If in real life you wouldn't have the desire to pursue a conversation with a person such as myself, then you're putting on a role by doing so here, under the cover of anonymity.

I reckon that I'm putting on far less of a role than you are. I do not keep my ideas hidden from people. I take great pride in them, and in convincing other people of them.

 

[TheGreatA]

I get your attitude but fail to see how it connects to trolls.

Look at it like titling an article with a sensational headline. A good reason to do that (although I'm against it in general) is to provoke someone into paying attention. You have something inflammatory, or sensationalist, and it draws people to give it a read who otherwise might just pass over. But buried in the meat of the article is a compelling argument that you hope to get across. Ultimately, that's where the worth lies.

That's not what a troll like rip is doing. He never digressed from his character to make some worthwhile remark that got people thinking. It was just to get attention for himself. And there is a pretty clear distinction in that. I get that maybe as a poster you could lead with an inflammatory statement like "democrats/republicans are ruining this country" as a way to get people to engage with you while you step back and lay out a reasoned opinion against a party's position. But if you fail to do the later, you've just said something stupid with nothing else.

Compare rip to a partisan poster like Heretic (and I'm not picking on the guy, just a top of my head example here). Now I disagree with Heretic in regards to just about anything he posts, and I often see him lay out some pointed one-liners. But when pressed they guy will at least try to justify his position. Whether he convinces me or not, there's still some value there for the both of us in the sense that we learn about the other's stance if nothing else. But for a troll, the only value is one sided, and it's nothing more than the attention that troll gets for a brief moment. I suppose there's gotta be something of worth there, at least for them. But it really just seems sad and attention starved.

Maybe your criticisms are valid. But my personal experience is that he had worth to this forum, to spark debate, and to serve as a character that brought flair to the usual conversations. Since his views were completely inoffensive to me (I do not really give much of a shit about American politics or religion), I didn't really see what he did as outright "trolling".

If I came from another perspective, maybe I'd see it differently. But since I'm not that good at playing gimmicks, I don't really see stuff from perspectives other than my own. From my perspective, he was a good guy. And he annoyed a lot of the right people, too. The kind of people that deserve to be annoyed.

 

[Pickle Rick]

You do not have the balls to talk politics with your colleagues or your friends or your family, so you come here to talk about it. I'd say that's putting on a role.

If in real life you wouldn't have the desire to pursue a conversation with a person such as myself, then you're putting on a role by doing so here, under the cover of anonymity.

I reckon that I'm putting on far less of a role than you are. I do not keep my ideas hidden from people. I take great pride in them, and in convincing other people of them.

Its official You're an idiot

 

[Ruprecht]

You do not have the balls to talk politics with your colleagues or your friends or your family, so you come here to talk about it. I'd say that's putting on a role.

If in real life you wouldn't have the desire to pursue a conversation with a person such as myself, then you're putting on a role by doing so here, under the cover of anonymity.

I reckon that I'm putting on far less of a role than you are. I do not keep my ideas hidden from people. I take great pride in them, and convincing other people of them.

Hah! No, I'd have the same discussion with you in real life because you have no effect on my life and I don't care about you anymore than any other random person. Anonymity plays no role. It's the same as bullshitting about religion or politics at the pub. The internet gives me access to these contacts with no effect on my day to day life, and who are actively looking for these discussions, so there's no consequence in pursuing an argument on topics which are usually avoided.
Nice try though.

 

[TheGreatA]

Its official You're an idiot

Considering your complete inability to judge anything properly, and to evaluate most situations to be completely opposite to what they actually are in reality, I take that as a compliment. Thanks, buddy.