Rottenchester

Today's rant is about ad-hominem arguments. An ad-hominem argument is one that attacks the person rather than their position. Ad-hominem arguments are weak, because even if someone is smelly and ugly, it doesn't mean that what they're saying is wrong.

A couple of days ago, I published a rant calling out some of the factions of the current anti-war movement. It was interspersed with some pretty sharp words against people I characterized as "hippies". Now, "hippie", as I use it, is definitely an ad-hominem attack, but in between the jabs at hippies, I made a few rational arguments.

A few hippies wrote back, some of them even made a couple of arguments, and we all went on with our lives. I moved on to other topics and thought that was the end of it.

But this morning, I rolled out of bed, sat down on the crapper, and saw this pantsload which is - you guessed it - an ad-hominem attack.

Well, I forgot to eat my bran yesterday, so I have plenty of time to sit on my porcelain throne and think about this person's ravings.

Let's break it down:

I am all for a good rant and especially a good rave -- but does the person with the "rotenchester" handle have a life out there in the real world? I just signed on to CL for the first time and I love reading the interesting banter -- but good grief, get a freakin life Mr/Ms Rotten!

The first ad-hominem salvo: Rottenchester has no life. I'll freely admit that: you didn't need to spend two redundant sentences to prove it. However, if we're trading "get a life" barbs, I note that your posting hit CL at 10:57 p.m. on a Friday night. Which one of us doesn't have a life?

Of course, my possession of a "life" isn't relevant to the content of the post that set you off, it is just a big red herring you dragged into the argument.

Do you have anything rational to speak about? Rant or Rave as much as you like, but say something of substance!

Saying that the anti-war hippies are hurting their cause, and giving specific examples and advice, is substantial and rational. Calling it insubstantial and irrational, without pointing to any specifics, is another ad-hominem. When I say that hippies think stupid things, I at least have the good manners to point out what I think is stupid about their position.

Bullies pick fights about nothing and then watch how their picking creates grief and frustration.

The war isn't "nothing" - you think it is important - so how does posting about it make me a bully? This is simply name calling.

I don't plan to go round and round with you.

Gosh, good to know your plans. My plan is to win the lottery and retire to Australia. I'll take a moment here wish us both the best of luck with our respective goals.

Interesting how you tag those who care about the environment, who are anti-the-current-war, eat beans & rice and peddle their bikes as "hippies" -- If I met you on the street you would wouldn't have a clue I was the anti-bush, anti-"rotten" person you would expect me to be.

My point exactly: appearances aren't everything, so you must also think that attacking people who drive SUVs with yellow ribbons is counterproductive. Glad we agree on this one.

Education doesn't mean intelligence and lack of education doesn't mean lack of intelligence -- but you give those without an advanced education a bad chip on their shoulder---by transfering your chip to them.

This is classic. "Chip on the shoulder" is a saying that means the person with the "chip" has some pet issue that haunts them, and that they tend to drag the "chip" into every discussion, even if the "chip" has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Since there's not a word about education in what I posted, I can only conclude that you have some sort of hang-up (i.e, "chip") about education.

But, accusing me of insulting people with bad educations (or is it good educations?) is more name-calling, and, sheesh, it is also a hell of a stretch.

Respond as you like, but you lost the argument days ago.

Always good to end your name calling with a taunt. Props to you.

I don't know about anyone else on this board, but I'm still waiting for somebody to post a coherent, well-reasoned position against the war that justifies pulling out now, as the hippies would like us to do.

Today, as a public service, I'm going to connect with some of the "missed connections" posters. I hope that, by making a connection with me, they will fill up a little bit of the vast emptiness that caused them to post in the first place.

First up, What is Age m4w. Choice quote: "You are so young, and I am definitely old enough to be your father. But what is age? Who cares?"

Let me answer your questions: First, age is generally reckoned as the number of years since birth. And it sounds like there are a lot of birthdays between you and the young woman that you're lusting after. Who cares? She does. Right now, she probably views you as an innocuous, even nice, older guy. If you hit on her, she's going to throw up a little bit in her mouth and make it a point to avoid further eye contact with you. So, take your copy of Barely Legal into the bathroom tonight and help keep it a fantasy, OK?

Next, a Female, 27 in love / lust with a guy from Webster: "The Coke and vanilla vodka cocktails I had been drinking didn't help, of course."

Of course. Your sense of desperation ("I'm married and powerless") could also have been a contributing factor.

Now we come to the acme, the pinnacle, the alpha and omega of missed connections: I saw a very attractive blonde woman at East Ave. Wegmans last year - 32. (Funny, so did I. There must be a lot of that going around.)

This one's worth reading in its entirety:

It was a Friday afternoon at the East Ave. Wegmans. We first glanced at each other in the produce section.

Hey, Joe Friday, narrow it down. Was it winter? Summer? You're giving us 52 possibilities here.

You had medium length blonde hair, were very nicely dressed, and had some sort of ID badge hanging from your neck. I had medium length brown hair and probably was wearing jeans. You bought cheese doodles & M&Ms, and I fruit & vegetables. Maybe you offered to let me go ahead of you, saying I had less.

"Maybe" as in "Maybe while I was back home masturbating furiously to your remembered image I imagined that you talked to me, but really you turned and ran when you saw me." Is that your sense of "maybe"?

Only afterwards did it ocurr to me that you might be flirting with me. You drove off in a large new silver Honda sedan, I in a red Toyota Corolla.

By "afterwards", do you mean, "a year later, after I've turned this incident over and over in my head, imagining and wondering and what-if-ing myself to death"?

I've wished I could go back to that day ever since. Wish I hadn't been so shy! Would you like to meet & give me a 2nd chance?

To have a 2nd chance, you need a 1st chance. Where's the evidence that she gave you a chance at all?

If you have a friend that dresses very nicely, maybe works in a professional position (at Harris RF Communications ???) has medium length blonde hair, is 30-ish, drives a silver Honda sedan, and may have flirted with a shy brown haired software engineer please tell her I'm looking for her.

How did she flirt with you? I'll bet that "maybe" she looked in your direction and smiled. Who knows, she might have looked in your direction and experienced gas pains. Even if she was attracted to you, your descriptions aren't very helpful. In her case, I'll bet there are only a few hundred mid-30s women with medium length blonde hair driving silver Hondas. In your case, were you wearing your "Kiss Me, I'm a Software Engineer" t-shirt that day?

Now the scary part:

I'm a very compassionate and sensitive person, am very sorry to have let her slip away and hope she can forgive me. If your responsible for my finally meeting her I'll pay you $250. No kidding.

Yes, your sensitivity is in evidence by your willingness to pay <gameshow voice>Two HUN-dred and FIF-ty DOL-lars</gameshow voice> to anyone willing to pimp a friend to a stalker obsessed with a fleeting, year-old encounter. No kidding, indeed.

This may appear to be a heartless rant, but I'm not gonna apologize. Life is cruel, mean, brutish, short and painful, and those of us who attain what little happiness is possible on this planet of woe are not spending our time staring into the rear-view mirror.

So, here's my connection with the old guy lusting after a young woman: hey, we're all a prisoner of our hormones, but there's probably someone your age who will make you much, much happier than her. Go find her.

To the 27-year-old woman pining for the guy in Webster: my almanac says you've got at least 50.3 years left on this blue orb. That's a hell of a long time to spend powerless in your marriage. Counseling helps. Divorce can cure. Stasis kills. Get moving.

To my friend the 32 year-old software engineer: Yes, going to RIT can mess up your attitude towards women for the rest of your life. But you can be healed, my brother. You've spent a year obsessing over a 30-second encounter in a grocery store. Let it go. Move on, and spend your $250 on therapy or weed. In your case, either will probably work.

I hope you all feel more connected now. I know I do.

I've been using the Internet since before there was a world-wide web, and a lot of technology has changed in that time. One thing that hasn't changed is human behavior. Trolls have been around years before Craig even dreamed of Craigslist. They're still with us today, and, though their behavior is banal and predictable, they're really disruptive.

The first trolling that I remember started around the time Usenet began hosting alt groups. In the beginning, it was a new phenomenon, and trolls were able to spark off-topic flame wars. Over time, newsreaders began to have "kill files" which allowed readers to skip postings by certain individuals or about particular topics. Trolls became a non-issue with Usenet because of technology, not human behavior.

Usenet still lives on: Google Groups is probably the best-known Usenet portal. Today, Spam is the main problem with Usenet. Since commercial use was prohibited in the first few years of the Internet, the Usenet tools that were so effective with trolls didn't have a means to combat Spam. Most of the forums are so clogged with it that they are useless.

Today, most Internet forums are registration-only, so they can quickly ban trolls as well as delete Spam. Yahoo Groups is a good example, but there are hundreds of other discussion groups that keep trolls at bay and Spam to a minimum.

Craigslist is interesting case. It is good at handling Spam everywhere, and trolls in every forum but RNR. RNR has become a forum for trolls in most Craigslist cities, by design. RNR gives Craig a place where trolls can blow off steam without wrecking the other forums.

Though some are disappointed about where this forum is going, trolling is probably a good thing for society. As the case of the BTK killer showed, extremely twisted people who have an outlet for their emotions can keep those emotions in check via that outlet. When the BTK killer became a code enforcement officer, he stopped his killing rampage, because harassing the citizens of his little suburb satisfied obsessions that previously had no other outlet.

I think the person who posted Have You Noticed? got it right. This guy - and I really think it is only one person - is a closeted homosexual who uses this forum to release emotions that would otherwise get him into real trouble in society. Certainly, expressing the racial slurs that have peppered his posts would probably get him beat up. So, in this safe, anonymous forum, he's having his moment in the sun without risk of real-world consequences.

Rochester has already had one serial killer, which is more than enough for any town. I'm glad that CL is doing the city a favor by keeping this guy occupied and off the streets. So, troll, keep posting. As long as you're spending your time here, you're not out doing something worse.

Well, at least there's something to read on RNR first thing in the morning.

I have to say that the highlight of yesterday was DT's prickly defense of the "originality" of his postings. It was as if he wanted to trademark his special brand of race-baiting:

"My Super Hate® has been recognized world-round as the best form of hating known to man. It is original to me! Never before in the history of the world has such a special hate been expressed. Bow before me you other, lesser haters."

The ironic thing about DT and the other name callers around here is the names they call. Being "Black" and "gay" is the worst fate they can imagine. Wouldn't it be worse to be what they are: scared of being black and gay?

1. Assume the other person doesn't know how to use basic Internet tools.

Never stop to think that the person might have another reason for asking a question, because, as we all know, anything worth knowing has already been written up in Wikipedia and indexed by Google. Bonus points for saying it twice in one posting.

2. Point out how much time the other person is wasting on CL.

The time that you're wasting crafting your lengthy reply is, of course, exempt from this rule. Only the time used by others is counted: your pearls of wisdom are timeless.

3. Adopt a condescending tone when you lecture about the obvious.

You're here to educate and enlighten, after all, so tone is secondary to substance. Don't worry that others may know, for example, that Spam is sent by con-artists. The gold that flows from your keyboard should be received gratefully by your vassals, no matter how it is phrased.

4. Bitch about how CL is organized.

Especially anonymous handles, since nobody ever complains about those. You would have done better, if only you had been consulted, so feel free to complain early and often. Be sure to silently beg the question of why you're posting on such a terrible forum in the first place.

5. Snipe, never originate.

Above all, never start or encourage a conversation, just try to kill it. Recognize that all humor and originality on CL comes from wet blankets like you. Just look at "best-of": it is nothing but complaints about anonymity, discussions of how long it took someone else to write a post, and exhortations to "Google it".

Follow these simple rules, and you'll guarantee a completely dead RNR in no time flat.