Do not respond to trolling

The best/only good response to the various idiotic racist trolls is to ignore them completely. In no case is rational counter-argument going to have any useful effect. Brett

Brett Buck wrote:

Good point. Personally, I think there are way too many replies to troll posts here in ATS. Is it so difficult to ignore them?

Of course, it can be funny to make some witty remark in a reply, but isn�t that exactly what the troll wants - people who quote all his stuff and keep it in the newsgroup?

My humble advice - please ignore all the trolls, racists, porn sickos, and whatever. They don�t care about flames, they�re just happy that people reply to their nonsense.

Chris

Chris Pfeiler wrote in message news:[email]...

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Aha! But what about freedom of speech? That's the coverall catch-phrase that allows these people to infest every aspect of our lives. If that's the case, it's "freedom of speech" to respond, if only to register outrage.

Personally, since I'm a cynic and have faltering faith in humanity, it does my heart good to see how many people are outraged.

R H Menzel wrote:

I wouldn't say that the government (the only entity to which "freedom of speech" applies) says you *can't* respond, nor would I take it upon myself to proclaim it *outlawed*, either, for what little good it would do. It's an open forum, post anything you want.

I merely suggest that you shouldn't want to, because responding just makes it go on. For instance, how many people posted their responses with the same racist nonsense in the title? Not only that, arguing with the original post via rational discourse is a complete waste of time. 3:1 odds that the poster just picked the most offensive thing he/she/it could choose because it would get a rise, not that it was a heartfelt position that it actually believes in. The goal in this case would be to get a lot of responses, which is kind of what happened (although this is such a crude and unsophisticated troll that it will very quickly peter out compared to other masterworks of the trolling arts (see rec.pets.cats in the late 90's).

The other possibility is that they really believe it, in which case rational argument is *still* a waste, because anyone stupid enough to take this position is not likely to be swayed by anything a normal person would likely come up with.

Hey, I find it at least as divisive and absurdly hateful as anyone else. I think it's right to find it offfensive, and if it were a real-life event, I would probably be protesting as much as anyone. I merely point out that responding to it will at least do nothing, and at worst give them exactly what they want, i.e. attention.

Brett

Points taken! It's something to ponder, alright!

Brett Buck wrote in message news:[email]...

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"Brett Buck" wrote in message news:[email]...

Most people, and by most people I mean everyone, choose their conclusion for emotional reasons and then find the "logical" path to that conclusion. It's very easy to see this in people whose opinions differ from our own, but nearly impossible to see in ourselves.

In other words, you decide what to believe first, and then look for reasons to support your belief, but you *think* that you arrive at that belief through impartial observation and rational thought.

In addition, when you strongly want to believe something, you will find plenty of "irrefutable" evidence to back up your belief, no matter how bizarre it is. This is how many otherwise intelligent people have been drawn into cults like Scientology. It's not that they hallucinate the evidence, it's merely that they misinterpret its meaning. We all do this to some extent.

People are funny that way.

Brett Buck wrote in message news:...

I didn't know Maya Angelou was black!

Space

Aaron Hirshberg wrote in message news:[email]...

news:...

I didn't know she was a poet. I thought she was just rambling incoherently.

-Bob