From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Aug 19 2002 - 18:46:10 MDT
Mike writes
> --- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
> > It seems that we are of two minds on the issue of trolling.
> >
> > On one side are those, such as Harvey, Louis, me, Natasha,
> > and I think Dossy who denigrate any form of trolling,
> > "experimenting", playing Devil's Advocate, and so on, and
> > instead maintain that all posts (except the obviously fun-
> > filled forays into jokes, or sarcasm) should be as completely
> > honest and sincere as possible. Avoiding misunderstandings
> > and even more importantly, avoiding *over-reacting*
> > is difficult enough as it is.
[I must amend that slightly. Harvey announced that he does
and will play Devil's Advocate, but **only** when he has
mentioned that that is what's he's doing, and of course
there's nothing wrong with that.]
> But how do you know that other posters are being "honest and sincere"?
> email lists are, by nature, relatively low trust media, as is *ANY*
> media where verification is nigh impossible and the consequences of bad
> behavior are pathetically miniscule if not non-existent.
As we live and breathe, we form our instincts as to what
motivates people to say and do the things they do. I have
found almost *every* post on Extropians to be an honest
expression by someone, limited only by the inherent
ambiguities of the medium and the skill---and the effort---
of the writer.
Hundreds of people post to this list. Can anyone think
of more than a couple of people who in retrospect were
clearly insincere? And in those cases, are you **really**
sure that it wasn't miscommunication, poor word choice,
or emotion-driven over-reaction??
> > On the other sides appear to be those such as Brian, Mike Wiik,
> > and Alex who probably (it seems) think that either everything
> > is an experiment, more or less, or who advocate techniques of
> > provocation.
>
> "All art is propaganda", as some leftie once said. Similarly, all
> debate is thought experiment, merely executed by committee.
While that proverbial leftist clearly had his head up his ass,
your statement is less wrong, and shouldn't be conflated with
the former.
But I really don't know what you're trying to say here; I don't
see *argument* itself as thought-experiment, for example. Yes,
when one is thinking about something, there are elements present
which might rightly be described as "simulating" events and
processes; and that, I suppose might be a form of thought-experiment.
But it's quite a stretch.
Lee
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