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On October 05 2010 19:26 Umpteen wrote:
Having been bullied pretty badly myself through school, and with the benefit of a further twenty years to reflect on the experience and my role in it, you know what I've learned?
Well at least we're starting off by admitting how bias we are...
Bullies and their victims are, at heart, exactly the same.
How? Because both are driven by their own insecurity to divide the world into two categories:
1. Things they are better than you at.
2. Things that are dumb.
All that seperates a bully from a victim is the manner in which they express that vision.
Going to stop you right here. There are many reasons why people might bully other people. It could be to get ahead, it could be for social acceptance from others, it could be because of insecurities that arise from the other person being better than them at something, it could be from them simply wanting to assert some authoritative position over someone else, etc.
Thus jocks bully nerds because everything a jock uses to measure his worth, nerds treat with passive indifference or active disdain. To a jock, a happy nerd is like a walking "Whatever..." In an already stressful academic context that dismissal, the implication of their insignificance, can strike a particularly raw nerve.
I'm kind of disgusted by your 1950s portrayal of jocks and nerds...
The blog post to which I'm responding isn't the stereotypical jock/nerd story, but all the same dynamics are in place and it's painful to watch them unfold. Chease despises these two 'duchebags' for the way they behave, and yet the first chance he gets he does exactly the same - because at heart he is just like them: everything they are better at than him is dumb (I'd bet good money, by the way, that he finds a lot of their dirty jokes funny but won't allow himself to laugh. This is the voice of experience speaking.) Now he's proved he's better than them at SC2 - and what did that achieve? Nothing. Because as we saw in the stream, they just rearranged their worldview to make 'being good at SC2' dumb.
I'm sorry but as someone with good reading comprehension I did not get this out of what he wrote. He seemed like a very well spoken chill type of guy who thought it might be funny to take them on and decided to ask the community what their thoughts on it were. You can tell he has a sense of humor with it if you read his later posts (in case you didn't pick it up sooner). Everyone could tell that team BAWD was the type who would turn to saying 'being good at SC2 is dumb' but I think most people realized that from there on out it was really for the lawls (and 100$).
Chease, if you're reading this: pretty much everyone wants the same things out of life. We want to feel significant, valued, respected - and however ineptly or offensively some people might go about satisfying those needs, you can't bludgeon the need itself out of them by beating them at Starcraft.
Are you really trying to say that he was trying to beat the hunger for life out of someone through starcraft? Really??? I'm sorry but you need to relax and realize how incredibly bias you are in this. They are in college, not elementary or highschool.
The way to win is to show them respect. You should have asked to join their team and simply played, without being critical or apportioning blame for losses - without even offering helpful suggestions. They're not stupid; they're going to see you bringing twice their combined army to the table game after game and they're going to start watching replays, in private, to find out how you manage it. They would see you were clearly better, and yet didn't swagger or diss them, and there's a good chance they'd think "Huh. I don't have to be the best for someone to like me. Who knew?"
And for fuck's sake, if you think a joke's funny, just laugh.
No, there is no reason to show respect to someone who has shown you no respect. It is earned, not given. He tried to offer an informed opinion but instead of hearing any of it they simply dismissed him and said he didn't know anything (He didn't dis them when he talked to them). It is not his responsibility to try to change their fucking character.
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On October 06 2010 02:10 Scorcher2k wrote:
Well at least we're starting off by admitting how bias we are...
Bias? That's an interesting word to describe 'experienced' 
Going to stop you right here. There are many reasons why people might bully other people. It could be to get ahead, it could be for social acceptance from others, it could be because of insecurities that arise from the other person being better than them at something, it could be from them simply wanting to assert some authoritative position over someone else, etc.
All of which are just other ways of putting what I said:
Bullying to get ahead: intimidating those you perceive as rivals in fields in which you are too heavily invested to dismiss as dumb.
Social acceptance from others: you've been bullied into bullying? How insecure can you get?
Insecurities arising from perceived inferiority - see above.
Wanting to assert some authoritative position over someone else: that's the difference in expression I talked about.
I'm kind of disgusted by your 1950s portrayal of jocks and nerds...
Well, it was 1980's, and over here in England, so 'jock' and 'nerd' aren't strictly correct terminology. Have human beings spontaneously evolved over the last 20 years while I wasn't looking?
I'm sorry but as someone with good reading comprehension I did not get this out of what he wrote. He seemed like a very well spoken chill type of guy who thought it might be funny to take them on and decided to ask the community what their thoughts on it were. You can tell he has a sense of humor with it if you read his later posts (in case you didn't pick it up sooner). Everyone could tell that team BAWD was the type who would turn to saying 'being good at SC2 is dumb' but I think most people realized that from there on out it was really for the lawls (and 100$).
Of course he has a sense of humour about it - particularly after bouncing the idea off a whole bunch of largely sympathetic fellow SC players. That doesn't change what he wrote (and later clarified) about his opponents. Did he say anything good about them? Balance his criticism by making mention of redeeming qualities? No. Everything about them was either dumb, or inferior.
Are you really trying to say that he was trying to beat the hunger for life out of someone through starcraft? Really???
Erm, no. What I said was, you can't take someone who only knows how to validate themselves via superiority and disdain and achieve anything by beating them. They're still going to have the same needs, and they're still only going to know the same two ways to satisfy them.
No, there is no reason to show respect to someone who has shown you no respect.
I think there is if you have sympathy for the unpleasant place in which they're trapped. You're still focused on beating them, making them miserable.
It is earned, not given. He tried to offer an informed opinion but instead of hearing any of it they simply dismissed him and said he didn't know anything (He didn't dis them when he talked to them). It is not his responsibility to try to change their fucking character.
It is if he decides to take exception to it.
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hey man to be honest, cheAse is the bully here and not the two douches
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This thread is retarded. CheSase was never bullied in this context and I those retarded CS kids nothing more then wannabees, by striving to be the social kings of a fucking computer science class (wut). The world isn't black and white, not everyone can be divided into jocks and nerds lol.
As for your core thesis? That we project our own insecurities and use other people as expression for them? That we value things we're good at? Well yeah, but that can be drawn and applied to anything, its hardly any startling revelation.
As for everything else? Please, attend some basic psychology courses before bsing lol. And on that note, go outside and learn how people actually act, because your post seems so absurd I honestly don't see if reality was the starting point for conclusions.
Did he say anything good about them? Balance his criticism by making mention of redeeming qualities? No. Everything about them was either dumb, or inferior.
Yes, he didn't like them.
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Also your probably projecting too much OP loool. Maybe those were the thoughts behind your own actions you had as a kid. And as you grew up, you realized how stupid they are. They aren't Representative of everyone else in the world.
edit:
You seem to not really get the context here. This isn't a high school lunchroom. It isn't the confliction of values, its competition amongst like values. Its a nerdfight lol.
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I don't think there is anything more satisfying then setting a bully in his place. I was bullied a lot in Elementary/Middle school due to my impediment and me being a scrawny POS.
Funny story, my dad had told my basketball team(which he coached) that whomever scared the crap out of someone who pushed me off my bike got $20; thats a lot of money to an elementary school kid. The end results were actually pretty funny, I got pushed off my bike and like 4 kids started running at the bully screaming and he booked it. That stopped the physical but verbal abuse was still a daily thing up until my junior year when i bulked up and played football.
So you best believe when Elmer Fudd becomes world famous at casting StarCraft II; there will be some bragging come high school reunion. The best revenge is a happy life, in any situation; if you get angry you just look like a moron. Just sit back and laugh at whatever is dished out, counter trolling is an art.
Edit: Before you say it was stupid of my dad, there was a no physical rule; they couldn't touch the kid.
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Why does this seem more and more like a troll thread? I hope it is, because otherwise, the OP feels like projecting his own "experience" (read: bias) applies to everyone else in the world. No single situation is ever the same. The OP has valid opinions, but I can't help but wonder why he has to make a thread about CheAse. First he generalizes all situations, then he wants to talk specifically as if the generalization is the end-all for the specific situation. That in itself proves the bias.
Edit: After having looked at the quality of the OP's other threads, I would be led to believe he is quite serious. So my question is why does he think his unique individual experience applies to someone else's unique individual situation. All he's doing is speaking for himself. And shouldn't he hold his own opinion to his own actions as well? Isn't pubicly grouping this specific situation into a generalized viewpoint just a passive aggressive way to validate his own belief? If we're trying to get down to what is really behind people's intent, then what is yours, OP?
In my opinion, there's nothing more annoying than someone thinking that what they think is correct out of conclusion from their own experiences. Haven't you ever had a professor that held a subjective opinion that you had to cater to in order to save your grade? Haven't you ever had a parent that thought you were being an idiot, and stopped you from pursuing a passion "for your own good"? What about those religious people that are so sure you're better off waiting for marriage to get serious with your significant other? Just stop generalizing.
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I appreciate the thought, and the idea of giving a poor tortured soul some encouragement to live on is cute, but I don't need it.
I've always had an abundance of friends and have never had a problem getting along with new people. I'm also very satisfied with myself and certainly don't have any feelings of jealousy towards the 2 jokers. No matter who you are, nerd or jock, you're going to run into conflicts with other people like this one.
In terms of respect, its not my belief that someone should be given respect for no reason. Its safe to say that you should respect those who are respectable. Now the simple question is, are people like those really respectable?
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On October 06 2010 02:10 Scorcher2k wrote:Show nested quote +On October 05 2010 19:26 Umpteen wrote:
Having been bullied pretty badly myself through school, and with the benefit of a further twenty years to reflect on the experience and my role in it, you know what I've learned? Well at least we're starting off by admitting how bias we are... Show nested quote +Bullies and their victims are, at heart, exactly the same.
How? Because both are driven by their own insecurity to divide the world into two categories:
1. Things they are better than you at.
2. Things that are dumb.
All that seperates a bully from a victim is the manner in which they express that vision. Going to stop you right here. There are many reasons why people might bully other people.
read it again, those arent reasons
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On October 06 2010 10:07 CheAse wrote:
I appreciate the thought, and the idea of giving a poor tortured soul some encouragement to live on is cute, but I don't need it.
I've always had an abundance of friends and have never had a problem getting along with new people. I'm also very satisfied with myself and certainly don't have any feelings of jealousy towards the 2 jokers. No matter who you are, nerd or jock, you're going to run into conflicts with other people like this one.
In terms of respect, its not my belief that someone should be given respect for no reason. Its safe to say that you should respect those who are respectable. Now the simple question is, are people like those really respectable?
Very well put.
Edit: After having looked at the quality of the OP's other threads, I would be led to believe he is quite serious. So my question is why does he think his unique individual experience applies to someone else's unique individual situation. All he's doing is speaking for himself. And shouldn't he hold his own opinion to his own actions as well? Isn't pubicly grouping this specific situation into a generalized viewpoint just a passive aggressive way to validate his own belief? If we're trying to get down to what is really behind people's intent, then what is yours, OP?
In my opinion, there's nothing more annoying than someone thinking that what they think is correct out of conclusion from their own experiences. Haven't you ever had a professor that held a subjective opinion that you had to cater to in order to save your grade? Haven't you ever had a parent that thought you were being an idiot, and stopped you from pursuing a passion "for your own good"? What about those religious people that are so sure you're better off waiting for marriage to get serious with your significant other? Just stop generalizing.
It is the classic bible thumper mentality. They want to be like Gandhi but they are far too judgmental.
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I mostly agree with Umpteen. It sounds like what he's trying to say is:
when you use "violence", you are more or less similar to bullies (even if it's for the sake of giving a starcraft lesson).
And other people say "oh well, bullies sometimes deserve it!"
But that's not the point, is it? To me, its more about saying that there are "good" forms of aggression, and "bad" forms of aggression.
Umpteen seems to say that they are all the same, and I agree with that.
(obviously, that would not really apply in a life/death situation, with an angry guy trying to kill you, but we're talking about college bullying/starcraft, not war, right?)
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I'll try to respond to everyone ASAP, but I thought it would be best to respond to Chease first:
I appreciate the thought, and the idea of giving a poor tortured soul some encouragement to live on is cute, but I don't need it.
If that's how my OP read, I can only apologise. The intention was to talk about the dynamic between you and these two classmates - I can see now I did not make that at all clear.
I've always had an abundance of friends and have never had a problem getting along with new people. I'm also very satisfied with myself and certainly don't have any feelings of jealousy towards the 2 jokers. No matter who you are, nerd or jock, you're going to run into conflicts with other people like this one.
Again, I didn't intend to imply jealousy was a necessary component. The point is that the same attitudes manifest on both sides, and are counter-productive when they collide.
Hopefully we can agree that in the case of your classmates, the attitude that everything has to be either a) something they're good/better at, or b) dumb looms pretty large in their dealings with others. That's certainly the way you seemed to portray them and it came across loud and clear in the stream. Just as with you, it's not going to be true for all their relationships - just when they feel insecure. Ok so far?
I disagreed with what you did - and posted to that effect - because you responded by mirroring the same attitude: everything they do is dumb, and when they touched upon a subject in which you're an expert you felt compelled to bring your expertise to their attention, first in conversation and later by publicly rubbing their noses in it.
In terms of respect, its not my belief that someone should be given respect for no reason. Its safe to say that you should respect those who are respectable. Now the simple question is, are people like those really respectable?
The simple answer is no. And it is indeed safe to say you should respect those who are respectable, but that is a sufficient rather than strictly necessary qualification. Nor is there no reason to show respect - it's just not the usual mutual back-scratching kind of reason.
If you can clearly see from the way a person behaves that he has the wrong idea about how to earn respect from others, sure, you can choose to humiliate him and feel good about yourself in the process. Is that the right thing to do, though? Responding in a way that reinforces the bad behaviour, just to make him miserable and yourself happy? If granting a little respect up-front, demonstrating that not everyone will seize the first chance they get to humiliate him (which is the fear that drives the behaviour you describe), if that can help him mellow out, isn't that a better choice to make?
That's what I was trying to say earlier: letting them realise you could have handed their asses to them, but chose not to out of respect for their feelings, that would have worked out better in the long run.
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Define respectable, chease.
I could have a friend that I respect above anything, and I could have another friend who thinks he is a fucking douche bag. Before you make opinions, think of it from as many angles as possible.
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This thread is amazing. You know so little about the situation, and from what Chease actually did let us in on it didn't sound like bullying at all. Do you guys even know what bullying is? When you bully someone you don't ask them if they want to participate.
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Sorry for the slow replies. I'll try to get to everyone.
On October 08 2010 01:13 travis wrote:
This thread is amazing. You know so little about the situation, and from what Chease actually did let us in on it didn't sound like bullying at all. Do you guys even know what bullying is? When you bully someone you don't ask them if they want to participate.
If you challenge people to a public contest you know they are ill-equipped to win, for the purpose of humiliating them or 'putting them in their place', that's bullying. Their prior behaviour doesn't change that.
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On October 06 2010 07:28 Half wrote:
This thread is retarded. CheSase was never bullied in this context and I those retarded CS kids nothing more then wannabees, by striving to be the social kings of a fucking computer science class (wut). The world isn't black and white, not everyone can be divided into jocks and nerds lol.
I did say in the OP this wasn't a stereotypical jock/nerd scenario. The theme of the OP was in fact that the world isn't black and white: both sides are fundamentally the same.
As for your core thesis? That we project our own insecurities and use other people as expression for them? That we value things we're good at? Well yeah, but that can be drawn and applied to anything, its hardly any startling revelation.
I wasn't talking about valuing the things we're good at. I was talking about only valuing the things we're good at, and dismissing the things other people are good at as 'gay' or 'lame', and telling them to 'get a life'. That's the kind of attitude I'm talking about.
As for everything else? Please, attend some basic psychology courses before bsing lol. And on that note, go outside and learn how people actually act, because your post seems so absurd I honestly don't see if reality was the starting point for conclusions.
What makes your armchair psychology, diagnosing me as someone who needs to go outside and learn how people act, more legitimate than mine?
Yes, he didn't like them.
There's a difference between not liking someone and demonising them.
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On October 06 2010 07:39 Half wrote:
Also your probably projecting too much OP loool. Maybe those were the thoughts behind your own actions you had as a kid. And as you grew up, you realized how stupid they are. They aren't Representative of everyone else in the world.
The deeper you dig the more everyone starts to look the same. That's really all I've said, and I don't think it's particularly controversial. There's a reason bullying begets bullying: the underlying attitude propagates.
You seem to not really get the context here. This isn't a high school lunchroom. It isn't the confliction of values, its competition amongst like values. Its a nerdfight lol.
Which is precisely my point: it's a mirror-matchup. It always is.
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On October 06 2010 08:42 Classysaurus wrote:
Why does this seem more and more like a troll thread? I hope it is, because otherwise, the OP feels like projecting his own "experience" (read: bias) applies to everyone else in the world. No single situation is ever the same. The OP has valid opinions, but I can't help but wonder why he has to make a thread about CheAse. First he generalizes all situations, then he wants to talk specifically as if the generalization is the end-all for the specific situation. That in itself proves the bias.
As I said in the reply above: the deeper you dig the more everyone starts to look the same. We might like different foods, but we both eat because we're hungry, right? Similarly, everyone has fundamentally the same response to a sense of insecurity: polarizing the value we attach to things we're good/bad at (talking to girls, for instance? Telling smutty jokes?). Our expression of that attitude can be very different: bullying behaviour involves vocally or physically imposing it upon others. Or we might just sit in silent judgement of others until the opportunity presents itself to rub their noses in it
Edit: After having looked at the quality of the OP's other threads, I would be led to believe he is quite serious.
You are far too kind.
So my question is why does he think his unique individual experience applies to someone else's unique individual situation. All he's doing is speaking for himself. And shouldn't he hold his own opinion to his own actions as well? Isn't pubicly grouping this specific situation into a generalized viewpoint just a passive aggressive way to validate his own belief? If we're trying to get down to what is really behind people's intent, then what is yours, OP?
Excellent question I'd say it's partly the desire to appear smart, and partly in hope of helping someone deal better with difficult people.
In my opinion, there's nothing more annoying than someone thinking that what they think is correct out of conclusion from their own experiences. Haven't you ever had a professor that held a subjective opinion that you had to cater to in order to save your grade? Haven't you ever had a parent that thought you were being an idiot, and stopped you from pursuing a passion "for your own good"? What about those religious people that are so sure you're better off waiting for marriage to get serious with your significant other? Just stop generalizing.
So... you're using three specific examples to illustrate why it's never appropriate to generalise?
Sorry, couldn't resist that - and no, I don't think it's a valid counterargument
Again, I appeal to the principle that people are fundamentally the same, and differ in the details. If we accept that - for the sake of argument - then actions => motives is bound to be a many-to-one mapping.
If Chease hadn't taken the first opportunity that presented itself to behave just like his classmates, I wouldn't be here saying his underlying attitudes and motives are similar.
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you're not smart
User was warned for this post
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On October 08 2010 23:41 fredd wrote:
you're not smart
I suppose I'll have to settle for "trying to be helpful" then.
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EPT
