On October 06 2013 15:00 packrat386 wrote: I would say that all of the people who are writing about how they wish that sam would "grow up" are a little bit off base. Although his manner of presentation can be kind of antagonistic, his arguments aren't utterly unsound. I personally disagree with him on a lot of issues, but he does have solid evidence for almost everything he says.
The antagonistic presentation of his arguments is inherent in his role as he tries to break people out of the classic left v right logic that dominates american political discourse. Its arguably not enough for him just to calmly present that there is a third option, it has to be yelled or it will be drowned out..
That isn't to say that I disagree with his ban, but I don't think its somehow a personal flaw, and I certainly don't think its gonna change.
This type of rationale worries me though; that force (whether it be force of voice, or force of action) must be used not only to prove one's viewpoint, but to show others its value. That same argument can be used for a lot of dangerous things, and all it needs is the presumption that one is correct or one has the greater good in mind.
On October 06 2013 17:10 babylon wrote: How hard can it be to not constantly post like a condescending, arrogant prick?
Unfortunately, posting like a condescending, arrogant prick also tends to get in the way of communication. It's enough to make one wonder if Sam's not just posting on this forum to troll around despite all his higher-purpose rhetoric.
EDIT: I'm sure he cares about the issues he talks about, but the way he posts is like someone who only cares about being right, not like someone interested in actual discourse. I'd be more willing to have a beer with IronManSC than with Sam, which is saying a lot considering that I agree with Sam on a lot of things (though I am sure we disagree on just as many things). -.-
The thing is, he cares about what he says and he has some quality posts. On the other hand it can be really infuriating talking to him because he, for no apparent reasons turns into full "fuck you" mode.
On October 06 2013 17:10 babylon wrote: How hard can it be to not constantly post like a condescending, arrogant prick?
Unfortunately, posting like a condescending, arrogant prick also tends to get in the way of communication. It's enough to make one wonder if Sam's not just posting on this forum to troll around despite all his higher-purpose rhetoric.
EDIT: I'm sure he cares about the issues he talks about, but the way he posts is like someone who only cares about being right, not like someone interested in actual discourse. I'd be more willing to have a beer with IronManSC than with Sam, which is saying a lot considering that I agree with Sam on a lot of things (though I am sure we disagree on just as many things). -.-
The thing is, he cares about what he says and he has some quality posts. On the other hand it can be really infuriating talking to him because he, for no apparent reasons turns into full "fuck you" mode.
I like sam. He is sharp, thoughtful and knows what he talks about. I don't have problem with his full fuck you mode, but that's probably because I can't remember having been on the other side of the argument.
As a matter of fact, I do believe it's really hard to discuss politics on a forum like this without crossing the line. Most of the time the saving skill is to leave the conversation when it becomes pointless.
On October 06 2013 17:10 babylon wrote: How hard can it be to not constantly post like a condescending, arrogant prick?
Unfortunately, posting like a condescending, arrogant prick also tends to get in the way of communication. It's enough to make one wonder if Sam's not just posting on this forum to troll around despite all his higher-purpose rhetoric.
EDIT: I'm sure he cares about the issues he talks about, but the way he posts is like someone who only cares about being right, not like someone interested in actual discourse. I'd be more willing to have a beer with IronManSC than with Sam, which is saying a lot considering that I agree with Sam on a lot of things (though I am sure we disagree on just as many things). -.-
The thing is, he cares about what he says and he has some quality posts. On the other hand it can be really infuriating talking to him because he, for no apparent reasons turns into full "fuck you" mode.
I like sam. He is sharp, thoughtful and knows what he talks about. I don't have problem with his full fuck you mode, but that's probably because I can't remember having been on the other side of the argument.
As a matter of fact, I do believe it's really hard to discuss politics on a forum like this without crossing the line. Most of the time the saving skill is to leave the conversation when it becomes pointless.
He is sharp and thoughtful when he chooses to be. It would be really nice talking with him if he were like that all the time. But it happens that all you get after writing quite a long text is a one-liner saying: you have no clue, go educate yourself. This makes it quite a challenge talking to him. (read: not flaming back)
Yeah I guess you can take away two skills from politics on the internet: either you learn to know the point of no return. and leave. Or you learn to tone down your aggression so situations don't escalate that quickly. third option: banling swing their hammer
On October 06 2013 21:43 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On October 06 2013 20:13 Hryul wrote:
On October 06 2013 17:10 babylon wrote: How hard can it be to not constantly post like a condescending, arrogant prick?
Unfortunately, posting like a condescending, arrogant prick also tends to get in the way of communication. It's enough to make one wonder if Sam's not just posting on this forum to troll around despite all his higher-purpose rhetoric.
EDIT: I'm sure he cares about the issues he talks about, but the way he posts is like someone who only cares about being right, not like someone interested in actual discourse. I'd be more willing to have a beer with IronManSC than with Sam, which is saying a lot considering that I agree with Sam on a lot of things (though I am sure we disagree on just as many things). -.-
The thing is, he cares about what he says and he has some quality posts. On the other hand it can be really infuriating talking to him because he, for no apparent reasons turns into full "fuck you" mode.
I like sam. He is sharp, thoughtful and knows what he talks about. I don't have problem with his full fuck you mode, but that's probably because I can't remember having been on the other side of the argument.
As a matter of fact, I do believe it's really hard to discuss politics on a forum like this without crossing the line. Most of the time the saving skill is to leave the conversation when it becomes pointless.
He is sharp and thoughtful when he chooses to be. It would be really nice talking with him if he were like that all the time. But it happens that all you get after writing quite a long text is a one-liner saying: you have no clue, go educate yourself. This makes it quite a challenge talking to him. (read: not flaming back)
Yeah I guess you can take away two skills from politics on the internet: either you learn to know the point of no return. and leave. Or you learn to tone down your aggression so situations don't escalate that quickly. third option: banling swing their hammer
I would say the interest of discussing politics on a place like teamliquid is also its limit: you talk with people who have such foreign ideas and intellectual background, that you can learn a lot, but also get incredibly irritated. I know however patient and open minded I try to be there will be a point where I will run into some Tea Party dude spitting Fox News propaganda or some libertarian believing that Atlas Shrugged is a comprehensive economy essay, and I will get really, really annoyed. Since it often happen that the most opinionated and least thoughtful people are also the one who post the most, talk the loudest and drag attention and therefore answers with outrageous claim, almost any controversial political discussion is meant to end up being a bit bitter.
I think keeping your calm in all circumstances is hopeless unless you are a saint. I stopped getting banned every other month when I learn to just step off.
Yeah, there's a point where you just have to accept that some people don't really have the interest in actually having dialogue. You have to just write it off as a lost cause and move on for the time being. IronMan's posts are literally the same posts repeated an infinitum as if it's the universal answer to all questions to the faith and it doesn't matter what kind of evidence, scholarship, or arguments you might bring if his thought is utterly closed off to everything. Moreover, beating this sort of American fundamentalist/evangelist/biblical literalist with Death of God theology and hoping for intelligent responses is expecting way too much. Death of God theology might not be something all that radical within academic circles but to the everydayman it can seem like esoteric jibberish, and claiming it as the "truth" of Christianity is honestly pretty questionable given that it is a rather heterodox movement if we are to take the Patristic authors and Augustine to be the grounds of orthodoxy.
I dunno. Theology is theology, but there's a big difference between the dialogue between students of theology and the everyday layperson. You're not going to expect the ordinary Sunday congregation to give an adequate explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or original sin, or whathaveyou. And as misguided the biblical literalists may be, it isn't difficult as to why they may hold such a view and they aren't suddenly then made false Christians. Mocking someone's faith never goes anywhere, and if anything makes them more entrenched. With some people you just gotta cut your losses. If they don't want to take not only historical criticism but also important theological questions seriously at all and want to recite the Christological premise as if it protects them from all things that may shake the foundations of their biblicism then there's nothing for you to really do. There's better things and better people to invest your time on.
On October 06 2013 23:49 koreasilver wrote: Yeah, there's a point where you just have to accept that some people don't really have the interest in actually having dialogue. You have to just write it off as a lost cause and move on for the time being. IronMan's posts are literally the same posts repeated an infinitum as if it's the universal answer to all questions to the faith and it doesn't matter what kind of evidence, scholarship, or arguments you might bring if his thought is utterly closed off to everything. Moreover, beating this sort of American fundamentalist/evangelist/biblical literalist with Death of God theology and hoping for intelligent responses is expecting way too much. Death of God theology might not be something all that radical within academic circles but to the everydayman it can seem like esoteric jibberish, and claiming it as the "truth" of Christianity is honestly pretty questionable given that it is a rather heterodox movement if we are to take the Patristic authors and Augustine to be the grounds of orthodoxy.
I dunno. Theology is theology, but there's a big difference between the dialogue between students of theology and the everyday layperson. You're not going to expect the ordinary Sunday congregation to give an adequate explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity, or the Incarnation, or original sin, or whathaveyou. And as misguided the biblical literalists may be, it isn't difficult as to why they may hold such a view and they aren't suddenly then made false Christians. Mocking someone's faith never goes anywhere, and if anything makes them more entrenched. With some people you just gotta cut your losses. If they don't want to take not only historical criticism but also important theological questions seriously at all and want to recite the Christological premise as if it protects them from all things that may shake the foundations of their biblicism then there's nothing for you to really do. There's better things and better people to invest your time on.
Well, before even thinking of discussing theology you have to realize that
1- Hardcore atheist will always go full Dawkins and will think that since the material is irrational, discussing theology is like "trying to figure out the colour of unicorns". I hate Dawkins, he completely misses the point, but that's really, really hard to dismiss such argumentation. I am myself an atheist, profoundly dislike organized religions and any kind of superstition, and I still find those people outrageous.
2- Most christians will believe that what is written in their book (or what they understand of it) is the Truth and that you are wrong whatever you try to do in order to rationalize or even think at all religion.
You would notice that both fundamentalists and à-la-Dawkins atheist share the same presupposition that religion is about truth and belief rather than about philosophy and parables.
Category one is a huge majority of atheists, category two a huge majority of believers. Good luck coming with your highly savant and sophisticated theological arguments, however interesting they might be.
I like Sam too. If anyone else goes into fuck you mode, I want to smash that guys face through the monitor, no matter which position in a discussion that person holds. But when it is Sam, I am all like . I don't think I can ever be offended by Sam, regardless of what he says.
And ks, don't forget to make the distinction between Classical Theism and Personal Theism, even though my brain shuts down if I read too much of it hue. Well, tbh it's not important for discussions on TL as Biff pointed out. I just wanted to show off my e-dick. And Biff, I think people on TL go more about Hitchens than Dawkins, and while I admit that I fall for the availability bias because of the Mother Teresa thread, I think Hitchens works are much more accessible to the average TLer than Dawkins. And second, the major part of Atheists (or non-believers, how I prefer to call them) are not Gnus, but people who just don't care about faith and go on with life.
Good luck coming with your highly savant and sophisticated theological arguments, however interesting they might be.
That was my point. You can't talk to the everyday person as if they are an academic colleague. And calling what really is normal conversation between academic scholars of Christian thought as "highly savant and sophisticated" is really overblowing it, honestly. It might take years and years of study for an everyday person to catch up, but that's the same for any other field. You wouldn't say that having a dialogue about Friedman and Hayek would be "esoteric economic dialogue" or something.
And saying that religion is "rather about philosophy and parables" is extremely contentious and I would venture to say that it would be a theological error to say so, but that's just my Kierkegaardian/Barthian position. I wouldn't be interested in getting into that conversation in this thread.
And yes, Dawkins' writings and talks on religion are awful because he doesn't know what he's talking about which is a pity given that his writings on evolutionary biology are so good.
On October 06 2013 17:10 babylon wrote: How hard can it be to not constantly post like a condescending, arrogant prick?
Unfortunately, posting like a condescending, arrogant prick also tends to get in the way of communication. It's enough to make one wonder if Sam's not just posting on this forum to troll around despite all his higher-purpose rhetoric.
EDIT: I'm sure he cares about the issues he talks about, but the way he posts is like someone who only cares about being right, not like someone interested in actual discourse. I'd be more willing to have a beer with IronManSC than with Sam, which is saying a lot considering that I agree with Sam on a lot of things (though I am sure we disagree on just as many things). -.-
The thing is, he cares about what he says and he has some quality posts. On the other hand it can be really infuriating talking to him because he, for no apparent reasons turns into full "fuck you" mode.
He doesn't even have to go into full "fuck you" mode. He just has to go into "I'll spit out a useless one-liner in a holier-than-thou tone" and conversation will grind to a halt. It's especially frustrating when you spend a decent amount of time writing up a polite, long post only to get back a one line trolly remark, because then you feel as if there's absolutely no point in speaking with him, and conversations just devolve from there. I've had moments where I find myself typing up a few paragraphs in response to him, editing the post to make the tone more moderate, then at the end of it all, just deleting it, because I know it's hopeless; from experience, I know that some point down the line (if not immediately), he's just not going to respond in a constructive manner, so it's best to halt the discussion before I waste too much time.
He's not so different from IronManSC in his stubborn refusal to see other perspectives. Once he decides that a POV or approach is stupid, then they are almost always stupid and not worth any respect (or time, which is why he often posts one-liners). The only thing that is pulling for him is that he does sometimes make good points, but otherwise, the core behavior is very much the same. The two of them just stand on different sides of the spectrum, and IronManSC comes off as less of an asshole; maybe he's a dogmatic, naive fool, but at least he doesn't seem like a douchebag.
There are educated posts, and then there are Educated Posts. You know, those types of posts that just leak "Look at me, I'm educated, and my opinion therefore matters more than yours!" I'm pretty sure we all know where Sam falls on this scale.
On October 07 2013 08:27 Sjokola wrote: I was really shocked by the Nerchio comments. What is his reason to be this bad mannered. Seems random and unprovoked.
That account was created on 2011-03-24 05:31:56 and had 21 posts.
Reason: Easiest ban in my life
what made this easy eh? Never met Ryusei before.
You've never met him because all of his posts have been warned and all his threads closed. His posts are all about Protoss underpowered, game imba, balance whine, faceless koreans etc.
On August 12 2013 00:41 Ryusei wrote: oh yeah, EU finalists - 2 koreans. When will blizz wake up and ban koreans fro, playing EU and NA tourneys lol
On August 22 2013 15:00 Ryusei wrote: How can you even win afainst zerg? What do you do to win? I tried everything, all-in, early pressure, macro and nothing works. I have standard 50% w/l ratio vs toss and terran, but i cant win a single game vs zerg. Yes, not a single game. my w/l ratio vs zerg is 0. Either im missing out on some magical secret or zerg is op vs toss. I mean wtf, heres an example: i KNOW that zerg is sitting on 2 bases, i KNOW that he will push with roaches, im totally ready with 4 cannons, 2 sentries ans stargate, yet zerg manages to win. What. The. Fuck. Macro vs zerg is even worse, zerg masses roach/hydra, im trying to make counters, then, out of nowhere 20 mutalisks pop and kill me. Race is absurdly strong vs toss to the point that ill just start leaving all my zvp games soon enough.
On August 12 2013 03:15 aRyuujin wrote: so proud of finale <3
Proud of him being too weak to compete in KR?
Koreans must be banned in EE and NA regionals. It's not interesting to watch, you know that no matter what, koreans will win. korean vs korean finals, woohoo, so much fun, especially when they come to EU and have guts to not even learn english
really? He played fair throughout the whole tourney. Grubby came close to winning against him but messed up the final game. There is no reason that foreigners can't win against Koreans so saying that you know koreans will win is definitely not true.
Yes, really, he's korean, he must play in his region, not in EU. Hell, he doesn't even know english. SO much for EU champ lol.
On August 12 2013 03:15 aRyuujin wrote: so proud of finale <3
Proud of him being too weak to compete in KR?
Koreans must be banned in EE and NA regionals. It's not interesting to watch, you know that no matter what, koreans will win. korean vs korean finals, woohoo, so much fun, especially when they come to EU and have guts to not even learn english
That account was created on 2011-03-24 05:31:56 and had 21 posts.
Reason: Easiest ban in my life
what made this easy eh? Never met Ryusei before.
You've never met him because all of his posts have been warned and all his threads closed. His posts are all about Protoss underpowered, game imba, balance whine, faceless koreans etc.
On August 12 2013 00:41 Ryusei wrote: oh yeah, EU finalists - 2 koreans. When will blizz wake up and ban koreans fro, playing EU and NA tourneys lol
On August 22 2013 15:00 Ryusei wrote: How can you even win afainst zerg? What do you do to win? I tried everything, all-in, early pressure, macro and nothing works. I have standard 50% w/l ratio vs toss and terran, but i cant win a single game vs zerg. Yes, not a single game. my w/l ratio vs zerg is 0. Either im missing out on some magical secret or zerg is op vs toss. I mean wtf, heres an example: i KNOW that zerg is sitting on 2 bases, i KNOW that he will push with roaches, im totally ready with 4 cannons, 2 sentries ans stargate, yet zerg manages to win. What. The. Fuck. Macro vs zerg is even worse, zerg masses roach/hydra, im trying to make counters, then, out of nowhere 20 mutalisks pop and kill me. Race is absurdly strong vs toss to the point that ill just start leaving all my zvp games soon enough.
On August 12 2013 03:15 aRyuujin wrote: so proud of finale <3
Proud of him being too weak to compete in KR?
Koreans must be banned in EE and NA regionals. It's not interesting to watch, you know that no matter what, koreans will win. korean vs korean finals, woohoo, so much fun, especially when they come to EU and have guts to not even learn english
really? He played fair throughout the whole tourney. Grubby came close to winning against him but messed up the final game. There is no reason that foreigners can't win against Koreans so saying that you know koreans will win is definitely not true.
Yes, really, he's korean, he must play in his region, not in EU. Hell, he doesn't even know english. SO much for EU champ lol.
On August 12 2013 03:15 aRyuujin wrote: so proud of finale <3
Proud of him being too weak to compete in KR?
Koreans must be banned in EE and NA regionals. It's not interesting to watch, you know that no matter what, koreans will win. korean vs korean finals, woohoo, so much fun, especially when they come to EU and have guts to not even learn english
EPT
. I don't think I can ever be offended by Sam, regardless of what he says.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/I059sZL.jpg)
