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Canada9720 Posts
Let me level with you guys.
Often, when someone finds themselves confronted, and whatever story they had been trying to sell becomes unsellable, they retreat to a phrase that, despite its meaning, purports to carry a soothing message: let me level with you.
The levelers will bring this last trick out, the final bullet in the six shooter of bullshit, to invoke pathos from the levelee, in an attempt to convey complete honesty. What's more irritating than the users of the phrase, is the implication behind it: that the leveler is descending from another level, a realm beyond yours that you can only assume he begrudgingly leaves, momentarily, just to fill you in.
Once the leveling is finished, the leveler unfailingly will return to his level, having deposited the required amount of truth to satiate the levelee, mixed in with enough bullshit to secure his return to the next level. Because nobody levels with you forever: it's assumed to be fleeting – to be a brief moment, where you'll be overwhelmed with feelings of enlightenment from the leveling, and gratitude of having, for even just a single interaction, been on the same level as someone who is clearly levels beyond you.
An example:
You: Hey man, you slept with my wife. That's like, uncool.
Leveler: What, no way bro, totally never happened.
You: I just cought you nailing her. Right now.
Leveler: I'm gonna level with you, bro [assuming serious look, sighing deeply, and turning head slightly] I did it. Sorry man. Later
Well, at least he leveled with me, the levelee sometimes thinks to console himself. But it's a meagre consolation, and one that shouldn't be entertained to begin with. Leveling is bullshit, people. It's the everyday used-car salesman's last offer, the bargain bin at Wal-mart. You may feel like things turned up well, but there's a pervasive feeling that something's wrong that you can't shake. And you know something's up, because leveling only goes one way.
Nobody levels upwards. It just doesn't happen. Someone can't be telling you the truth, and then, after a moment of deep, inward contemplation, decide to start telling the next level of truth. Truth is leveless, a plateau which any conversation is happy to be treading. Upon finishing his anecdote about the camping weekend, your best friend says, “I'm gonna level with you dude: it was awesome.” This doesn't happen, and if it does, your friend's an idiot, and someone else, who really came from the next level, has been sliding him level-slanted bullshit for too long.
So the next time someone leans forward, purses their lips and tilts their heads toward you, pre-empt them before the bullshit that you know is coming tumbles out. You're not leveling with anyone, you fucker. You're condescending, so say what you mean: let me condescend to you. Then, you can evoke all the proper imagery, without any of the misdirection. There's no hard feelings – just say what you mean.
 
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Wow. Where did this come from, and i can see how this would be aggravating.
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someone slept with your wife?
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Ahh such delicious timing. People are going to be needing this very soon when they say: "K I'm gonna level wit u: I'm a hacker."
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On August 31 2009 10:54 CTStalker wrote:
An example:
CTStalker: Hey man, you slept with my wife. That's like, uncool.
Ex-best friend of CTS: What, no way bro, totally never happened.
CTStalker: I just cought you nailing her. Right now.
Ex-best friend of CTS: I'm gonna level with you, bro [assuming serious look, sighing deeply, and turning head slightly] I did it. Sorry man. Later
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On August 31 2009 11:02 Fontong wrote:
Ahh such delicious timing. People are going to be needing this very soon when they say: "K I'm gonna level wit u: I'm a hacker."
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Canada9720 Posts
nobody slept with my non-existant wife. you can replace the deed with hacking, since that seems to be pretty in vogue right now. it's mostly a joke, but the phrase really does irritate me
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you are implying that to counter this phrase is that we use a fist can off whoop ass amirite?
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I thought the thread was about high level player, playing lower levels to level up ......lol
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You must hang out with a bunch of douche bags. Get new friends.
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8748 Posts
On August 31 2009 11:54 Mastermind wrote:
You must hang out with a bunch of douche bags. Get new friends.
rofl i love how a linguistic observation prompts a cynical assumption about the author's social life. only on the internet
leveling is supposed to mean that you are going to take on the other person's assumptions or most basic beliefs. things that can't be easily approached with argument or reasoning so they're just left alone. things that make you fundamentally different. the problem is that when a person says "im gonna level with you" they are implying that they're not abandoning their positioning. what they're doing is taking on your position, but then pretending that it has yielded to their argument, and then they proceed to deal with that new development in a practical manner.
the good way to work with someone is to take on their beliefs while temporarily abandoning your own. fully experience their side of things. see if it seems right. if it does, then you can solve things. if it doesn't, then at least make a comparison, pros and cons, against your own position. but this whole leveling business is certainly ridiculous and useless
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Those hackers got what they deserved!
Wrong thread sorry.
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An example:
You: Hey man, you slept with my wife. That's like, uncool.
Leveler: What, no way bro, totally never happened.
You: I just cought you nailing her. Right now.
Leveler: I'm gonna level with you, bro [assuming serious look, sighing deeply, and turning head slightly] I did it. Sorry man. Later
It's not a leveler, it's a douchebag. The moment he assumes that serious look and tells you he did it, you sucker punch him in the jaw or nose, so he learns his lesson.
leveling is supposed to mean that you are going to take on the other person's assumptions or most basic beliefs. things that can't be easily approached with argument or reasoning so they're just left alone. things that make you fundamentally different
There is nothing that can't be approached with argument and reasoning. In the argument, 99.9% of the time someone is right and the other person is wrong. So if the person that is wrong tries to "level" as you call it, he's just a pretentious ignorant douche that's wrong.
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Hmm, interesting take on the phrase. I'd personally always taken "I'm going to level with you" as synonymous for "I'm going to be blunt" or "I'm going to be frank". Do you see these latter two phrases similarly as you see the first?
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8748 Posts
On August 31 2009 21:28 Sadistx wrote:Show nested quote +An example:
You: Hey man, you slept with my wife. That's like, uncool.
Leveler: What, no way bro, totally never happened.
You: I just cought you nailing her. Right now.
Leveler: I'm gonna level with you, bro [assuming serious look, sighing deeply, and turning head slightly] I did it. Sorry man. Later It's not a leveler, it's a douchebag. The moment he assumes that serious look and tells you he did it, you sucker punch him in the jaw or nose, so he learns his lesson. Show nested quote +leveling is supposed to mean that you are going to take on the other person's assumptions or most basic beliefs. things that can't be easily approached with argument or reasoning so they're just left alone. things that make you fundamentally different There is nothing that can't be approached with argument and reasoning. In the argument, 99.9% of the time someone is right and the other person is wrong. So if the person that is wrong tries to "level" as you call it, he's just a pretentious ignorant douche that's wrong.
Of course anything can be approached with argument and reasoning but not everything can be solved with argument and reasoning. And there are things where argument and reasoning get you nowhere.
One obvious case is when a person fails to understand an argument. This could be an elementary school kid failing to understand improper fractions or it could be a professor failing to understand what his brilliant colleague has just discovered. You may say that it's the fault of the person who does not understand, but it certainly has not proven to be true that communicating an idea via logical argument is an infallible way to illuminate knowledge. Language is definitely a crippling limitation in some cases. And it could be that some very capable human minds are unresponsive to reasoning but can demonstrate their genius after achieving understanding through experience. That is, learning by doing is the only option for some.
Indeed, our most brilliant wordsmiths fail to fully put their experiences into words even when handicapping their work with idiosyncrasies. Therefore how can it be expected for them, or for anyone, to successfully communicate their experiences to others?
So in any dispute when someone claims to have had a unique experience, or at least unique among the parties involved, there can exist premises derived from an experience that is understood by only one party.
Taking on another person's position is sometimes the best we've got until our skills of argument, logic, reasoning and/or communication advance to a level that make it unnecessary. Whether those skills have such potential capacity at all remains unknown.
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Canada9720 Posts
On September 01 2009 02:26 Draconizard wrote:
Hmm, interesting take on the phrase. I'd personally always taken "I'm going to level with you" as synonymous for "I'm going to be blunt" or "I'm going to be frank". Do you see these latter two phrases similarly as you see the first?
generally, i take 'im going to level with you' to mean the same thing as the other phrases you listed. the difference to me is mostly contextual. i find leveling is used more often with the sorts of connotations that i listed above, while, in general, people appreciate bluntness (to a degree).
i've also exaggerated slightly for humorous purposes, but that seems to have missed the mark pretty badly.
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Well if you see it like that, then wouldn't your problem with the phrase be the situations in which it is used rather than the meaning of the phrase itself?
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Canada9720 Posts
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i540.photobucket.com/albums/gg356/Grobyc_/dino2.png?t=1251685420)
