plato85

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/07/if-you-want-to-know-about-muslim-womens-rights-ask-muslim-women?CMP=share_btn_fb this adds a whole new dimension to trolling. Political correctness is trolling. I'm in over my head. Trolling is amateur compared with political correctness.

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-08/albanese-shorten-labor-australians-first-ad-criticised/8506358 This is how meek the culture I live in is! For context Shorten is leader of the left wing opposition, all those ministers who were triggered were white too. Albanese is the most obvious alternate opposition leader. Shorten has done half the job of a troll by saying something reasonable in a way that triggered everyone. His response was all wrong. How could he have responded in a way that made all these people feel pathetic?

The bigger picture we're talking about is culture. I live in Melbourne, I can't avoid my culture. It's not that they're not friendly, our manners and customs impels us to take the side of the person with hurt feelings. Our manners and customs are similar to England's, although our culture is quite different. We don't value religion, but our customs are still quite protestant. We are not supposed to talk about religion, politics, or money at the dinner table. We are not supposed to offend anyone. Meekness may work well in a Christian, class based society where the church has moral authority and everyone looks up to the next class, and each class is responsible to help the next class. Australia started as a penal colony, and we were treated poorly by the upper classes, we we refused to look up to the next classes and became atheistic quickly. If your society is meek and there's no class hierarchy, and there is no moral authority in the church, moral authority is hijacked by the people who are the most easily offended. Because it is not proper to upset people or offend people it's hard to challenge them. Rather than moral authority from the top of society you end up with moral authority from the bottom. We were discussing self actualization before, you can see the obvious problem with this kind of society. We our society as having a 'Tall poppy syndrome' - the imagery is that the poppies that grow too tall are cut down to everyone else's level. In Australia we talk about a silent majority. It appears in public that everyone is on board with progressive values or at least no one opposes them, but we keep voting in conservative governments. We avoid confrontation, and we avoid debate, so we pander to the irrational. If it can be shown that it's OK to offend someone and undermine that meek culture, maybe we could completely change our society for the better.

Your argument is that I can't convince people to be rational because I'm irrational. And your argument that I'm irrational is that I've got PC in my family, and I've tried and failed to convince them to use reason?

Say you're right, and I've got some serious issues. How does any of this actually answer the question of how to make someone rational? Your position that I can't easily make someone rational is a subjective opinion not fact. Even if you gathered the best psychiatrists in the world and they agreed with you, the next great psychiatrist might come along and find the solution. My position that it may be possible to easily make people rational is also subjecting, I don't know how to make people rational so I can't prove my position until I figure out how to do it. So what's the point arguing over two subjective positions? It's futile, it's a waste of both of our time. You'd contribute far more if you could tell me why people are irrational, and if you could help me see the full depth of the problem. You don't know the full depth of the problem either.

The bigger picture we're talking about is culture. I live in Melbourne, I can't avoid my culture. It's not that they're not friendly, our manners and customs impels us to take the side of the person with hurt feelings. Our manners and customs are similar to England's, although our culture is quite different. We don't value religion, but our customs are still quite protestant. We are not supposed to talk about religion, politics, or money at the dinner table. We are not supposed to offend anyone. Meekness may work well in a Christian, class based society where the church has moral authority and everyone looks up to the next class, and each class is responsible to help the next class. Australia started as a penal colony, and we were treated poorly by the upper classes, we we refused to look up to the next classes and became atheistic quickly. If your society is meek and there's no class hierarchy, and there is no moral authority in the church, moral authority is hijacked by the people who are the most easily offended. Because it is not proper to upset people or offend people it's hard to challenge them. Rather than moral authority from the top of society you end up with moral authority from the bottom. We were discussing self actualization before, you can see the obvious problem with this kind of society. We our society as having a 'Tall poppy syndrome' - the imagery is that the poppies that grow too tall are cut down to everyone else's level. In Australia we talk about a silent majority. It appears in public that everyone is on board with progressive values or at least no one opposes them, but we keep voting in conservative governments. We avoid confrontation, and we avoid debate, so we pander to the irrational. If it can be shown that it's OK to offend someone and undermine that meek culture, maybe we could completely change our society for the better.

Troll was the wrong word to describe you. Cynic is a better word. Cynicism is a philosophy that ends philosophy. I find your line of argument draining, but not for the Freudian reasons you think. Your line of argument takes energy out of the discussion and gets people sidetracked. Philosophy is a light. As you understand the world better you can see what's happening around you. When I ask a question about the world I'm shining a light out to try to see the shapes that make reality. If I'm not satisfied with the answers then I'll keep asking questions until I find an answer that helps. You don't try to answer my questions. I shine a light out and you shine a light in my face and say the problems are with me. How am I supposed to see out when you're directing your torch at me? If I ask how can I argue with irrationality, you say I can't. If I ask why not, you ask why do I want to? If I ask how I can change people, you say hang around different people. If I ask how I can change the world, you tell me to adjust myself to the world. Nothing can ever be achieved by this line of argument. I'm having more success in finding answers in the You're looking for quick solutions to a problem of which you are denying the depths of. In other words, by being so forthright, by being precise and terse, by challenging your assumptions (which btw, how do you come to a philosophy forum with questions and then deny out of hand the answers when you don't get what you want?), I'm trying to shake you loose out of the tree. When you've confronted the irrationality in yourself, then you will have the courage to confront irrationality in those closest to you. Once through that, taking on the world's irrationality becomes an easy joy. You see me as trying to throw obstacles to trip you up. Stop. Observe. Think. Those obstacles are your real path. I'm showing you EXACTLY what you are looking for. But it means letting go of the illusions you've been holding onto, specifically about yourself and in your personal relationships. "People" are the "world". How are you supposed to change them when you can't even adjust yourself to align with what you preach? These are cynical, and closed positions you're taking. You're not challenging my assumption. You're starting with the assumption that I can't easily make a huge difference, I'm challenging your assumption. Resigning to "You're looking for quick solutions to a problem of which you are denying the depths of" is a closed position. You may be right that there are not quick solutions, but if there are you're not going to be able to find them with a cynical outlook. I'm not denying the depth of the problem, I'm trying to shine a light to see how deep the problem is, that's why I keep asking the questions. When you've confronted the irrationality in yourself - I don't accept that it is irrational to keep asking questions and not accept your position, even if you think it is unlikely that I'll find a better answer than what you're giving me. It's not a truth that it's not possible to argue some sense into someone, it's an opinion. "People" are the "world". How are you supposed to change them when you can't even adjust yourself to align with what you preach? Again you're assuming it's irrational to think I can make a huge difference. All the great philosophers have made a huge difference. To put it another way. Your position that I can't easily make someone rational is a subjective opinion not fact. Even if you gathered the best psychiatrists in the world and they agreed with you, the next great psychiatrist might come along and find the solution. My position that it may be possible to easily make people rational is also subjecting, I don't know how to make people rational so I can't prove my position until I figure out how to do it. So what's the point arguing over two subjective positions? It's futile, it's a waste of both of our time. You'd contribute far more if you could tell me why people are irrational, and if you could help me see the full depth of the problem. You don't know the full depth of the problem either.

The bigger picture we're talking about is culture. I live in Melbourne, I can't avoid my culture. It's not that they're not friendly, our manners and customs impels us to take the side of the person with hurt feelings. Our manners and customs are similar to England's, although our culture is quite different. We don't value religion, but our customs are still quite protestant. We are not supposed to talk about religion, politics, or money at the dinner table. We are not supposed to offend anyone. Meekness may work well in a Christian, class based society where the church has moral authority and everyone looks up to the next class, and each class is responsible to help the next class. Australia started as a penal colony, and we were treated poorly by the upper classes, we we refused to look up to the next classes and became atheistic quickly. If your society is meek and there's no class hierarchy, and there is no moral authority in the church, moral authority is hijacked by the people who are the most easily offended. Because it is not proper to upset people or offend people it's hard to challenge them. Rather than moral authority from the top of society you end up with moral authority from the bottom. We were discussing self actualization before, you can see the obvious problem with this kind of society. We our society as having a 'Tall poppy syndrome' - the imagery is that the poppies that grow too tall are cut down to everyone else's level. In Australia we talk about a silent majority. It appears in public that everyone is on board with progressive values or at least no one opposes them, but we keep voting in conservative governments. We avoid confrontation, and we avoid debate, so we pander to the irrational. If it can be shown that it's OK to offend someone and undermine that meek culture, maybe we could completely change our society for the better.

The demonisation of certain opinions is done by associating other opinions, and assuming that if you have one opinion you automatically have another opinion. The illogic goes like this: All Nazis are opposed to open borders, therefore if you're opposed to open borders you're a Nazi. If you are opposed to open borders, you're therefore also in favour of genocide. These are the kind of illogical ideas a SJW have swilling around their heads, but these ideas haven't taken the shape of words and they haven't examined them. If you can bring these words out of them, they sound insane, probably even to the person saying them. You mentioned trolling is about exaggeration. It might be as much about understatement. I said something inoffensive, Magic bellies (women give birth to children), but she jumped ahead a few illogical steps and started arguing about something else. It's insane to think any Westerner is against a woman's right to choose whether to get married and have a family, but I exposed that irrational belief in her, and it sounded insane and hysterical when she said it. Maybe we can say that a troll is an exaggerated understatement, which leads its victim to express irrational views that they assume the troller has. ------------------------- The reason that these demonised opinions have become such sacred cows that can't be questioned is that people accept that shame. Shaming on the troll is a central and inescapable part of trolling. So we must discuss this. I've read a book called "So you've been Publicly Shamed" (light and very entertaining book. I'd recommend it). In the book the journalist travels around meeting people who've been publicly shamed in the media, news, internet, and communities. The people who accepted the shame dealt far worse than the people who refused to feel shamed. The people who accepted the shame let people destroy their lives and they couldn't defend themselves. The people who refused to feel shame came off well, some of them came off looking like legends, and the people trying to shame them look pathetic and cruel. In my magic belly example, the shame came in two different levels. Firstly, the direct accusation that I'm horrible for having a certain view which I can deal with and respond to. The second level of shame came in the form of an exposed wound. That second level is hard to respond to. Sitting there smiling in silence was about the most measured response I could come up with.

There's a dichotomy in all democratic societies. Even when there's a diversity of views there are polarising issues. Trolling works especially well when there are demonised opinions which are generally unacceptable in polite society, even if they're true. Demonised opinions are what we are concerned with, and the troll must show that demonised opinions are on the table to be discussed, and that it's not wrong/evil/immoral to have the demonised opinion, and that the outrage against that opinion is over the top and irrational. In my 'magic bellies' example, she went on a rant about how women can chose whether they have babies etc... by the end of her rant, I was in a shameful position. She'd shamed me, I sat there and took it. Everyone looked at each other and then at me. The possible responses came to me immediately: "I didn't say you can't choose not to have a baby", or "What did I actually say that was offensive?". But I'd already wounded her, one more comeback and she'd be on the floor quivering and I'd then definitely be seen as a bully. In the moment it was a dilemma: Stand up for yourself and be seen as a bully or cop it on the chin. I took the latter option, I sat and grinned. The audience didn't appear to quite have any idea of what was going on or know how to respond either. I was belittled, they took my glass of wine away mockingly (we were all completely sober after a game of tennis), and someone said "you could have worded that better". It's was an incredibly tense situation for everyone on the table, and I couldn't expect a positive feedback. I think I went far enough. I think my troll was effective but it's hard to tell. The general feeling from everyone was confusion. My general feeling was adrenaline. Her general feeling was horror.

Oh no, that makes sense. In other words, there's no point arguing with anyone until they're self actualized. No wonder the world is such a mess. It sounds like I've got some reading to do. I'll read those books/courses you recommended.

humility Pronunciation: /hjʊˈmɪlɪti/ noun [mass noun] The quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance:he needs the humility to accept that their way may be better Geez isn't our language rich. Someone beat me to this idea.

Oh this is very thought provoking. Good point. Humiliation is the central emotion. Given that my aim is to change an opponent's views, exaggerating and pointing out that people are dumb/ignorant/indoctrinated may be central, but I'll withhold my judgement on that for now. I would say that humiliation is something that you can't help but want to learn from. In Internal Family Systems psychology, you would say that the exile is suppressed and not something we're generally aware of. When someone is humiliated their exiles are wounded and they come to the surface, but their fireman jumps in to protect them. In a conflict the fireman is not going to give ground in front of you, but afterwards I imagine that person is going to try to figure out what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Bringing that exile to the surface gives them an opportunity to learn. This brings up some new questions. There are separate emotions we need to distinguish from humiliation. Emotions like embarrassment, shame, and guilt are related and feel similar, but are distinctly different from humiliation so it's easy to confuse them. If we want to change an opponent's views by trolling we need to cause an inner conflict. The conflict may be between separate values that they hold, or it might be between their outlook and reality. Related words like embarrassment, shame, and guilt imply more that someone is being held to someone else's standard. If someone is shamed they are held to a socially acceptable standard, not one that is necessarily their own. For instance someone may have no inner conflict about being gay, but still feel ashamed about being exposed as gay. They might feel ashamed because people are judging them, and if they’ve internalised the accepted standards they will feel guilty. Are shaming and humiliating are two opposites, even though they seem the same? This is my theory - Shaming is holding someone to a public standard, and humiliating is holding someone to their own standard. You can shame someone into accepting social standards, but if that person internalises the shame as their own standard, they become repressed and they repress their thoughts and emotion. Humiliating someone is holding their standards up to reality (not social standards). Humiliation may be liberating to a repressed person. Also, shaming is about making people feel shame for not living up to your standard, trolling is about making people humiliate themselves by overreacting to expose their irrationality.

I can't think of a higher value than civilisation and human greatness.

This is some good discussion! Ofd! That's so obvious it's hard to believe I've overlooked it. When I was comparing swearing in the 60s to show how ridiculous peoples response was, I completely forgot that outrage is against truth these days. There is some disagreement about what 'trolling' is, and how to define it. But What I'm trying to do is influence people by bringing out their irrationality. Taking on board what everyone's said so far I'll write out the general principles: Purpose: To influence people by bringing out a an irrational response to point out how irrational someones beliefs are. Principles: The more obviously true a statement is, the less offense should be taken to it. The success of a troll is a measure of the response indirectly proportional to the offense given. Someone is more likely to be offended by truth if the truth challenges their identity (e.g. Communist, feminist etc..) Method? How to get away with it? How can we improve this?

I know you've put a lot of effort into that post, and I'll get to that post eventually once I have time to watch those videos. I get where you're coming from, but it abstract to say they are not a person they are a problem to be fixed. If I didn't see them as a person I would ignore them. If I genuinely wanted to help someone as a person by influencing them to be rationale why couldn't I also see them as a problem to be fixed. Yes that's the problem, and my question is about different ways to go about influencing someone who's irrational.

You are right. I wonder if I figure out how to do it right I can avoid these dangers? I've got an example. I was sitting around with in a friendly group of 8 after a tennis match. I sat politely listening to a woman describing her International Women's Day breakfast, and then she got onto the subject of women's football (which is the latest phenomenon in Melbourne). She asked everyone what they thought of womens football, I said "Women have magic bellies. Maybe they'll be injured while they're playing and lose that magic". She was dumb founded and went right off her head. Everyone else stayed silent, and meekly took her side to defuse her and changed the topic. On the way home my friend asked why I said it. I asked him what she found offensive about it? There isn't anything offensive about it unless she chose to be offended. He laughed and he said "when you put it like that it's funny, but at the time it wasn't, and no one got it." When I got home I told my wife and she said "I've got a magic belly? Awww that sounds cute". I've read that parts link. Very interesting stuff! Are you saying the best way to influence someone irrational to look at their beliefs, is to appeal to the managers and avoid the firefighters and exiles. To avoid the firefighter you use the Socratic method and avoid trying to reason.

Thanks Donna! It sounds like this is exactly what I'm asking about. Where can I find more about this?

From Practicality of trolling: My silence is suspended judgment. I don't necessarily disagree that it takes time. The question is how can we spend that time? We have a range of options to influence irrational people, none are clearly effective, and we're trying to figure out the best method or combination of methods. Socratic method - Ask questions until their brain starts working Rational argument and debate - It hasn't worked for me yet, and it seems to cause people to become more irrational. Trolling - I'm in theory stage Give up - I don't think I'll ever give up

How does this sound for a founding principle of trolling: The reaction should be indirectly related to the offense. In other words, we could say that trolling is more successful when you get a big reaction to something that's not offensive at all. In the first video I posted "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but there will always be something to offend a feminist". The reason that tolling was so successful and funny is because what he said is not offensive at all, but it got a big reaction.

I'm going through the FDR podcasts and I've found this one which is right on topic: Molyneux discusses why It's so had to reason with people, and why people cling so tight to their moral code. Morality Is Not Easy - Surviving the Cynics December 10th 2005 http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/morality_is_not_easy__traffic_jam_2_Dec10_05.mp3 http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/6/morality-is-not-easy-surviving-the-cynics

My conviction is he's either a spy or he's got a criminal past to leave behind.

That's the dilemma. Lefties are louder, righties are quieter. When I was a leftie I think I was always open minded, but the problem is that lefties are always around and they always make it known that they are left. You might know this as virtue signalling, although when I was a leftie I made noise for the same reason I make noise now, I love debating, I love hearing ideas. But righties don't speak up especially to a leftie (you might know this as the silent majority). So if you're leftie and you are open minded, that doesn't mean you'll necessarily hear different opinions. This might have changed in the digital age, it's easier to seek out different ideas, or on the other hand the 'echo chamber' might make it worse. As futile as it might see to argue with irrational people, if we don't then they won't hear any other opinion. If the mainstream culture makes all the noise, and the counterculture thinks it's a waste of time to try to reason, then the mainstream culture wins. PS See my previous post which just got through the moderator.

EDIT: I want this discussion to be about practice, but I've realised how strange this thread is without the theory which I'll paste here from Arguing with Irrationality: Now to the question of HOW: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I've put forward in a separate thread the theory of trolling the irrational mind. In this thread I want to discuss the practicality. This humour is very similar to what the counterculture used to deconstruct the old conservative ideology. In the 1970s in Australia Graham Kennedy destroyed his career with his famous 'crow call' (Farrrk, Farrrk, Farrrk) My question to the forum in this thread is about the practicality of trolling: What is trolling and how is it done? How do you know you're not just being a jerk? When is this appropriate? How do you know when you're going too far?

I've come up with a theory to influence the irrational, based on conclusions I've derived from my previous post. We've discussed how difficult it is to reason with someone who's irrational. The problem seems to be that irrational people rely on a strong subconscious mind, and reasoning only appeals to the conscious mind. 'Irrational mind' is just another way of describing the subconscious mind. So the question becomes, how do we influence the subconscious mind? When I thought someone caught me reading something I wasn't supposed to, my subconscious came out and apologized. This was an over reaction that my conscious mind identified, and my conscious mind needed to unravel in my subconscious mind. The idea I'm trying to put forward here is, if we can find a way to bring out people's irrational subconscious over-reactions, then their conscious mind will feel humiliated and fight back against their subconscious mind. This brings me to trolling. I suspect the feminist in this video will go home afterwards and have a long hard think about her life. And the audience who support their views may also feel uneasy.