Aneris, a fascinating post. I've intuitively sensed these patterns, but you've explicitly laid them all out and given a language to them. Wonderful work! If you don't mind, I'll interpose some of my tactics/strategies for dealing with this dynamic...
(none of what follows is critique, just thoughts off the top of my head, like brainstorming...)
Aneris wrote:EdwardGemmer wrote:[...] It feels like these people on FtB and SkepChick and others have been raised in atmosphere where racism and sexism are bad! Now all grown up, these people often are failing at life, and the culprits must be racists and sexists, because that's who the devils are. In fact, everything bad must be framed in terms of racism or sexism, because that is what is bad.
I know you're trying to satirize, but for the sake of the argument: Racism and Sexism
are bad. But we aren't living in the 1960ties anymore and you're not solving the problem by insulting and accusing people who happen to post on some blog. Most of the time, the FTBers seem to thrive on power fantasies. It makes them feel good to "win" an argument, they foster their bonds in the ingroup that way, while feeling morally superior, without having to advance any point.
I was a long-time fan of Ophelia Benson's blog before EG, and I definitely sensed this dynamic of getting a kind of psyche/ego boost from the responses of the commentariat. Indeed, I was one of those who would sometimes (perhaps often, I can't remember) make supportive comments to give people a bit of a boost. You can't do it too often, or it just looks like "Me too!" or "Right on!", but actually this technique *is* genuinely effective for ... well, giving people a bit of a boost. I can see how it can be abused, and I try not to abuse it, but truth be told, I do still engage in this practice. I would love to hear critiques of this practice so I can get a better idea of the ethics of it, so I don't fall into any traps. For example, the echo-chamber effect is something I'm actively worried about constantly. I try to surround myself with people who aren't afraid to call me out, and I'm glad when they do. I take Feynman's advice very seriously.
Now, aside from the dangers of it, I would actually recommend this to be used (judiciously!) especially to help people who might be feeling burnt-out, to ... well, give them a boost. I have no adequate language for it, I guess. Could use some feedback. For example, I use the FB Like feature regularly to kind of 'cheer' comments/commenters. Especially if no one else has done it yet. Especially if the post provides useful information (especially people posting informative links) or a different point of view.
As for how to counter this re: FTB/etc. I don't really know. The only way I can think of right now is to lure them out of their safety zones and engage them where they cannot censor. That's why I went gonzo on Nugent's blog, because it was, despite legitimate suspicions of bias, functionally it acted as a neutral territory because posts are not censored. The longer we can keep them engaged on that web-space, the deeper into shit they will fall. No echo chamber effect there.
They can call someone e.g. racist and know that the targeted person is often shocked and helpless and has no way out, due to the way they designed it. While they for example will claim to have special experience, they deny their targets this opportunity. Because you can't argue with "but my friend belongs to minority" (this is a rhetorical trap that can be exploited).
Again, only idea I have for this right now is to engage them outside of their comfort zones (i.e. not on FTB). However, I wouldn't discourage others from engaging on FTB. If you can handle that, awesome. Myself, I can't handle the eggshells and fear of censorship. I'm fucking sick of eggshells.
Generally, they wait for a comment by someone from the outgroup and look for ways to push it into one of the designated corners of sexism, misogyny, racism or ableism with the ultimate goal of getting the person banned. Maybe they are really that stupid, maybe they suffer from confirmation bias and wrong framing (PZ made a threat to invite misogynist, and then all dissent is already framed as misogynistic, even if it isn't the case).
On this post (
http://www.facebook.com/groups/43616382 ... 216596663/) I describe a couple of techniques which I describe as a 'turtle-shell' defense (showing a link to WP's Testudo article), which is basically extreme Socratic method on steroids. Don't make any claims, wear them down with relentless questions, and eventually turn it all around with Evidence Chicken. Get *them* defending *their* claims. The FB post/comments goes into a bit more detail.
They can't back you into a corner if you don't have any openings in your defense. After all, they have *no* evidence, only insinuations. If they had actual evidence, this defense wouldn't work. Ironically, the only reason it *does* work is because they have *nothing*.
The comical part is that it usually plays out the same way. There are usually scouts who poke into the statements, trying to find "alternative meanings" that can be misconstrued.
Julian is/used to be another of these scouts. I've got him pegged, though. :dance: Check the previous FB link for details. Another good example of Evidence Chicken that one was!
Once they found an angle, they keep suggesting what the person meant in their opinion, taking advantage of the somewhat unclear commentary structure and/or long posts.
Hmmm. Interesting. You're saying longer posts make for more openings for them to twist meaning. I suppose you're probably right.
I think, though, that my technique of turtle-shell => Evidence Chicken avoids this problem of long posts giving too much ground. When I'm in turtle-shell mode, I don't give *any* ground. Posts tend to be short. Asking for evidence, not much more.
When I start making actual claims (baiting into Evidence Chicken), then if the forum is *very* hostile, I will make my posts rather long, because I try to ensure that I've covered *all* angles. That's why I recommend in that FB comment thread to the OP to stick to one or maybe two points at a time. That way, I can make the point super-thoroughly, leaving no chinks in the armour. If I had to defend three or five or ten points, I'd be fucked, it would take way too much time, and I'd probably miss an angle.
So, to boil it down: Take one's time, be extremely cautious, don't make too many points at once, wait until the dogpiling dies down, bait into evidence chicken, when they take the bait, escalate the stakes by giving a bit of evidence for your points, then demand that they reciprocate with evidence of their own. If they don't (obviously they can't!), then they are chicken. Simple. Easy. Effective. Works every time. (Well, for me that is. I don't know if other people find it as useful as I do yet.)
So, basically what I'm saying is that for me, longer posts are longer because they are more strongly defended with more parentheticals, conditions, caveats, weasel words (some, can be, likely, usually, that sort of thing), etc. It's only on less hostile forums that I'll risk making shorter, off-hand, ambiguous posts.
Many people won't bother to read anything, so they can slap: "so you are saying women should be raped?" somewhere. One of their typical scouts for example is Strange Gods Before Me who also has the habit of digging up older posts to construe something.
I make it a habit not to post stupid shit. This problem of people dredging up old mistakes has basically disappeared from my life.
He will also often use so-called loaded questions, like "do you still beat your wife", which causes effectively a person to have to explain themselves.
Socratic method. Always always always question the fuck out of unfounded assumptions. "Why do you beat your wife?" leads me to reply "Why do you think your question is not leading?" or some variation. It's good to practice with run-of-the-mill internet or theist trolls so you can get the hang of not getting instantly defensive. Tough skin and all that.
" Once the ground is prepared the main high horse cavalry rides in, these are people like Caine, Sally Strange, Janine and Co. They will never make an actual point. They are only there to accuse the person of being one of the four things. "
Turtle-shell. "Do you have any evidence of that?" "Please provide a quote of me saying that." Etc. Lather rinse repeat until they get bored and the number of accusations per second dies down. Then convert into Evidence Chicken by giving them some bait. Make a small, easily defensible claim. They will pounce. You plop some solid evidence down, then immediately challenge them to back up all of their claims (you've been keeping track, of course!).
They never expressed any theory or world view themselves.
Thank fuck. Nor do I care.
For example, there are three waves in feminism and multiple branches. This isn't discussed. They now try to joust the target further into one of the designated corners.
Next, the person attacked is typically accused with ad hominems (personal remarks, their motives questioned etc), designed to make the person explain themselves.
Grow a thick skin. Practice with trolls.
When this stratagem works, they can usually mine the resulting comments and dig deeper and if it isn't working well enough, pull the "you make it all about yourself" card.
If you've got this far, I think it's fair to say you've been fucked by the dogpile. Best not to get to this position in the first place. On a super-hostile forum, there's naught left to do but just quit the thread, IMO. On a thread of actual skeptics, only one valid response if you've actually gone overboard, apologize sincerely and move on.
The third element, next to scouts and high horse ambush cavalry is the function of the cleric. These minor posters will often ask their gods, chris or PZ, to swing the ban hammer and smite the target person. This naturally comes later in the debate when the target is prepared enough.
I don't have many tips for dealing with getting banned. Rarely, if ever, been banned myself. No place I ever cared about, that's for sure. Was worried I'd get banned by Greta on the upskirt thread. I was ready for that by playing super-turtle first, and if I got banned, I was ready to spam that fact all over the place, i.e. banned for no reason. That's about the only idea I got there.
If you pay attention, you will also see how the commentariat frequently blurs the lines by creating "enemy groups". For example, there might be an actual troll and everyone makes fun of that troll, but there is a genuine poster with a different opinion. They will then often write things like "troll and this other person" as if they somehow belong together, even when they never have any interaction.
Good eye, never noticed that one before. If this ever happened to me, I would treat it just like any other ad hom/guilt by assoc. Call it out, basically, "That's not an argument. Can you quote something I've actually said that you disagree with? Thanks!"
Oh, and this brings up an important (IMO) part of my strategy. I simply don't use snipes unless I can be pretty much 100% certain it won't backfire (e.g. I was delighted to take a pot shot at Oolon's retarded comment on Nugent's blog. That was fun.) So, notice how I added "Thanks!" at the end? Well, basically, my *instinct* was to say, "Moron.", or "Asswipe." or something equally 'parting-shot'-ish. But, frankly, that just doesn't work the way it works on theists. Different context, different audience, different players. As your post lays out, they have their own strategies for using such parting shots against people. Basically, they can make it backfire.
So, I've taken to being like, super polite. Almost, but *not quite*, obnoxiously polite. Not to the level of Victorian era brown-noser. That would just give them the 'pompous' card to play. Instead, I've been working on being, well, sincerely polite. Just changing my mind about how I want to treat my adversaries in different contexts. You can't really fake polite, so you basically have to find some way of thinking to yourself, "What *possible* way could their comment have benefited me, like *really*, actually benefited me?" And then, just thank them for that. Simple, actually. Just takes a bit of imagination. Don't use your creativity to turn it into a 'damning with faint praise' jab, though. Those are transparent, not sincere.
You don't have to *pretend* that you like them or anything stupid like that. Just find whatever tiny little thing that's good, and bring it to the foreground by mentioning it. It really leaves them looking retarded if they reply to a genuinely polite (and I stress it must be sincere) comment with vitriol and abuse. It *highlights* the problems we are trying to tackle here.
If this is not your thing, please do not take this as preachy advice. It is *not* meant that way. These are just my own thoughts on how I do things, phrased with "you" in the generic-you sense, not the "all you lowly slyme-pitters, you scum". I respect you guys (pretty much everyone I can think of) more than that. If it's not your thing, just ignore it, pretend I never said it. It wasn't directed at you specifically. I promise. I do *not* mean that everyone should be this way.
When it goes well, they at least build a history with a person to be their foil. They use that foil to demonstrate each other how good people they are. The foil is basically abused and objectified to use their own terminology and is only good to provide an often manufactured contrast to their own "shiny views", which never need explanation. They then pad each other on their backs, hug each other in the lounge and this reinforces their ingroup.
Yeah, basically, if you've got this far, I don't have much advice. (I know I just said the word advice, but really, again, not meant to be preachy advice, just can't think of a different word that's better there.) My strategy since ... forever, basically, has been pretty much: Don't do stupid shit. More specifically, in the last few years, it's become more specific to: Don't do anything *actually* wrong. Or, alternatively, Don't do anything unethical. Or, more practically, Don't do anything you might conceivably have to apologize for in the future. And, a corollary to the last one is: If you *do* ever do something you need to apologize for (this is guaranteed to happen frequently, no matter what), then apologize sincerely as soon as you become aware of it, and take steps to no longer do it in the future. Too many people in this whole mess are too attached to their egos and won't apologize, even when they should, Rebecca.
Once I have acclimatized myself some more, I will propose some pranks on them. Will be fun. :shhh:
Wait, this isn't the secret forum? Oh shit, I just gave away my whole game! Fffuuu-
Where's my secret decoder ring to get into the secret inner sanctum of holiness sub-forum?