Where have all the Posters gone?

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I don't know. Sometimes life/s**t happens and internet forums take a backseat.

We don't do some of the pointless social things neurotypicals do. This is explained because we are all either robots, Vulcans, or both. Therefore, we must be as logical as Vulcans and robots.

(I've noticed that "Aspies are logical" is usually played by people who are acting extremely irrationally, particularly conspiracy theorists. I am worried that these people must be convinced that they are right and everyone else is wrong because they are autistic and rational, whilst everyone else is neurotypical, and indeed disagreeing with them is a sign that you too must be neurotypical)

Aspies have a tendency towards more pure logic. It's easier to run to pure logic as a shelter than to try to assimilate oneself to a world of nuance you'll never pick up on. The biggest problem is not getting a joke, I think. We're all like, "no soap?radio" and can't figure out why people always ask US what's so funny. Simple logic is much safer since we don't HAVE to laugh at jokes we don't get. And it's not just jokes, it's everything that doesn't follow normal patterns. It's safer to just ignore it.

The trouble with logic is all sorts of different conclusions can be reached logically. When someone doesn't have a logical answer to an argument, we can just call ourselves winners. We fail to notice that the arguments we put forth follow more from intellectual or pseudo intellectual trends and begin from irrational assumptions. And for all our reliance on skepticism and logic, we never once ask ourselves why we accept our base assumptions and not others. It's counterproductive, but nobody ever questions it. I find that fascinating.

IMHO, PB/AP was able to stick around as long as he did because he mostly trolled conservatives and other non-liberals, which most of the forum (and the old mod team) would turn a blind eye towards, if not tacitly encourage. I also think the mods are more reluctant to ban a longstanding member with a high post count, and after he'd established himself here, he benefited from that status, despite his very trollish tendencies. I'm probably the one that got the ball rolling on him, as like you, I was tired of seeing him blatantly troll without any consequences while others were punished for similar behavior, and as he'd been here so long at that point, I don't think anyone was truly seeing what he was up to, as he'd just become part of the landscape. He was given ample chances to change his behavior, so in the end, the consequences are completely on him.

You, on the other hand, are a religious non-liberal, which means that depending upon your denomination, merely talking about your beliefs may result in a ToS violation, and that you're automatically viewed askance by a goodly chunk of the forum, and thus much more likely to be reported, justified or not. I can't tell you how many frivolous reports people have made on me over the years, from claiming that my avatar is "threatening" to attempting to parse my posts into personal attacks to arguing that my positions themselves are somehow offensive to others, it's just a given that some people will attempt to silence voices they disagree with by abusing the mods. I will say that it has gotten much better since the mod turnover several years ago, the current team is well aware of the dynamic at work and knows BS reports when they see them, were as with the old team I once had two different mods threaten to ban me within 10 minutes of each other because of a formatting error in my signature...

Eh, that was so long ago at this point, I don't think you can really blame the current doldrums on him; I think the most prominent victims of that were Chever and Fnord, and Fnord eventually got his ban lifted, only to disappear again. If you recall, the whole thing was rather abortive, he came in here with this ridiculous 'laying down the law' post and was practically laughed out of the forum, and then he and Lau tried to play the whole thing off like it was all a big joke. I'd say it's the cycle thing, PPR in particular has active periods and sedentary periods, and this is just one of the latter. Nothing too interesting going on, people have better things to do, many of the stronger debaters are on hiatus, etc. Even gun control threads don't stick right now, the WP gun club having chased off all the real opposition, leaving us with some hit and run artists that drop dumb articles and scurry off. Now if we really wanted to get some action going, we could always rile up the feminists, that's always good for 20-30 pages of rage posts, but I'm not sure I want to pull the pin on that particular grenade just yet...

lol

Boo has them wagon-circling at the moment.

He's good at that.

I see they're also attempting to silence dissent again, I might just have to go over there...

Wait...not yet. Gimme about 10 minutes and I'll have some popcorn ready.

^
They really shouldn't allude to me if they don't want me to show up, I'm like Beetlejuice or the Candy Man that way.

^I would have said "Bloody Mary."

Well, there is a good chance I'm drinking one at any given time...

Maybe I'll bring friends.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhAQLKiflpo[/youtube]

Somewhat confused?

It's an expression from the American Old West pioneer days. The pioneers would literally form circles around wagons to fend off Indian attacks. In contemporary politics, it happens when a pol says something that is remarkably stupid, even for them. For instance, say a Democrat in casual conversation at a fundraiser mentioned something about a program to keep blacks on welfare "so we can keep getting the n!gg4 vote," not realizing that the person she's talking to happens to be a reporter with the AP and some other guy is a political opponent affiliated with the National Association of Always Complaining People. Horror of horrors, that happens to be the story the AP runs with, which is a feat in and of itself, and it makes the Dems look bad, especially the Dem that cracked a joke while she was drunk. The next thing that will happen is other Dems will come out of the woodwork actually DEFENDING her. First round will be "oh, she didn't actually say that." When it gets confirmed by multiple sources, they'll get "Well, ok, she said that, but what she MEANT was?" The third round will be "Well, it's OK for her to say that because she's a Democrat." It'll eventually get swept under the rug and they'll put their faith back in short attention span of the public.

Bill Clinton's wagon got circled too many times to count, and I'm not just talking about what Lewinsky did in the oval office.

What happened in a L&D thread is that a woman (I'm assuming a feminist) made a remark related to how women dress and "asking for it." Boo pointed out the mistake and asked two other feminists to politely correct their compatriot. Rather than correct, they defended.

That sucks. Erm... I mean...

I stopped posting here for a while because a) it seemed like some people (AP) were looking to turn everything any woman said into a sexual innuendo, and b) there were too many threads about why women are crazy/evil/inferior.

^ That was his downfall in the end.