Official "Lasciate ogne speranza" whinge-thread

[ewmayer]

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[davieddy]

Originally Posted by wblipp

THANK GOD (FSM, if you must know which one). This is the kind of behavior we expect - no DEMAND - of our supermods.

I seldom read this far into one of you posts - and I quit here this time - but I'm pleased to see that the standards of quirky and arbitrary behavior are being upheld. I was tempted to move this particular post to an off topic location, but my attention span flagged before I got around to doing it. Party On!

Although I can empathize with the "wading through garbage" aspect, I have a suspicion that David Hasslehoff has gone to your head.

Mr Big Stuff

x

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by only_human

Speaking for myself, terse expression with multiple potential interpretations is a valued form of expression.

Fine.

Many times it is meant to soften the seriousness of what I am saying; occasionally I am whimsical and sometimes I want multiple interpretations to be considered. The meanings that are considered and rejected encompass everything from light banter to commentary on topical or extraneous events.

When speaking elliptically, parenthetically it is understood that there is no assurance that what I mean will be clearly conveyed. This also allows the recipient to reject or ignore what they do not agree with. Obviously not all communication will be a meeting of minds. This also allows opinions to be submitted without support or desire to sway others.

So, chalsall has no intention of clearly conveying anything -- is that it?

[cheesehead]

Folks,

As you can see, Ernst will resort to a wide variety of measures to try to discredit me as a competent critic of his logic errors and lack of supporting evidence, and exposer of his manipulations.

Ask yourself why Ernst is obsessed with trying to discredit me.

If what I write about him is incorrect, why doesn't he simply show you evidence to prove that?

If what I write about him _is_ correct (so, he can't show you any evidence to the contrary), and he's ultra-sensitive to the aspects I've plainly stated, and it's important to him to discourage both me and anyone else from being so straightforward about his flaws .... well, that could explain it, couldn't it?.

Ernst's flaws don't seem all that important to me on their own. So, he occasionally makes mistakes, and in the past I've sometimes pointed them out. And he too often responds with counterattack rather than admission of pointed-out flaws. Not big deals, if that were all there were to it.

But ... he's very reluctant to admit the logic and evidence mistakes I've pointed out, even when they're relatively minor. He'll use ostensible "humor" (disguising anger) in his responses to try to minimize the importance of his goof, instead of simply saying in a sincere manner that he was wrong.

When the mistakes I point out aren't so minor, such as when there's a logic error or evidence lack in some big slam he makes against the administration, he brings out the sarcasm and belittling remarks directed against me personally. Of course, he always disguises this as "humor" (disguising anger) in any way he can.

Lately, Ernst has mounted an intensive discrediting campaign, trying anything he can to make it seem that my commentary is not coming from a person of sound judgment. This is really weird, and all out of proportion to the magnitude of flaws I've pointed out.

If Ernst hadn't mounted such an intensive campaign against me, I might not have looked closely enough at his history to notice certain themes running through it, or at least not posted much about them. It wouldn't have occurred to me that there was much importance to his being a manipulator -- except that he's been waging such intense manipulation against me. He's pulling out quite a few of the figurative stops in response to exposure of some seemingly minor matters, which I explained as #1 and #2 above.

Why doesn't he just say,

"Yes, I _do_ think my alternating anti-administration criterion is superior to your narrow what-other-people-aren't-covering-that-I-can-comment-knowledgably-on selection criterion.

And by the way, I apologize for not having made it clearer in the past that my 'Mystery Economic Theater' threads were actually 'Bash-the-Current-Administration Economic Theater' threads"

?

[only_human]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Fine.

So, chalsall has no intention of clearly conveying anything -- is that it?

Disagree. I believe that most communication is intended to convey meaning and be rewarding for the parties engaged in it.
Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology. Unlike semantics, which examines meaning that is conventional or "coded" in a given language, pragmatics studies how the transmission of meaning depends not only on structural and linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar, lexicon, etc.) of the speaker and listener, but also on the context of the utterance, any pre-existing knowledge about those involved, the inferred intent of the speaker, and other factors. In this respect, pragmatics explains how language users are able to overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies on the manner, place, time etc. of an utterance.

The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence.

[only_human]

Richard, I think you are a intelligent, decent, caring person. I respect your feelings. I do not dismiss that you feel beleaguered.

Stay well, get plenty of rest and enjoy the good in life.

[chalsall]

Originally Posted by only_human

Richard, I think you are a intelligent, decent, caring person. I respect your feelings. I do not dismiss that you feel beleaguered.

Stay well, get plenty of rest and enjoy the good in life.

Sincerely... second that.

-Chris

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Incorrect.

In communications theory it is well known that receiving a message is harder than sending one.

Thus, it is assumed the receiver will work harder....

Chris:

Let me explain my position in greater detail.

When I read a terse phrase with no explanation or extension of the idea, I usually can imagine multiple interpretations. Sometimes context could help me figure out which one you meant, but too often you don't provide enough context for that. In such cases, all the "hard work" in the world can't assure me that I understand your intent.

If I were to interpret your short phrase using the context provided by posts by other people in a situation where the discussion is non-contentious and everyone's noticeably contributing compatible ideas, then I might well be correct in assuming that your phrase fit into that context.

However, in a discussion such as this one where some posts are hostile, interpreting your phrase without getting clarification directly from you runs great risk of being very wrong. Illustrative example: my misinterpretation of wblipp's post earlier in this thread. I don't like making such mistakes or giving such offense, so I ask you to help me choose which of multiple possible interpretations I should apply. You can do this by providing further details of what you intend.

So, when I've asked you for an explanation of a terse phrase, you could've helped me make the correct interpretation by providing more detail.

In a case where you're deliberately being vague (which isn't a sin), your reader can't tell whether you're using shorthand for some more detailed idea (which you so often do), or deliberately being vague in that particular case.

For the purpose of my avoidance of mistakenly giving offense (as above with wblipp), and also of wasting my time in cases of deliberate vagueness, if you continue addressing short ambiguous phrases to me, I intend to just dismiss them as your deliberate vagueness with no intent of communicating any message. (This means I won't be asking you for further explanations, which would be futile in the cases of deliberate vagueness.)

[cheesehead]

The change in title of this thread from the original "Motivation" (or "Motivations") seems to be another continuation of the campaign to discredit me as a competent commenter on Ernst and his mistakes.

Wouldn't it be simpler for other participants of this forum if Ernst (who may not have been the title-changer) would honestly and straightforwardly say what he meant instead of using disguise, deception and personal attack to dissuade his critics and potential future critics?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by chalsall

Richard... I learnt a long time ago that there is little upside in whining about how one perceives oneself has been wronged.

Play the hand dealt.

Chris,

You've misinterpreted my posts.

Playing the hand dealt is _exactly_ what I'm doing.

My main goal here is to enable future readers of Ernst's comments to understand his dishonesty and manipulation in order to:

1) more effectively handle cases where he turns those against them, and

2) accurately interpret my criticism of Ernst.

(Parallel: I don't "whine" about AGW-deniers, either. I explain the science. I explain what I've observed and concluded about their honest and dishonest mistakes and motives, so that others might not be deceived by them.)

- -

As for your earlier misinterpretation, "Help, help":

I'm not asking for any kind of help.

I'm not asking anyone for help.

I'm quite capable of explaining Ernst's dishonesty and manipulation all on my own.

I'm not asking for any change in forum rules or policy. Ernst's dishonesty and manipulation can be handled within the existing framework. Whether the other moderators choose to do anything is their business, not something I'm advocating or asking for.

I'm not even asking anyone else to care about this.

What I am doing is countering Ernst's dishonest and manipulative conduct by explaining it so other folks can more readily recognize it on their own, if they so choose.

There's no guarantee that Ernst won't aim his character assassination at anyone else who chooses to vigorously point out Ernst's logic flaws and lack of supporting evidence for accusations. But by posting what I've perceived and learned about Ernst, I might help mitigate such possibilities.

- - -

I regret that my posting history includes so many (what turned out to be) rough drafts. It might be a good idea for me to prepare a clean version that includes my Ernst-observations and -conclusions in more polished, compact form.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by jasong

Off-topic: Thanks for this, I've never really thought about it that way.

Neither has he.