Debate:Should LogicMaster777 be considered a troll?
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Given all the above, what I don't understand is why apparently-intelligent people continue to engage with him.--[[User:Weirdstuff|Weirdstuff]] ([[User talk:Weirdstuff|talk]]) 10:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC) | Given all the above, what I don't understand is why apparently-intelligent people continue to engage with him.--[[User:Weirdstuff|Weirdstuff]] ([[User talk:Weirdstuff|talk]]) 10:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC) | ||
| + | :I believe "perverse fascination" is an adequate description. [[User:King Skeleton|King Skeleton]] ([[User talk:King Skeleton|talk]]) 10:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC) | ||
Revision as of 10:25, 13 December 2014
Please note that it is not my contention that this user be banned.
Our page on trolls has this to say about defining trolls:
A troll usually has little or no interest in contributing to the development of the site in question and is interested in some or all of the following:
- Deliberately angering people.
- Breaking the normal flow of debate/discussion.
- Disrupting the smooth operation of the site.
- Deliberately being annoying for the sake of being obnoxious. For instance, using abusive names to refer to all the members on the site.
- Pretending to be profoundly ignorant or stupid, gleaning some weird sense of having "won" when other users subsequently come to believe this.
- Making itself the main topic of interest or discussion.
Question
Does user LogicMaster777 fit enough of these definitions to be considered a troll?--Weirdstuff (talk) 15:11, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- The difference between purposefully stupid opinions and realistically stupid opinions is essentially zero. Ikanreed (talk) 15:19, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- I think he fits it mostly to a T. I don't really think he is pretending to be stupid/ignorant. He seems to be talking to things in his head, including imagined caricatures of those he is actively speaking to, and gets confused when he tries to accuse people of what the voices in his own head say. EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:37, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- That or he's pretty delusional while trying to be "rational". I would let him stay, we can train this puppy. BlackProg (talk) 15:39, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- Personally, I think he's a religion. Queexchthonic murmurings 15:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- He certainly thinks he is some sort of deity with this conviction that anything is true, or can be conjured into existence, if he thinks it is real. EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- For one who likes the concept of reification so much, LM certainly seems to be unable to realise that this is exactly what he's doing, apparently being unable to understand that when others speak of states or corporations as "legal persons" they're speaking figuratively, not trying to craft an anthropomorphic entity from an abstract collective. ScepticWombat (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- He certainly thinks he is some sort of deity with this conviction that anything is true, or can be conjured into existence, if he thinks it is real. EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 16:15, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- Personally, I think he's a religion. Queexchthonic murmurings 15:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- That or he's pretty delusional while trying to be "rational". I would let him stay, we can train this puppy. BlackProg (talk) 15:39, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- I think he fits it mostly to a T. I don't really think he is pretending to be stupid/ignorant. He seems to be talking to things in his head, including imagined caricatures of those he is actively speaking to, and gets confused when he tries to accuse people of what the voices in his own head say. EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:37, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- I'm torn between "Nobody can be this stupid" (i.e. LM is a troll) and "LM really is this stupid" (i.e. LM is not a troll but also unable to comprehend anything not fitting his preconceived notions). The difference is whether LM is behaving the way he is because he's being deliberately obnoxious, or whether he is simply unable to assimilate constructive answers into what I, for the sake of the argument, shall call his brain. I have come across a somewhat similar case IRL, though that guy openly admitted to having a (mild) variant of borderline. It was apparently this which led him to see things in very black & white terms and have a hard time with anything not fitting his clear-cut, not to say simplistic, mental categories. LM could be a similar case, though he could also simply be a troll, or perhaps someone who gets a kick out of thinking that he's this audacious "Galt'ish" crusader standing up to those eeeevul "statists" (though that could simply be a supplementary scenario reinforcing either the trollish or borderline behaviour). ScepticWombat (talk) 19:27, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- Borderline personality disorder doesn't explain obsessive behavior in that way, does it? It's a little easy to handwave all oddities from people with mental(or personality) disorders, and I'd like to consider that the disease manifests as emotional bursts, not obsessive overcategorization. I just wish I could talk to him in person and teach him proper logical systems. Ikanreed (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- I think it's more along the lines of a type of dementia. It explains the poor impulse control, OCD, and seeming inability to understand things said to him. I've seen people who have something along these lines take their lack of understanding about the world and make it into a crusade. I guess as long as he stays out of the way this keeps him entertained. EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 20:13, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- I usually try not to fall into this kind of "psychologising", but merely presented a scenario, other than being a troll, which might explain LM's behaviour. The guy I actually met seemed to be very certain of his rather simplistic mental categories, which is what reminded me of LM. Also like LM, he had a tendency to view those who didn't share his mental categories in a very negative light and was very prone to confirmation bias and not likely to change his mind about anything involving these mental categories, as well as being willing to continue to argue and repeat the same points over and over. Unlike LM, however, he did at least realise this about himself and was open about it (which was probably pretty necessary as we were at a university where we needed to do a lot of collaborative research and writing). It was he himself who claimed to have a mild type of borderline, and none who encountered him were particularly surprised to be told that he suffered from some kind of mild personality disorder. However, I'm definitely not qualified to either confirm or deny such a diagnosis and simply offer it as a personal anecdote based on the guy in question's own claim about his condition - so take it with about a pound of salt. On purely probabilistic grounds it is of course far more likely that LM is nothing but a troll. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:26, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- Agreed, however if one finds what the problem might be the solution (if there is one) or what to do becomes clearer. EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 20:37, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
- Borderline personality disorder doesn't explain obsessive behavior in that way, does it? It's a little easy to handwave all oddities from people with mental(or personality) disorders, and I'd like to consider that the disease manifests as emotional bursts, not obsessive overcategorization. I just wish I could talk to him in person and teach him proper logical systems. Ikanreed (talk) 20:03, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
So then why ...
Given all the above, what I don't understand is why apparently-intelligent people continue to engage with him.--Weirdstuff (talk) 10:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
- I believe "perverse fascination" is an adequate description. King Skeleton (talk) 10:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)