Debate:Should LogicMaster777 be considered a troll?

This is a Debate page. Feel free to add your own spin on the story. Please keep it civil! This debate was created by Weirdstuff.

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. Queex_{chthonic 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)

If you are speaking of my homepage it was satire. Interesting that the satire was confused with real authoritarian fundamentalist thinking. I try to keep my satire to that page to make it less confusing. About 60% of my homepage is satire or fiction. Maybe 40% is actually serious. LogicMaster777 (talk) 23:34, 20 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)

Yet these "figurative" imaginary "people" can buy sell and own property, sue and be sued, hire and fire. In other words, things which actual humans can do but which mere IDEAS as such normally cannot? Other imaginary people such as Santa cannot do this. I think when I say "anthromorphize" you take it to mean to conceptualize an idea as an actual human. That is one use of "anthromorphize" and when I use this usage I try to use "anthropomorphic" to distinguish it from "anthromorphized"(not to the full extent of imagining the abstraction as fully human). But there is a subtler form of anthromorphization. That is treating an abstraction or an inanimate physical object AS IF it had human characteristics, but not necessarily imagining it as as an actual human. Like talking to a car. "Come on start you piece of shit". We know the car isn't an anthropomorphic person. This type of anthromorphizing applied to an abstraction might look like this: An anarchocapitalist gets all happy about finding an economic solution and says a little prayer to "the market". "Thank you market." Another use: "A little birdy told me". Or imagining a talking cat. I know we know Wal Mart is not a MAN or WOMAN. But we treat it as having "property" and "rights" and talk about it like it has its own personality. In other words, as having characteristics of an actual HUMAN. Normally abstract "figurative" people don't own buildings or property outside of religious anthromorphizing/ reification.LogicMaster777 (talk) 23:34, 20 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)

K lets do a web based show where we talk about logic for about 45 minutes and then talk about the government belief system for 45 minutes with equal talk time of about 20 minutes each per segment. Or it could have a different format, just throwing that out there as a proposal. Would be open to other formats. Would like to set some ground rules though for any debate-themed show as staying off ad hominem, strawman, poison the well or other known fallacies of reasoning like appeals to authority or ad baculums or other fallacious appeals to consequence, reification as "rationalizations" for the gvt belief system. Also not interested in an hour long name calling contest or smear-type "political" debate. But if it could be on topic and "adult" I would be really interested.LogicMaster777 (talk) 23:55, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

My position would be that the government is a religious institution and that the governmental system of belief is a religion.LogicMaster777 (talk) 23:55, 20 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)

Oh, look LM has swung by and added yet another of his "Hey, see how I can define this as a religion"-screeds, and it's yet another example of him not employing reification, but suffering from it. Anyway, considering his latest whining on the chicken coop which is now getting a more aggressive tone (in addition to a full-blown persecution complex) and his largely unsuccessful "upload spamming" of Wikimedia Commons, I'm leaning ever more closely towards the conclusion that LM is a troll. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:47, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Troll? Nah, just another crank convinced that he's right and everyone else is wrong. OK a crank can also be a troll, but I don't get the impression that he's here to be a troublemaker. He's off on his crusade and nothing shall stop him in his righteous quest to teach us the glorious message. Sophie^Wilder 09:10, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that LM certainly evinces the characteristics of a crank, but his numerous attempts at baiting everyone here at RW into the same debate rhetorical battle of attrition over his home-grown definitions of states, religion and the (super)natural are definitely employing trollish tactics. Also, LM is now lurching towards being "a troublemaker" by making slightly veiled legal threats on the chicken coop (asked whether he was "formally threatening legal action against the RationalMedia Foundation", LM answered "No, I am hoping it wouldn't come to that. It's not something worth suing over, probably."). Perhaps, just like the idea of a proll we need to create a term for the likes of LM who're both cranks and trolls (a "croll"?).

Btw, just because I guess I'm a compulsory educational masochist, I'll point to this example of LM continuing to misunderstand reification:

"I know we know Wal Mart is not a MAN or WOMAN. But we treat it as having "property" and "rights" and talk about it like it has its own personality. In other words, as having characteristics of an actual HUMAN. Normally abstract "figurative" people don't own buildings or property outside of religious anthromorphizing/ reification."

The problem here is twofold. The first bit is that LM demonstrates that his Wal-Mart example is not an example of reification, because he explicitly sets out by admitting that he knows "we know Wal Mart is not a MAN or WOMAN". Reification, by contrast, would be exactly the opposite: Imagining that because we have decided to allot corporations with certain limited characteristics of human beings to make them "legal persons", this means that we construe them as being "real persons". LM admits that this is not what's happening here (indeed, the SCOTUS' (in)famous Citizens United touches upon this).

Yet, and this is the second part of the problem, LM continues to define this use of "legal personhood" as an example of "religious anthromorphizing/reification" which only works once he also employs his very, eeehh, unusual definition of religion, which again include a similarly, uuuhh, particular definition of the (super)natural.

A by-product or second example of LM's use of his very own personal definitions is indicated by the conflation "anthromorphizing/reification". Basically, an anthropomorhpic set of (attributed) characteristics only becomes an example of reification, insofar as this leads to the observer thinking that the creature/concept thus "anthropomorphised" really is human.

Again, just because society has found it expedient and useful to create a legal framework in which corporations, states and similar collectives/organisations have certain characteristics of persons and thus constitute a special category of "legal persons", doesn't mean that we don't understand that they aren't "persons" in any other sense that this. Reification would be the mistaken conclusion that because they are "legal" persons, such collectives/organisations are the equivalent of Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith and thus complain that Wal Mart is being oppressed because it's "disenfranchised" (Wal-Mart can neither vote nor stand for election). ScepticWombat (talk) 08:47, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

He should have a debate with Maratrean. They're very similar. Sophie^Wilder 09:44, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Don't tempt fate - it might lead to the kind of downwards spiral of fractal wrongness that could result in tearing a hole in the fabric of the universe. Then again, that spectacle would probably allow for some amazing psychedelic colours and shapes, maaaan. ;-) ScepticWombat (talk) 10:00, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

At the start he at least stayed out of the way in his own debate while people tried to get through to him. As more people have realized he is a waste of time he is starting to branch out into new places since he is feeling ignored. Instead of just being content to use 50 pictures to demonstrate the law is magic because both Harry Potter and judges wear robes. I don't see how anything he contributes can be of any benefit, and would more likely be annoying to people trying to get stuff done. That's just my opinion. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:04, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

His rate of posting is definitely, and I'm starting to believe, intentionally annoying. There was a point yesterday when I loaded Recent Changes and I had to scroll down slightly to see something that was not his posting. One thing caught my eye: He'd made three changes to a page in the same minute. Since he arrived in November (wait, wouldn't months be religious? Being an arbitrary framework imposed solely by the human mind given that it doesn't even correspond to the lunar cycle--), LM has written, by my reckoning, a novel's worth of words on this website. Many of them were the same words repeated very much. I've been tempted to vandal-bin him just to slow him down and give everyone else a shot at catching up to a debate before he makes another change or twelve. I read pages involve him exclusively through their change history. --Maxus (talk) 16:52, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Go ahead and vandal-bin him, then see what happens. Given the reverence he shows for his own special definitions of words, my money is on a Dirk Steele act, "but I'm not a vandal, you statist theocrats have no right to bully me this way!" Flux gate gamma (talk) 17:19, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Counterpoint: continue to ignore him, and don't vandal bin people for posting dumb opinions on dumb-opinion tolerant pages. (Though do delete the "fair use" images he keeps uploading, and ban him for legal concerns if it continues) Ikanreed (talk) 17:20, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I would strongly caution against vandal binning LM, and not just for reasons of principles. From what I've seen, a ban will likely fuel LM's persecution complex, which means that at the expiration of the ban (or at least during the subsequent weekend - see below), LM will reappear and play the heroic martyr persecuted by those evil "statist" censors (he plays this card already). I think that ignoring him (as most RW users now seem to be doing) is probably a far more effective deterrent, and anyone not already aware of LM's obnoxious behaviour and unwillingness to actually engage with criticism will probably quickly discover both traits, no matter which of his screeds they happen to come across.

LM is definitely getting extremely repetitive, essentially posting the same claims again and again. He had a moment of cleverness when he tried to hijack this particular debate but note how it was completely ignored. Similarly, as aesthetically unpleasant as LM's rants are, he's getting fewer and fewer responses elsewhere as any reader quickly spies the warning flags about his style and behaviour raised by various RW-users, not to mention LM's hilariously rambling user and talk pages, which are arguably worth any number of warnings from others of LM's inanity.

PS. LM must have some pretty boring weekends, since his Gatling gun-style postings consistently appear Friday-Sunday... ScepticWombat (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, the answer is to ignore him. Anything else is counter-productive. And the most counter-productive thing to do is to engage with him.--Weirdstuff (talk) 17:36, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

If he writes a bunch of essays or edits his own page thousands of times out of lack of any meaningful outside life then it's his problem. I don't see the harm. If he starts doing those crazy postings on many other pages that require clean-up blocking should be reconsidered if it fuels mental issues or not. It just becomes too disruptive to other people already having issues with how many trolls do stupid crap to random articles. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 17:50, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, notice that he's not been vandal-binned in the past weeks. The idea's crossed my mind, and I'll admit to it, but he's not exactly a vandal so I wouldn't bin him for braking purposes without say-so from sysops wiser than I am--and they would do it themselves if they thought it was a good idea.

The responses to LM have been very interesting. LM, not so much, but he was worth keeping around for seeing people poke holes in his own poiints. His own 'revelation' that "OMG GOVERNMENT IS JUST A SHARED IDEA CREATED BY PEOPLE! *GASP* JUST LIKE RELIGION!!! *GASP* GOVERNMENT IS THE SAME AS RELIGION!!!!!" is water out of shallow well. I think when he arrived, he thought his message was truly original and he's been quite emotionally invested. Well, okay, the idea that 'social constructs have an effect on the physical world means we should be careful about what social constructs we subscribe to' is a piece of the path to wisdom. It's still not that profound (to most people) and he's so fixated on this single topic that I think it's the only thing he's got. --Maxus (talk) 18:09, 22 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)

He's a good source of collateral wisdom. The responses to him have been interesting reading, and his moronic accusations of fallacies has apparently inspired editors to give the logic and fallacy pages a tune-up. It's a bit like how there's some YouTube rationalists who do very informative videos which are aimed at debunking some crazy claim or another. --Maxus (talk) 10:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

OK.--Weirdstuff (talk) 12:13, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

The Anthropomorphic Personation of the Corporate person of McDonalds

Not saying Ronald is worshiped as a supreme being, but he is basically an anthromorphic "personation"(to borrow a term from the philosophy of Hobbes in Leviathan) of the fictitious "person" or "corporate personhood" or "legal person" of McDonalds.LogicMaster777 (talk) 03:42, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Like I alluded to on the other page, I look at corporate businesses as being quasi-religious business institutions and the corporate person of the "corporation" as a legal entity as basically a religious supernatural "entity". We anthromorphize it as having a "personhood" or characteristics of a "person" even though it's imagined into existence with "the secret" rather than being born through actual childbirth through sex and pregnancy like flesh and blood humans. In my philosophy I consider corporations to be essentially religious in their basic concept or belief-system and I also consider cults of celebrity worship to also be possibly religious or quasi-religious and I think these are possibly the biggest religions in America which are not really recognized as such ordinarily, beside the government religion. Where the line between the celebrity persona of Michael Jackson or Rick James or Bill Cosby or you name it might be so divorced from the real person that the celebrity persona becomes an abstract personation or character the actual human plays on TV which is then basically worshiped as a supreme being. Good examples would be Andy Kaufman or Hannah Montanna where it's not clear where the character ends and the real person begins. The real person might be literally a different person unknown to the general public who may mostly know the celebrity as only the persona. The Bill Cosby the persona worshiped by Fans and Bill Cosby the guy might be completely different people where the persona is an anthromorphic abstraction, or made-up character, fictitious person, however you want to say it. The deception might be completely unrecognized by most of the audience like the deception of a cold reader might be unnoticed if the performer is very skilled.LogicMaster777 (talk) 04:03, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

For a moment, I thought this was a clever satire of your posting style, then you signed it. And I realized poe. Poe is everything. Ikanreed (talk) 15:11, 22 December 2014 (UTC)