Bad Boys, "swagger deficit," 'n stuff

[Jonathan]

> Hey, fuckhead..learn to ask them politely and respectfully...stop whining...

polite and respectful troll ignored

Good job, Shitstain! You've left your scent all over yet another thread.

J

Edited April 19, 2011 by Jonathan

[william.scherk]

> [schoomarmism, shepherding] It's the primary source of antagonism against him. [brant]

It's actually not the main source.

It actually is the main source of my critique of your posting style, Phil. Seriously. I can agree with given points/stance/analysis, but take issue with your tone and temper at times. Seriously, I have great empathy for your position. It is what I feel whenever I see self-defeating behaviour -- behaviour that stands in the way of someone achieving their goals. My empathy deepens when I observe what seems a bit like compulsive behaviour, when I suspect that the behaviour is not able to be controlled.

When you are "preachy" or "acting like your the teacher" or "trying to be a reformer/crusader" about something that people are deeply in agreement with, they tend to admire your persistence or zeal or commitment or willingness to take on all enemies.

Not quite. I can admire persistence, zeal, commitment and willingness to take on all comers (not enemies); that doesn't mean that I admire self-defeating aspects of behaviour -- when this behaviour obviates otherwise excellent qualities of argument.

Here is what I wrote five years ago on RoR (and SOLO). Do you remember your reaction?

- I salute Phil for his patience . . . as a professional educator, it must be hard to deal with dumbass sophomores who think they can beard the bear. I utterly disagree with Trager's misreading of "analysis" as "judgement" and his consequent descent into the swamps of Lower Semantica, but I must be fair:

Phil, Galt love you, I admire your stance and your persistence and the essential wisdom of all your posts (which I read carefully), but a prideful lecturing tone gets in the way sometimes, brother. You can be mistaken for a huffy, angry and arrogant teacher with little human touch on some rare occasions.

If I was your student, and was treated that way, I would write "Wonderful, wonderful educator, my favourite lecturer. Would attend his seminar even if held in a Bombay meat market's offal depot during communal rioting. Hat too tight. Needs to get laid. More than once."

[PDS]

WSS: if I could write like that I would quote myself too!

[Philip Coates]

> You can be mistaken for a huffy, angry and arrogant teacher with little human touch on some rare occasions.

William, I think it escalates. When I'm constantly met with ridicule and abuse it moves from being 'rare occasions' to more frequently.

My tone when I'm dealing with an ND or a Jonathan or an Adam or a George H. Smith who (repeatedly and on thread after thread) calls me a dishonest - hypocrite -evader changes very quickly from

"You're a very intelligent fellow, but - in the most respectful possible tone - I wonder if you've considered this point?"

to

"Sit down and shut up, Fuckhead: I've been around have high SAT scores and know ten times more than you do on this"

I'm sure you can understand that this is human nature. And that you yourself, in the same situation, would probably not respond in the most kindly, patient, benevolent, good-spirited way to people who ridicule you, insult you...and hardly have a serious conversation in mind.

Edited April 19, 2011 by Philip Coates

[william.scherk]

I'm sure you can understand that this is human nature. And that you yourself, in the same situation, would probably not respond in the most kindly, patient, benevolent, good-spirited way to people who ridicule you, insult you...and hardly have a serious conversation in mind.

Please send me the next substantive post you intend to post to OL, backstage: william.scherk@gmail.com.

I think I could analyse/edit your post to show you how I would respond were I in your shoes. Write the post just exactly as you would send it, but don't post it to the list.

I will do the same for you, sending you my next substantive post before I post it to the list. You can analyse/edit my post to show me how you would respond were you in my shoes.

Trade?

________________

On second thought, nix this.

Edited April 19, 2011 by william.scherk

[Jonathan]

My tone when I'm dealing with an ND or a Jonathan or an Adam or a George H. Smith who (repeatedly and on thread after thread) calls me a dishonest - hypocrite -evader changes very quickly from

"You're a very intelligent fellow, but - in the most respectful possible tone - I wonder if you've considered this point?"

to

"Sit down and shut up, Fuckhead: I've been around have high SAT scores and know ten times more than you do on this"

Your natural style is definitely NOT to say something like "You're a very intelligent fellow, but - in the most respectful possible tone - I wonder if you've considered this point?" but to intrude on a discussion without having a clue what you're talking about and to say to everyone, "You're being imprecise, sloppy, shifting, ambiguous and foolish" (which is the essence of your post #44). Your nature is to be a schoolmarm asshole. It has nothing to do with the fact that people have responded to you with ridicule. ND didn't cause you to become the schoolmarm asshole that you are, nor did I, nor did George or anyone else. You were being a schoolmarm asshole all the way back in early 2002 when I first met you online. Your nature, regardless of how others behave toward you, is to be a condescending schoolmarm asshole. You don't appear to be able to control it.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

About Phil's sheep-herding, you said:

It's the primary source of antagonism against him. It's the main thing he does.

I agree. I think it's blindness that keeps him from seeing it. When someone persists in a certain behavior, and continually gets the same results, and denies he's doing it, and you don't think he's a moron or manipulator, what else can you call that?

I'm actually a really nice person when people treat me with courtesy and respect.

Phil,

Almost everyone is.

Including the folks you don't think are nice people.

It's is something to think about and I hope you will.

I don't expect you to, though. That's your choice.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

My tone when I'm dealing with an ND or a Jonathan or an Adam or a George H. Smith who (repeatedly and on thread after thread) calls me a dishonest - hypocrite -evader

Are you quite sure I've ever called you any of these things? Schoolmarm yes, but I have serious doubts about the these three, and "repeatedly and on thread after thread" is nonsense. Hmm, wait a minute, I've said that you can't be trusted to quote people accurately, I suppose that could count for one (under dishonest).

Ugh, I'm sick of all this Phil crap.

[Philip Coates]

The "repeatedly and on thread after thread" was accompanied by the word 'or' not the word 'and'.

It doesn't mean that all those things apply to all three people.

But you non-benevolently assume the worst and assume the intent to misquote.

The sentence could have been better written: "...My tone, when I'm dealing with an ND or a Jonathan or an Adam --- or a George H. Smith who (repeatedly and on thread after thread) calls me a dishonest - hypocrite -evader --- changes very quickly"

1) The three dashes before and after the phrase about George would make it more clear that the long 'or phrase' applies to him.

2) You also left out the verb, which matters in this case.

I didn't detail what smears, distortions, or insults *each* of the three of you have launched against me... my intent was to just *specify George's* because those tended to be direct moral or character charges and the worst.

The worst thing about you and Adam (and recently Ellen) is the sort of jokey passive-aggressive style in which you engage in character assassination.

It is not that you explicitly call me immoral [except that calling someone a hypocrite as opposed to mistaken, which Ellen just did -is- a moral or character attack] but that you tend to ankle bite - it's a bit more catty and under the radar style than GHS or Jonathan who come right out and call me a clown, a scumbag, dishonest or the like - you seem to lie in the weeds and look for some words to twist, to take out of context, or put in as bad a light as possible.

And you hunt through every sentence -- in context or out until you find them. You've been doing this with me for quite some time.

Note that when I post in anger, I will sometimes trip up on punctuation, etc. And good old ND is never there to acknowledge a good point but is always looking for anything to pick a fight or a nit over.

I really shouldn't have even had to waste the time to explain this.

Ugh, I'm sick of all this ND crap.

Edited April 20, 2011 by Philip Coates

[9thdoctor]

My tone when I'm dealing with an ND or a Jonathan or an Adam or a George H. Smith who (repeatedly and on thread after thread) calls me a dishonest - hypocrite -evader

I didn't detail what smears, distortions, or insults *each* of the three of you have launched against me... my intent was to just *specify George's* because those tended to be direct moral or character charges and the worst.

In which case your grasp of grammar and/or sentence structure is quite faulty. But I'll take this as a retraction and leave it at that.

[Brant Gaede]

Phil doesn't deserve any more attention on this thread unless he gets back to discusing the thread.

--Brant

Edited April 20, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[Ellen Stuttle]

Subject: Bristling with resentment rather than being able to offer a rational response

I offered a strong challenge to the idea that there is something objectively to be admired in 'swagger' and 'bad boys'.

But Jonathan (expectedly) and Ellen (who should know better) were unable or unwilling to offer a reasoned response.

Sadly, this is common among people who fancy themselves Objectivists or influenced by Rand on this list. It seems to attract people who bristle with resentment at strong intellectual disagreement. When their emotions are involved because they dislike the interlocutor or are passionatly committed to their viewpoint, they can't deal with disagreement with rational.

Does it ever occur to him that people might not consider his "strong challenge" worth bothering about? Nope. Instead the non-response is due to some sort of psychological causes which he, who lectures against psychologizing, discerns.

Typical Phil.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Your [Phil's] natural style is definitely NOT to say something like "You're a very intelligent fellow, but - in the most respectful possible tone - I wonder if you've considered this point?" but to intrude on a discussion without having a clue what you're talking about and to say to everyone, "You're being imprecise, sloppy, shifting, ambiguous and foolish" (which is the essence of your post #44). Your nature is to be a schoolmarm asshole. It has nothing to do with the fact that people have responded to you with ridicule. ND didn't cause you to become the schoolmarm asshole that you are, nor did I, nor did George or anyone else. You were being a schoolmarm asshole all the way back in early 2002 when I first met you online. Your nature, regardless of how others behave toward you, is to be a condescending schoolmarm asshole. You don't appear to be able to control it.

J

Phil's first appearance on this board, before anyone here had said anything to him, was lecturing about behavior he didn't like (thread drift in that case) and informing the membership that he wouldn't stay if people didn't shape up to his specs. When Kat acceded to Phil's complaint by splitting off some posts from the thread where he'd appeared, I sent Kat a backlist note groaning and hoping Phil wouldn't become too big a nuisance. I was already afraid he might dampen the convivial spirit with which OL began, since I'd seen his behavior and its effects on other boards. He was schoolmarming already *when OWL and ATL started* in spring 1999. That was the first I'd ever heard of him. Upon inquiring of a friend to find out who this "Phil Coates" guy was, I was told that Phil's reputation for being a nagging bore was long established.

That was 12 years ago. Nothing anyone has said to him in the years since explaining to him why people find him irritating has made a dent as far as I can see. Instead, if anything, he's become worse.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Is Phil an aspie?

I'm serious. He shows very strong signs of it.

That would explain the constant double-standards and dropping context in his repetitive nagging, where he does exactly the things he scolds others about, and is very thin-skinned about his own context.

I'm perplexed by his blindness to this and I can't help but like him (even when he is making trouble, like recently).

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Is Phil an aspie?

I'm serious. He shows very strong signs of it.

That would explain the constant double-standards and dropping context in his repetitive nagging, where he does exactly the things he scolds others about, and is very thin-skinned about his own context.

I'm perplexed by his blindness to this and I can't help but like him (even when he is making trouble, like recently).

Michael

If he is--and that's an interesting thought--he should know he is and have had the courtesy to tell us like Ba'al does.

--Brant

[Xray]

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

J

There's a lot more Nietzsche in The Fountainhead than Rand ever wanted to admit. [....]

I think that Roark's roots are Hickman, the image of whom in the dock stuck with Rand. She wanted a climax of a criminal case -- and had a lot of trouble coming up with one she found useable -- and the character calmly to face the courtroom and give a speech, as she sketched in "The Little Street."

Ellen

She read Nietzsche before Hickman.

--Brant

I don't have the feeling that Rand thought of Roark as a "bad boy" or "noble crook" though. She thought his of his actions as rational, Roark was "as man should be" in her eyes.

It has often been pointed out that Keating committed the fraud of passing off someone else's work as his own, but Roark participated in the fraud as Keating's partner.

And doesn't his blowing up the building violate the NIOF principle?

[Xray]

If he is--and that's an interesting thought--he should know he is and have had the courtesy to tell us like Ba'al does.

--Brant

From what Ba'al told us here about Asperger's, imo Phil does not fit the profile.

For example, he did not read all things literally; he had no problem understanding methaphorical use of language.

Edited April 20, 2011 by Xray

[Ellen Stuttle]

If he is--and that's an interesting thought--he should know he is and have had the courtesy to tell us like Ba'al does.

--Brant

From what Ba'al told us here about Asperger's, imo Phil does not fit the profile.

For example, he did not read all things literally; he had no problem understanding methaphorical use of language.

I agree with Xray on that one. For instance, see all the posts in which Phil has talked about literature. Also his facility with punning. Plus his habitual delineation of supposed psychological factors operative in people irritated by him. Ba'al, along with describing himself as literal-minded (and demonstrating literal-mindedness quite a few times in his not noticing that something was meant sarcastically until informed that it was), has also described a lack of understanding and a slow learning curve on psychological dynamics. I'm not recalling Ba'al's ever using psychological analysis as a tactic. He addresses what people say. He doesn't go into attributions about why (supposedly) they said it.

Ellen

Edited April 20, 2011 by Ellen Stuttle

[Brant Gaede]

If he is--and that's an interesting thought--he should know he is and have had the courtesy to tell us like Ba'al does.

--Brant

From what Ba'al told us here about Asperger's, imo Phil does not fit the profile.

For example, he did not read all things literally; he had no problem understanding methaphorical use of language.

I agree with Xray on that one. For instance, see all the posts in which Phil has talked about literature. Also his facility with punning. Plus his habitual delineation of supposed psychological factors operative in people irritated by him. Ba'al, along with describing himself as literal-minded (and demonstrating literal-mindedness quite a few times in his not noticing that something was meant sarcastically until informed that it was), has also described a lack of understanding and a slow learning curve on psychological dynamics. I'm not recalling Ba'al's ever using psychological analysis as a tactic. He addresses what people say. He doesn't go into attributions about why (supposedly) they said it.

Ellen

One foot in aspie-land and one out?

--Brant

prople are complicated

[Selene]

Brant:

Brilliant! A new DSM criteria!

Bi-polar Aspieosis:

DSM:666

Defined by an irrational repetition of behavior that results in the alienation of friends, enemies, men, women, hermaphrodites and puppies.

Adam

[william.scherk]

Phil's first appearance on this board, before anyone here had said anything to him, was lecturing about behavior he didn't like (thread drift in that case) and informing the membership that he wouldn't stay if people didn't shape up to his specs.

[ . . . ]

Nothing anyone has said to him in the years since explaining to him why people find him irritating has made a dent as far as I can see. Instead, if anything, he's become worse.

Phil's first post to OL here.

Is Phil an aspie?

I'm serious. He shows very strong signs of it.

I too have wondered to myself if he is on the Spectrum -- but the question should be properly addressed, respectfully, to Phil himself (which I will do, seeing as he is still reading this forum diligently).

However, he said . . .

As I may have noted along the way, one of my major interests in the online Objectivish subculture is psychological. Although 'mind-reading' or (unfair, uninformed, malicious) psychologizing is a fraught topic, accurately assessing other folks' personalities and intentions is crucial to human flourishing. Ellen hit upon this recently, succinctly and perceptively. I think this is part of our toolkit.

In Phil's short series of somewhat confessional, open-hearted posts on his early immersion in Objectivism, I found several moving passages in which he reported his struggles to understand other people. Does anyone recall his puzzlement over why his first girlfriend wanted to 'sleep with' him?

That would explain the constant double-standards and dropping context in his repetitive nagging, where he does exactly the things he scolds others about, and is very thin-skinned about his own context.

I disagree. If Phil were actually on the Spectrum, his would be social deficits, in particular a deficit in 'reading' others compared to what Aspies call 'neurotypicals' (Ba'al has several times detailed his own deficits).

Does Aspergers explain double-standards or dropping context? I am not convinced it does. Does it explain thin skin? I figure no, not really.

Perhaps the most that could be plausibly explained by Aspergers is repetition, in my view. In any case, Phil supplied several self-descriptions in his series, and the telling was quite moving to me. I suggest those who are interested in reading Phil's mind (like me) take the insight that Phil himself provided. Here are a few of the self-descriptions he provided (I note that the series of posts resulted in plaudits from Phil's sometime adversaries):

With an enormously high IQ, and great academic and

theoretic and logic-chopping abilities, the highest

SAT scores in years? decades? at my small public high

school, I could grasp a blackboard full of equations

in an instant. Unfortunately, again, I was dumb as a

mudflap when it came to people.

brilliance in academic issues, but extremely almost

retarded in understanding what a glance meant

I often couldn’t have told if a woman was interested

or what a remark meant unless I sat down and reflected

on it laboriously for hours. Or if someone was hostile

or wanted to be my friend.

An idiot savant, the most obvious common sense things

would totally escape me.

I don’t normally feel much guilt, but in the area of

getting in touch with my own psychology, that’s the

area where I feel I should have done more than I’ve

done.

Another example of my emotionally – socially –

psychologically retarded state. I didn’t have my first

serious girl friend till I moved to New York. I’d

spent my time running track or with my head buried in

math books even through college although I’d started

to be interested in philosophy and bull sessions about

it after reading Rand during that period: “After we’d

had sex, instead of my walking home to my apartment,

she wanted me to –sleep- with her.” “Hadn’t you just

done that.” “No, sleep. As in spend the night lying

next to each other. In the same bed. I told her it

seemed odd and I wanted to go home.”

(quoted from Phil's post "

The Objectivist Psychologists and Me

")

I'm perplexed by his blindness to this and I can't help but like him (even when he is making trouble, like recently).

What was sad about the thread Phil started with the post above is his reaction to Jonathan's and Ellen's comments and queries. He read their responses as 'attack posts,' full of venom and seething with hostility -- and he disregarded Barbara Branden's thoughtful and empathetic cautions and advice.

-- for what it is worth, I notice a tendency in Phil's writings to subtly shift focus from a 'they' to a 'you' when he might better have considered 'I.' I have wondered just who he is signifying when he does this -- how he shifts subject and emphasis, as in this passage from the same thread (he has just rejected everything said by Ellen and Jonathan):

Does indeed remind me a lot of Perigo and Cathcart,

especially the 'schoolmarm' taunt and the 'people

don't like you' group metaphysics which is a non-

objective slur for someone who criticizes you.

And for not admitting that

you

are unwilling to accept

criticism and that it raises enormous resentment in

you

.

Who is you?

[PDS]

Phil's first appearance on this board, before anyone here had said anything to him, was lecturing about behavior he didn't like (thread drift in that case) and informing the membership that he wouldn't stay if people didn't shape up to his specs.

[ . . . ]

Nothing anyone has said to him in the years since explaining to him why people find him irritating has made a dent as far as I can see. Instead, if anything, he's become worse.

Phil's first post to OL here.

Is Phil an aspie?

I'm serious. He shows very strong signs of it.

I too have wondered to myself if he is on the Spectrum -- but the question should be properly addressed, respectfully, to Phil himself (which I will do, seeing as he is still reading this forum diligently).

However, he said . . .

As I may have noted along the way, one of my major interests in the online Objectivish subculture is psychological. Although 'mind-reading' or (unfair, uninformed, malicious) psychologizing is a fraught topic, accurately assessing other folks' personalities and intentions is crucial to human flourishing. Ellen hit upon this recently, succinctly and perceptively. I think this is part of our toolkit.

In Phil's short series of somewhat confessional, open-hearted posts on his early immersion in Objectivism, I found several moving passages in which he reported his struggles to understand other people. Does anyone recall his puzzlement over why his first girlfriend wanted to 'sleep with' him?

That would explain the constant double-standards and dropping context in his repetitive nagging, where he does exactly the things he scolds others about, and is very thin-skinned about his own context.

I disagree. If Phil were actually on the Spectrum, his would be social deficits, in particular a deficit in 'reading' others compared to what Aspies call 'neurotypicals' (Ba'al has several times detailed his own deficits).

Does Aspergers explain double-standards or dropping context? I am not convinced it does. Does it explain thin skin? I figure no, not really.

Perhaps the most that could be plausibly explained by Aspergers is repetition, in my view. In any case, Phil supplied several self-descriptions in his series, and the telling was quite moving to me. I suggest those who are interested in reading Phil's mind (like me) take the insight that Phil himself provided. Here are a few of the self-descriptions he provided (I note that the series of posts resulted in plaudits from Phil's sometime adversaries):

With an enormously high IQ, and great academic and

theoretic and logic-chopping abilities, the highest

SAT scores in years? decades? at my small public high

school, I could grasp a blackboard full of equations

in an instant. Unfortunately, again, I was dumb as a

mudflap when it came to people.

brilliance in academic issues, but extremely almost

retarded in understanding what a glance meant

I often couldn’t have told if a woman was interested

or what a remark meant unless I sat down and reflected

on it laboriously for hours. Or if someone was hostile

or wanted to be my friend.

An idiot savant, the most obvious common sense things

would totally escape me.

I don’t normally feel much guilt, but in the area of

getting in touch with my own psychology, that’s the

area where I feel I should have done more than I’ve

done.

Another example of my emotionally – socially –

psychologically retarded state. I didn’t have my first

serious girl friend till I moved to New York. I’d

spent my time running track or with my head buried in

math books even through college although I’d started

to be interested in philosophy and bull sessions about

it after reading Rand during that period: “After we’d

had sex, instead of my walking home to my apartment,

she wanted me to –sleep- with her.” “Hadn’t you just

done that.” “No, sleep. As in spend the night lying

next to each other. In the same bed. I told her it

seemed odd and I wanted to go home.”

(quoted from Phil's post "

The Objectivist Psychologists and Me

")

I'm perplexed by his blindness to this and I can't help but like him (even when he is making trouble, like recently).

What was sad about the thread Phil started with the post above is his reaction to Jonathan's and Ellen's comments and queries. He read their responses as 'attack posts,' full of venom and seething with hostility -- and he disregarded Barbara Branden's thoughtful and empathetic cautions and advice.

-- for what it is worth, I notice a tendency in Phil's writings to subtly shift focus from a 'they' to a 'you' when he might better have considered 'I.' I have wondered just who he is signifying when he does this -- how he shifts subject and emphasis, as in this passage from the same thread (he has just rejected everything said by Ellen and Jonathan):

Does indeed remind me a lot of Perigo and Cathcart,

especially the 'schoolmarm' taunt and the 'people

don't like you' group metaphysics which is a non-

objective slur for someone who criticizes you.

And for not admitting that

you

are unwilling to accept

criticism and that it raises enormous resentment in

you

.

Who is you?

WSS: your psychological sleuthing is commendable, albeit in violation of the more direct explanation called for by Occam's Razor. Because I am nothing, if not a gentleman, I will refrain, in this public forum, from my assessment of what Occam's Razor tells us about Phil. Let's just say that any grown man prone, many years after the event, to discussions of his SAT score has a likely "deficit" unrelated to mere swagger.

[Xray]

Phil about himself:

With an enormously high IQ, and great academic and

theoretic and logic-chopping abilities, the highest

SAT scores in years? decades? at my small public high

school, I could grasp a blackboard full of equations

in an instant. Unfortunately, again, I was dumb as a

mudflap when it came to people.

I ask myself how a person with an "enourmously high IQ" could deny the advantages of using the quote function.

Another example of my emotionally – socially –

psychologically retarded state. I didn’t have my first

serious girl friend till I moved to New York. I’d

spent my time running track or with my head buried in

math books even through college although I’d started

to be interested in philosophy and bull sessions about

it after reading Rand during that period: “After we’d

had sex, instead of my walking home to my apartment,

she wanted me to –sleep- with her.” “Hadn’t you just

done that.” “No, sleep. As in spend the night lying

next to each other. In the same bed. I told her it

seemed odd and I wanted to go home.”

(quoted from Phil's post "The Objectivist Psychologists and Me")

Could it be that Phil wanted to emulate some Randian heroes who pretty abruptly left the scene after the sexual encounter?

Edited April 21, 2011 by Xray

[Ellen Stuttle]

I ask myself how a person with an "enourmously high IQ" could deny the advantages of using the quote function.

LOL. 'Tiz a puzzlement.

Furthermore, he said somewhere that he used to be fluent at using several computer languages, so there went the possibility that learning the software procedure daunted him and he didn't want to admit that.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

I ask myself how a person with an "enourmously high IQ" could deny the advantages of using the quote function.

LOL. 'Tiz a puzzlement.

Furthermore, he said somewhere that he used to be fluent at using several computer languages, so there went the possibility that learning the software procedure daunted him and he didn't want to admit that.

Ellen

Phil easily used the quote function in the Practice thread I started. I can only assume his way of posting was part of his (immutable) identity. Don't bother to look at a fallacy, look at the bottom line. (Rand paraphrase.) Most of Phil's postings, not all, were negative and destructive. I think now he is the ultimate Objectivist troll. Whether he has been conscious of this or not I don't care. There is no substance from him for me for me to miss. Life is too short. I wish him well but other than that I no longer care about him and am glad he's gone. It's going to take a year before I no longer fear him popping up on a thread he's no interest in to lecture someone--not me; I'd tear his head off--about an aspect of his "civility" like he did, for instance, with Jonathan, who tore his head off.

--Brant