Why I am here.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Jon likes to plant them so he can harvest them. Sorta like "Motel Hell." This guy didn't get planted.

--Brant

Brant,

We all get pissed at times, but at least we have real men on this forum.

(Real women, too.  )

As opposed to sissies who need to be coddled...

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

 

52 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jon,

And of course being bullied, right? That's the subtext everyone is responding to.

And that's rich coming from you. Since when do you stand up for social justice warriors, anyway?

Talk about weird and bizarre.

You wanna do tough-guy talk, tough guy?

Here's some tough talk.

Tone it down. I mean it.

My patience is wearing thin.

Michael

 

Yes, carrying on like you are, making fun of his graphic, is bullying.

I am not standing up for any SJW, just criticized your aim in one case of reading one personality and criticized your reaction to that. That’s too much, even after demanding honesty without apology from Deanna and I just yesterday, but that’s too much today, I hear you and I am quite finished now.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

18 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

Yes, carrying on like you are, making fun of his graphic, is bullying.

For a guy with a college degree?

Horseshit.

18 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

I am not standing up for any SJW...

Horseshit again.

Seeing you demand that others coddle an SJW is outright funny. I could throw bizarre in your face, but it's just funny.

 

Seriously. I can't stop laughing. I see The Thing stamping his foot and petulantly demanding a safe space against hurtful words and ideas.

 

18 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

... just criticized your aim in one case of reading one personality and criticized your reaction to that...

So the real deal is not that you wanna stand up for someone. It's that you wanna fight, tough guy?

18 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

... honesty...

There's that word honesty again.

Does that mean the other shit you said was dishonest?

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The alpha dog showed up and demanded I sniff his balls.

I don't do ball sniffing.

This is a philosophy forum.

Michael

[dldelancey]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

Deanna,

Do you still believe he's just a kid?

I'm not asking out of hostility. It's the identify correctly to judge correctly thing.

Michael

Or a very young adult as I already said. Absent of any other evidence, yes I still assume so. 

[Brant Gaede]

Can't we all just get along?

--Brant

sniff, not; sniff not; SNIFF NOT!!!!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

21 minutes ago, dldelancey said:

Or a very young adult as I already said. Absent of any other evidence, yes I still assume so. 

Deanna,

You characterized him as mentally and emotionally equivalent to your 15 year old. You wrote:

21 hours ago, dldelancey said:

I read him in the same way I would have read my teenage son - more mature and smarter than average, but an awkward communicator and not sure how to convey that he wants to learn something while maintaining that he knows everything.  You know, like a kid would do.

But he's a college graduate, not a kid.

Now that you know that, do you still identify him the way you wrote above--mentally and emotionally immature in the manner a 15 year old is?

If so, why? 

(Even if it's just a feeling, I'm OK with that as the reason.)

Also, at the same conviction level deep inside you, do you see the possibility he may not be what you think he is?

Once again, I'm not asking with hostility in mind. I'm truly curious.

My kerfuffle with Jon (basically alpha male bullshit) has nothing to do with what I am asking or why.

I've been studying the human mind in depth on my own for over a decade and I get curious when I see people believe things I don't understand. What are they seeing that I am not?

There's no judgment at this phase, merely curiosity and a wish to identify correctly.

Here is the core of what I am getting at:

Both you and I missed, or skimmed over in a manner that didn't register, that he was a college graduate. It was right there in front of us and we both blew it. Yet we came to completely different conclusions about him based on the rest of what was there (as we processed it).

I know why I came to my conclusions--I've seen the same pattern as this guy many times. So I didn't put a lot of thought into how I reacted. Think The Crazy Lady, or the dude who worked in the government for Cass Sunstein who called himself a character from The Game of Thrones, or the SJW who used a doll as an avatar, etc. Here are their avatars in order just in case you don't remember who I am talking about. 

 seymourblogger, and   

 Robert Baratheon, and

 SoAMadDeathWish

The mess these people caused and the sheer amount of attention they required from me to keep readers from exiting en masse is what I was trying to avoid. They aren't the only ones, either. 

I don't know why you saw this person as you did. I suspect it involved being caught up in the core stories of being a great mother (that's how I read you  ). But something is also whispering in the back of my mind that, if this is the case (which I believe at this point), it is not the whole picture.

What are you seeing that I am not?

(btw - No need to answer if this is getting to be a pain in the ass. I'm just curious.)

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Can't we all just get along?

--Brant

sniff, not; sniff not; SNIFF NOT!!!!

Brant,

I don't know what Jon will do.

I love him irrespective of whatever he decides.

He's very intelligent, but at times he feels like the retarded brother I never had.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I know why I came to my conclusions--I've seen the same pattern as this guy many times. So I didn't put a lot of thought into how I reacted. Think The Crazy Lady, or the dude who worked in the government for Cass Sunstein who called himself a character from The Game of Thrones, or the SJW who used a doll as an avatar, etc. Here are their avatars in order just in case you don't remember who I am talking about. 

 seymourblogger, and   

 Robert Baratheon, and

 SoAMadDeathWish

The mess these people caused and the sheer amount of attention they required from me to keep readers from exiting en masse is what I was trying to avoid. They aren't the only ones, either. 

Michael,

Those three - seymourblogger, "Robert Baratheon," and SoAMadDeathWish - were all actual people who did cause trouble.

There have also been some pseudo people - that is, posters who were fictional fronts for someone deliberately attempting to cause trouble.  Angie Holland and the other one, ostensively Angie's friend, whose posts were written by some guy getting a charge out of hassling O'vish sites.  The author of the posts sometimes goofed and produced inconsistencies in the life history stories he was spinning.

I'm a mite suspicious of this "Phantom" poster because of the discrepancy between not being a philosophy major and not having taken philosophy.  Probably just a verb miswrite in the first statement.  Probably the poster is a journalism graduate.   Distressing thought.  (What the universities are graduating these days!  Gaak!)

Ellen

[dldelancey]

I didn’t miss that he was a college graduate. I was a teenage college graduate. My son is on track to be a teenage college graduate. I have two direct reports who were teenage college graduates and an intern who will be a teenage college graduate next spring. That last one doesn’t even drive yet. 

I am surrounded by very young high performers and over achievers who are earnest yet awkward in their communication styles. All of them have learned a particular type of discussion method called a Socratic Circle. I am accustomed to my son opening discussions in the manner in which phantom did so. 

Also, as I pointed out before, the quote and the graphic in the original post are from an animated series that I have enjoyed with my son. Given that phantom quoted general Iroh and then explicitly said he was following Iroh’s advice, he seems to be identifying with Iroh’s grandson Zuko, a teenager or very young adult. This is also why I assume he’s male. There are strong female characters in the series that he could have identified with but didn’t. 

I could go on, but I’m not sure I see the point. You drew a conclusion. I drew a conclusion. We each did so based on our own experiences. We could both be wrong or the reality may be something in between. We simply can’t know unless phantom cares to enlighten us. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

There have also been some pseudo people - that is, posters who were fictional fronts for someone deliberately attempting to cause trouble.  Angie Holland and the other one, ostensively Angie's friend, whose posts were written by some guy getting a charge out of hassling O'vish sites.  The author of the posts sometimes goofed and produced inconsistencies in the life history stories he was spinning.

Ellen,

I think you mean Andie Holland and Bill Harris and God Knows what other names this dude cooked up. If I remember correctly, he--and his pseudonyms--dropped names of intellectuals and the names of intellectual ideas with the zeal of the Energizer Bunny and didn't understand the slightest thing about any of them. And all posts went to the same IP--I think it was somewhere in Georgia, but my memory might be off. What a piece of work!  

You just reminded me of Angie, a different person. She was OK until she hooked up with that plagiarist dude, Victor. Another headache. Barbara Branden was alive back then and man, did she give me grief over those two because, like a fool, I stood up for them. Barbara was quite elegant at serving crow to me after it all fell apart.  But Angie's OK. She followed her own path and is presumably leading a good life. I don't know and don't want to know about the other guy.  )

btw - On Phantom, his IP resolves to Prairie Grove, Arkansas for whatever that is worth. I didn't go out of my way to look him up, but since I went to the backend to see about the other posters and it was right in front of my face, I took a peek. Another point. Have you noticed that phantom000, seymourblogger, Robert Baratheon and SoAMadDeathWish never used their real names? That's not a fully reliable tell for a problematic person, but it adds nicely with other indications for good accuracy.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

6 hours ago, dldelancey said:

I could go on, but I’m not sure I see the point.

Deanna,

Ah, come on.

I ask a simple question about what you see, and even tell you I am curious for my own reasons dealing with my studies, and you're not sure you see the point? I even tell you I am not judging anything with this question? 

Well, here's the point since it is not clear to you: Exchange of information.

It's simple. You know something I don't and I would like you to tell me so I can know it, too. I even said that.

How is that not clear?

But this phantom dude comes here and opens with a crapload of negative assumptions about Rand's flaws, and ours for that matter based on no knowledge at all, and you do see the point?

Jeez, Louise...

On another issue, I looked up Socratic Circle since I had not heard of it and looked at a few search entries. I happen to like the Socratic method of digging information out of the right brain and underbelly of the mind in order to verbalize it through questions and discussion. (I can give you great books that discuss how this happens, starting with Iain McGilchrist's book on the divided brain. But there are many more I have read.) Much of the info in the brain has not been recorded in memory in verbal form, nor even the processing of it is in verbal form. So with questions and discussion, things often emerge and appear like they are new. And they are--in words. But the info was there all along. Also, the Socratic method allows the creative impulse to be added to that process so some truly new paths and dot-connections happen.

(Apropos, Rand used this method in a solitaire-like manner in her creative writing and later in her nonfiction. She would list a string of questions as they came to mind, then proceed to answer them as if they came from someone else. After she did that, she would choose what to pursue and what to discard.)

In my search, I saw a lot of things mentioning Common Core when they talked about Socratic Circle. So maybe I never heard of this because it's a new jargon term from that system. I don't know... I will look deeper over time. From what little I read, I didn't find any meaningful connection with how this phantom guy opened--talking about what he is not nor ever could be--presuming that that unfortunate state was what we were, and how flawed and foolish the things he wants to discuss are, etc., as he seeks wisdom from all this.

That's the Socratic Circle way? Really?  

(All right, all right, that was a friendly poke in the ribs...)

I want to ask you how you think the mental and emotional immaturity of a 15 year old can apply to college graduates because I'm still curious and I'm still not sure what you see. When I look at what goes on in the news on college campuses, with their safe spaces, bullying by collectives, conviction by accusation, intolerance of the boogiemen they have been indoctrinated to hate (mostly America and white males), etc., I can see the possibility. But, frankly, I am looking even deeper.

Maybe you're not interested. Whatever...

As part of what I see, I got into my stepson's head and, even though he is on the autistic spectrum, his IQ is now recorded as much higher than before--in fact, now it's at an average level--and he is going to college.* That tells me the system that coddled him and molded him into a special needs sausage was screwed up, not him. I've tested him on his college lessons and in everything I walked through with him, he was spot on. Hell, I even screwed up the math on one thing and he corrected me. You have no idea how proud of him I am.

Anyhow, enough of that. There's no point, right?

I sincerely hope this phantom guy does not apply for a job or things like that using the same approach he used here to introduce himself to strangers on a forum. I don't predict he will be very successful if he does.

Michael

 

* Note: I do not believe his IQ increased since that rarely happens and the increase is small when it happens (although within normal parameters of how much it can increase, it may have), but I do believe the earlier testing was incompetent--the testing when he was being shaped into a special needs sausage. And that resulted in a very low score. He has a slow response time for thought to become bodily expression, including speaking. Some people take this to be evidence of lack of cognitive ability and, to be fair, it often looks like that. But it isn't. The proof is in his results when he gets the amount of time he needs and has actually done the work. I always suspected this and that's the way it worked when I coached him on writing and so on, or when he taught himself wikicode, but it finally came evident in college where, by some miracle or other, they do allow him extra time.

In special needs, they kept him doing super-easy tasks and silly shit. All. Day. Long. This went on all through his public education. To say that I am angry at the system is an understatement. Fucking technocrats and government ass kissers playing at teaching to collect a paycheck...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, dldelancey said:

... the reality may be something in between.

Deanna,

I would bet on that.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Good for you guys, Deanna.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I think you mean Andie Holland and Bill Harris and God Knows what other names this dude cooked up.

Michael,

Yes, I did mean Andie Holland.  And I was mixing up which one of a pair of supposed friends was the primary. The primary pseudo person was given the name "Eva Matthews." 

I wonder if the guy who was doing the collection of fake persons finally stopped or if he's still trying to hassle O'vishes, maybe hounding O'vish Twitter accounts.

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

And all posts went to the same IP--I think it was somewhere in Georgia, but my memory might be off. What a piece of work!

Atlanta, if I recall right.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

5 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I sincerely hope this phantom guy does not apply for a job or things like that using the same approach he used here to introduce himself to strangers on a forum.  I don't predict he will be very successful if he does.

Imagine the approach used by a reporter.  Of course journalism includes more job niches than reporter, but lack of communication skills isn't a recommendation for any of them I know of.

Ellen

[Jon Letendre]

9 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The alpha dog showed up and demanded I sniff his balls.

I don't do ball sniffing.

This is a philosophy forum.

Michael

Priceless.

I will remember not to criticize your inestimable people skills again. Sorry. lol

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Imagine the approach used by a reporter.  Of course journalism includes more job niches than reporter, but lack of communication skills isn't a recommendation for any of them I know of.

Ellen

Ellen,

LOL...

At least the guy seems qualified to be an elitist ruling class politician if he gets the breaks, that's for sure.

They don't need to communicate well. They can even communicate poorly. At the communication level, they just need to bash the right targets (the approved ones by the ruling class) while posturing about their own sense of fairness.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

I will remember not to criticize your inestimable people skills again.

Jon,

Said by one virtuoso in people skills to another, huh?

   

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

5 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jon,

Said by one virtuoso in people skills to another, huh?

   

Michael

That's a criticism of my people skills, so we get a real world test ...

Uh, oh. I'm not calling you my retarded brother, Alpha ball sniffer, etc. Looks like I pass the first virtuoso people person test.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 minute ago, Jon Letendre said:

That's a criticism of my people skills, so we get a real world test ...

Uh, oh. I'm not calling you my retarded brother, Alpha ball sniffer, etc. Looks like I pass the first virtuoso people person test.

Jon,

Wow. That's so bizarre. Actually it's beyond bizarre. Way beyond bizarre.

What a bully.

   

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

... my retarded brother, Alpha ball sniffer,

And that's even more bizarre.

I said highly intelligent retarded brother I never had (and only at times). Also, I said alpha dog that wants its balls sniffed. I don't know what an alpha ball is. I wouldn't sniff that, either, though.

 

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

Was that the second virtuoso people person test? Ouch. Don't get discouraged, we can do more of them.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

9 hours ago, Jon Letendre said:

Was that the second virtuoso people person test? Ouch. Don't get discouraged, we can do more of them.

Jon,

Nah... I wasn't even testing.

Banter and a flare-up are not tests.

They are, well, banter and a flare-up.

It's true I will test a newbie a bit to see about his or her honesty of intentions (OMG! There's that word again.  ). That's to save time and headaches later on and is based on some chops I have earned the hard way.

But test the alpha dog?

Why?

That doesn't pass the smell test.

It smells too much like balls.

And I don't do balls sniffing...

 

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jon,

Nah... I wasn't even testing.

Banter and a flare-up are not tests.

They are, well, banter and a flare-up.

It's true I will test a newbie a bit to see about his or her honesty of intentions (OMG! There's that word again.  ). That's to save time and headaches later on and is based on some chops I have earned the hard way.

But test the alpha dog?

Why?

That doesn't pass the smell test.

It smells too much like balls.

And I don't do balls sniffing...

 

Michael

You don’t do even the mildest criticism, not from Deanna, not from your friend. You turn it into a demand to sniff balls so you can reject it out of hand.