Exposed!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

Thank you very much for your kind words.

I have nothing to hide, so I will be curious to see what comes up. The only thing I can think of is that I took great delight in the prospect of Pross's possible redemption ticking off certain people who were attacking him at the time. These were the same people who have constantly attacked people I love and admire.

I happen to like sticking it to people like that.

I will always defend my values, just like I defended Pross when he was one. I have to admit, though, that in the case of Pross's plagiarism, they were right to condemn him and I was wrong to interfere. As soon as this issue gets organized, I will issue personal statements to all who were wronged.

I also probed to find a "language" where I could communicate with Pross, trying to see the world through his eyes, since his defense mechanisms were so strongly erected. I suppose I could have kept this up, but it got very tiring and I got bored over time. After some small advances like pushing him to make apologies for his insults (and even suggesting the texts), I gave it an interval to let the lessons settle. Instead, Pross took me for a patsy and flooded my forum with plagiary.

I say let him bring it on if he wants. I have my own records and I simply don't give a damn. I know what I did and why I did it. And I don't mind saying it.

As a former drug addict, I also want to say that if this guy ever hits rock bottom and sincerely wants to change for the better, I will extend my hand to help him up. (Not to ever allow him to post on OL again, though. That restriction is a permanent decision.) I would need some serious convincing after all this, but I would do it.

Folks, you read it here first.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Despite his appalling dishonesty, Victor is not a stupid man. What I cannot understand -- and I wonder if anyone has a plausible explanation -- is the stupidity of his plagiarizing Objectivist writers on an Objectivist forum, plagiarisms that are so childishly easy to detect. It was inevitable that he would be found out. How could he not have realized that? Or did he realize it, and in some sick way want to be found out? His latest atrocity on the Ayn Rand Meetup Group seems to negate the latter possibility; he's still wildly trying to defend himself and the undefendable.

He has announced that he now intends to go after Michael. which I consider quite as depraved as his plagiarisms, if not more so. Michael, who has enormoous good will, did Victor an honor it turned out he didn't deserve: that of befriending him, supporting him, trying to help him, devoting a great deal of time and energy to instructing him. In payment, he is now trashing Michael. There seems no limit to how low this man will sink.

Barbara

Barbara, if you wonder fundamentally why Victor did what he did, it is because he is motivated by desire for the unearned. His plagiarism is but a particularly obnoxious instance of the epidemic of "cheating" that has been noted in our society during the past few years. There is a thriving industry devoted to helping teachers and other school officials detect plagiarism by students writing term papers that are little more than wholesale "lifting" of material from the Internet and/or from others who have already written papers on the subject. Why do these students do it? "Pressure" to achieve, in order to get better grades, to get into a prestigious college, or to be given more stature in a philosophical movement than they are able or willing to earn by their own efforts. It is a sign of moral corruption.

One thing that really bothers me about it is this parallel. We have been told that any number of statist encroachments on our liberties are bad but tolerable, but that the loss of intellectual freedom, freedom of speech and press, is the telltale sign that we have gone around the bend toward totalitarianism. Similarly, I fear, this fairly recent phenomenon of wholesale plagiarism by the younger generation(s) indicates to me a deepening moral depravity in our culture that is a very ominous sign for the future. We used to see lying and injustice and lack of integrity and other forms of immorality -- but now this passing off as one's own the thoughts ~and experiences~ of another! That is beyond the pale. Not just intellectual theft, but IDENTITY theft, is what Victor is guilty of. And so many others do it, in Napster-like fashion, as though there were nothing bad about it, except getting caught!!

Well, end of rant. I suspected this about Victor very early on, and I managed to keep my distance from him, and I have to bite my tongue big time to keep from rubbing my overly generous friend Michael's face in it. But his burden of cleaning up after Victor's perfidies is more than punishment enough, and I wish him godspeed in straightening up the OL house once more. As for what seasoning to use for the crow he has to eat? I suggest guacamole (whack-a-mole). :-)

REB

[Ellen Stuttle]

Despite his appalling dishonesty, Victor is not a stupid man. What I cannot understand -- and I wonder if anyone has a plausible explanation -- is the stupidity of his plagiarizing Objectivist writers on an Objectivist forum, plagiarisms that are so childishly easy to detect. It was inevitable that he would be found out. How could he not have realized that? Or did he realize it, and in some sick way want to be found out? His latest atrocity on the Ayn Rand Meetup Group seems to negate the latter possibility; he's still wildly trying to defend himself and the undefendable.

I don't agree, Barbara, about his not being stupid. You probably didn't read the art threads in much detail; they became very long and involved. He did some awfully stupid things in his replies on those, such as to all appearances not being able to recognize that he'd flatly contradicted himself, or that some of the various items he was posting (most of them lifted) were contradicting each other, or that the changes he'd make to material he borrowed were changes for the worse. I think that HE can't read well enough to be able to see what's clear to those who do know their way around the written word. This doesn't explain the drivenness of his continuing, on list after list, with the same compulsive cribbing. But I think that part of the problem is that he isn't smart enough to realize how obvious he's become to a by-now-large audience.

Ellen

___

[Brant Gaede]

Despite his appalling dishonesty, Victor is not a stupid man. What I cannot understand -- and I wonder if anyone has a plausible explanation -- is the stupidity of his plagiarizing Objectivist writers on an Objectivist forum, plagiarisms that are so childishly easy to detect. It was inevitable that he would be found out. How could he not have realized that? Or did he realize it, and in some sick way want to be found out? His latest atrocity on the Ayn Rand Meetup Group seems to negate the latter possibility; he's still wildly trying to defend himself and the undefendable.

I don't agree, Barbara, about his not being stupid. You probably didn't read the art threads in much detail; they became very long and involved. He did some awfully stupid things in his replies on those, such as to all appearances not being able to recognize that he'd flatly contradicted himself, or that some of the various items he was posting (most of them lifted) were contradicting each other, or that the changes he'd make to material he borrowed were changes for the worse. I think that HE can't read well enough to be able to see what's clear to those who do know their way around the written word. This doesn't explain the drivenness of his continuing, on list after list, with the same compulsive cribbing. But I think that part of the problem is that he isn't smart enough to realize how obvious he's become to a by-now-large audience.

Ellen

___

I agree. Victor has demonstrated energy, not brains. I'm sorry for Angie; no one was more sucked in than Angie. Love has its own reasons, but reality comes a cropper. Angie, run away, don't walk. Today's pain hurts. Tomorrow's destroys. Michael, I think you should chuck the whole behind-the-scenes thing. WTF is that?

--Brant

Edited June 28, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Brant Gaede]

What if Angie doesn't exist? What if she is only an invention of VP?

--Brant

[BAMF]

^I know 'er. ;) Vic sure has a feminine side if he made her up. :frantics:

[Barbara Branden]

I'm sorry for Angie; no one was more sucked in than Angie.

--Brant

I agree, Brant. And I think it's that that is the worst of what he's done. He presented her with an illusion, not a real man.

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

I don't agree, Barbara, about his not being stupid. You probably didn't read the art threads in much detail; they became very long and involved. He did some awfully stupid things in his replies on those, such as to all appearances not being able to recognize that he'd flatly contradicted himself, or that some of the various items he was posting (most of them lifted) were contradicting each other, or that the changes he'd make to material he borrowed were changes for the worse. I think that HE can't read well enough to be able to see what's clear to those who do know their way around the written word. This doesn't explain the drivenness of his continuing, on list after list, with the same compulsive cribbing. But I think that part of the problem is that he isn't smart enough to realize how obvious he's become to a by-now-large audience.

Ellen

___

Ellen, I grant he's done monumentally stupid things and that he's far from being a conceptual thinker. But he'd have to be sub-normal to think he could for long get away with his posturing. And he clearly sees now that his act has failed, that he isn't getting the approval he is so desperate for, yet he still goes on pretending and lying and posturing. I think it must be that, by now, his need for approval, his need to be seen as something he isn't, is so intense and overwhelming that he's frantically anxious about his unveiling and he can't see or hear or understand anything else. It's a horrible spectacle.

I made a prediction to Michael, in an email I sent him in April, that has come hideously true. I wrote,

"I predict that if he goes to another forum, he will eventually say snide things or worse

first about me, then finally about you. He has to do it, after all; we are the ones who

made life less than fully comfortable for him on OL and who embarrassed him, and so

got him to leave, and his resentment at losing the OL attention is bound to fester and

finally erupt."

I was wrong in one respect only:On the AR Meetup Group, he began trashing Michael first, then got to me.

On June 10 I wrote to Michael,

"I predict that Victor's next step will be to appear on forums under another name.

That probably will work for a while, but he'll continue his plagiarism, someone will

recognize one of his sources and call him on it, and someone else will make the

connection to Victor. His step after that may well be to decide all Objectivists are

crazy savages and he's not really an Objectivist. His real reason will be that

acceptance is much more important to him that whatever ideas he may hold at

any given moment and for whatever reasons. I can see him, eventually,

joining an avowedly anti-Objectivist forum."

On June 15 I wrote,

" If he remains an Objectivist (to the small extent that he is

that) he will have to eventually face what he's been doing -- but that

will so threaten his self-esteem that he won't be able to do it. It will

feel to him as if he must either give up Objectivism or give up his

self-esteem. And that leaves him with really no choice at all."

We shall see how close I come.

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

This whole thing is very sad but I am not defending Victor. That is over!

Edited June 28, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

What Pross did with your caricature is something good inside him. That is what I saw and what I was trying to reach. I am astonished that this was possible in the midst of an orgy of plagiarism. The good is there and it came through for a bit, but the bad was far, far stronger.

Wanna pass the mustard? Looks like I am going to have to eat the feathers, too.

Michael

[bmacwilliam]

I'm sorry for Angie; no one was more sucked in than Angie.

--Brant

I agree, Brant. And I think it's that that is the worst of what he's done. He presented her with an illusion, not a real man.

Barbara

I agree too, but it was creepy, freaky, illogical and nonsensical BEFORE it was exposed as an illusion.

I want to take this opportunity to make a point here.

I gave Victor and Angie a hard time in the romance thread. Why? Most importantly...

- I care more about reality than I do about hurting people's feelings

- I smelled a rat. Something was indeed wrong.

I have been accused of trolling, but I don't. Sure I can be abrasive, but the truth of the matter is I respond this way almost always because I get the rat smell and I do get satisfaction by stirring up dust in these situations - calling the bluff, poking the kooks, exposing errors, frauds and hidden motives. Matus is another, but I digress.

I humbly suggest that the others here that damn well knew that the V & A situation was toxic and did not speak up, especially if they cared for either party, reflect on their reason(s) for silence. Why was the truth not important enough?

Bob

[Matus1976]

MSK wrote:

OL is not a place where people gleefully lynch scapegoats, but there is something you should take into account. The posters venting their anger right now are highly intelligent people of goodwill, independent honest thinkers, who have wrestled with intellectual issues in public, reaching from the depths of the best within themselves to discuss matters with Pross. This takes a huge amount of effort and often a post takes hours to get it right. They are now discovering that they were being conned and that all their efforts and goodwill at the time were not spent on a serious discussion. What's worse, Pross insulted and mocked many of them precisely for their best thinking.

I was trying to identify exactly what irratated me so much about Victor's behavior, and this I think identifies it very well. Victor is clearly an intelligent person and is capable of a rational and interesting discussion, as I had with him on the "talent" thread (although we will now probably find it full of plagiarism as well) its dispicable and disgusting to use a good mind for such rediculous endeavours. And now we see the same thing, over and over again on other Objectivist forums. What in the world could possibly motivate such idiotic behavior? I can't even wrap my head around it. I only hope that for Angie's sake that his personality and sincerity to her were real.

Edited June 28, 2007 by Matus1976

[Brant Gaede]

I'm sorry for Angie; no one was more sucked in than Angie.

--Brant

I agree, Brant. And I think it's that that is the worst of what he's done. He presented her with an illusion, not a real man.

Barbara

I agree too, but it was creepy, freaky, illogical and nonsensical BEFORE it was exposed as an illusion.

I want to take this opportunity to make a point here.

I gave Victor and Angie a hard time in the romance thread. Why? Most importantly...

- I care more about reality than I do about hurting people's feelings

- I smelled a rat. Something was indeed wrong.

I have been accused of trolling, but I don't. Sure I can be abrasive, but the truth of the matter is I respond this way almost always because I get the rat smell and I do get satisfaction by stirring up dust in these situations - calling the bluff, poking the kooks, exposing errors, frauds and hidden motives. Matus is another, but I digress.

I humbly suggest that the others here that damn well knew that the V & A situation was toxic and did not speak up, especially if they cared for either party, reflect on their reason(s) for silence. Why was the truth not important enough?

Bob

They've been a two-some for some time. It's their lives, not mine. It's very bad form--karma--to stick yourself in between lovers, even would-be lovers. Item: man and woman fight on the subway platform. Another man intervenes. The couple turn on the man and beat him up then leave together.

--Brant

[bmacwilliam]

I'm sorry for Angie; no one was more sucked in than Angie.

--Brant

I agree, Brant. And I think it's that that is the worst of what he's done. He presented her with an illusion, not a real man.

Barbara

I agree too, but it was creepy, freaky, illogical and nonsensical BEFORE it was exposed as an illusion.

I want to take this opportunity to make a point here.

I gave Victor and Angie a hard time in the romance thread. Why? Most importantly...

- I care more about reality than I do about hurting people's feelings

- I smelled a rat. Something was indeed wrong.

I have been accused of trolling, but I don't. Sure I can be abrasive, but the truth of the matter is I respond this way almost always because I get the rat smell and I do get satisfaction by stirring up dust in these situations - calling the bluff, poking the kooks, exposing errors, frauds and hidden motives. Matus is another, but I digress.

I humbly suggest that the others here that damn well knew that the V & A situation was toxic and did not speak up, especially if they cared for either party, reflect on their reason(s) for silence. Why was the truth not important enough?

Bob

They've been a two-some for some time. It's their lives, not mine. It's very bad form--karma--to stick yourself in between lovers, even would-be lovers. Item: man and woman fight on the subway platform. Another man intervenes. The couple turn on the man and beat him up then leave together.

--Brant

Well, I can't argue with karma.

Bob

[Barbara Branden]

Barbara, if you wonder fundamentally why Victor did what he did, it is because he is motivated by desire for the unearned. His plagiarism is but a particularly obnoxious instance of the epidemic of "cheating" that has been noted in our society during the past few years. There is a thriving industry devoted to helping teachers and other school officials detect plagiarism by students writing term papers that are little more than wholesale "lifting" of material from the Internet and/or from others who have already written papers on the subject. Why do these students do it? "Pressure" to achieve, in order to get better grades, to get into a prestigious college, or to be given more stature in a philosophical movement than they are able or willing to earn by their own efforts. It is a sign of moral corruption.

One thing that really bothers me about it is this parallel. We have been told that any number of statist encroachments on our liberties are bad but tolerable, but that the loss of intellectual freedom, freedom of speech and press, is the telltale sign that we have gone around the bend toward totalitarianism. Similarly, I fear, this fairly recent phenomenon of wholesale plagiarism by the younger generation(s) indicates to me a deepening moral depravity in our culture that is a very ominous sign for the future. We used to see lying and injustice and lack of integrity and other forms of immorality -- but now this passing off as one's own the thoughts ~and experiences~ of another! That is beyond the pale. Not just intellectual theft, but IDENTITY theft, is what Victor is guilty of. And so many others do it, in Napster-like fashion, as though there were nothing bad about it, except getting caught!!

REB

Roger, the question in my mind is not why Victor plagiarized; I think I understand his reasons and I agree that he wanted the unearned. My question is how on earth he thought he could get away with lifting material from Objectivist sources to use on an Objectivist forum. It was so very easy to find him out. He must have been utterly desperate for approval, blind to anything but that raging need, to go about his plagiarisms so stupidly.

You make an interresting point that Victor and others like him are engaged in "identity theft." Quite true. It appears that such people have no firm sense of their own identity, no firm sense of what they believe and who they are, and so they attempt to steal the identity and convictions of others. It's a sorry spectable.

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

Chris

Wanna pass the mustard? Looks like I am going to have to eat the feathers, too.

Michael

Michael, no -- no feathers. Crow, perhaps. You made a mistake, yes, but you did it out of conviction and you gave the matter serious thought. What was your alternative? You couldn't possibly have gone along with Victor's critics and dumped him when you were not sold that that was the right thing to do. I know that you see Victor's plagiarism as an addiction, and I believe that as a former addict, you identified with him, and you failed to see the vast differences in honor, integrity, and commitment to reality between the two of you. It's not a hanging offense.

Barbara

[Ellen Stuttle]

Roger, the question in my mind is not why Victor plagiarized; I think I understand his reasons and I agree that he wanted the unearned. My question is how on earth he thought he could get away with lifting material from Objectivist sources to use on an Objectivist forum. It was so very easy to find him out. He must have been utterly desperate for approval, blind to anything but that raging need, to go about his plagiarisms so stupidly.

Again, I think you're overlooking how inept a reader he himself is, and thus how little he understands the extent to which his methods would soon be obvious to a careful reader. I think he was too dumb to know that his small disguisings of borrowed material wouldn't begin to be adequate.

Ellen

___

[Daniel Barnes]

Looks like the Meetup thread's been deleted...may well be a sensible sysops decision there.

[dan_edge]

There's an option to "Report Inappropriate Post," which I did. Good job, Meetup.

--Dan Edge

[Laure]

Heh. I thought maybe Victor had it removed! It was getting pretty embarrassing for him.

[BAMF]

Y'all want it removed, but y'all are looking at it too. Train wreck?

[Barbara Branden]

Heh. I thought maybe Victor had it removed! It was getting pretty embarrassing for him.

Laura, if Victor understood enough to be embarrassed, he wouldn't be in nearly the trouble he's in.

Ellen, you may very well be right, and I'm over-estimating Victor's intelligence. I guess all con men are not like the ones in the movie "Sting." I may be looking for a complex psychological explanation of what is plain and simple bumbling. But although I never thought Victor was particularly intelligent, I also didn't think he was dumb enough to do what he's done. The cherry on the cake was his attempt to defend himself by announcing that Dan Edge was a murderer. Not a remarkably intelligent solution to being found out.

Barbara

[Brant Gaede]

Bob

They've been a two-some for some time. It's their lives, not mine. It's very bad form--karma--to stick yourself in between lovers, even would-be lovers. Item: man and woman fight on the subway platform. Another man intervenes. The couple turn on the man and beat him up then leave together.

--Brant

Well, I can't argue with karma.

Bob

Thx. I needed that.

--Brant

[Judith]

Despite his appalling dishonesty, Victor is not a stupid man. What I cannot understand -- and I wonder if anyone has a plausible explanation -- is the stupidity of his plagiarizing Objectivist writers on an Objectivist forum, plagiarisms that are so childishly easy to detect. It was inevitable that he would be found out. How could he not have realized that? Or did he realize it, and in some sick way want to be found out? His latest atrocity on the Ayn Rand Meetup Group seems to negate the latter possibility; he's still wildly trying to defend himself and the undefendable.

For awhile, I was actually wondering if it was possible that Victor has a near-photographic memory and was pulling this stuff up out of his mind without intending to copy.

But there's his statement in the "Madame Bovary" thread that "I don’t deny lifting text out of sheer laziness".

I just don't see any possible motivation for the copying. How much work does it take to chase down all the things that one wants to say and copy them, rather than simply writing them out for one's self?

And what pleasure is there in using someone else's words when one has the wonderful opportunity to use one's own?

Very bewildering.

Judith

[Greybird]

I wasn't going to post further in this thread, as my earlier remarks speak for themselves, no matter what MSK or others may read into them. The following, though, is too utterly appalling to let pass without comment.

[...] I'm sorry for Angie; no one was more sucked in than Angie. Love has its own reasons, but reality comes a cropper. Angie, run away, don't walk. Today's pain hurts. Tomorrow's destroys. [...]

What if Angie doesn't exist? What if she is only an invention of VP?

How DARE you, sir? What is between them has nothing to do with the animadverting and personal slurs that are being put across here. Or even Victor's plagiarism. Their love, and its continuance, is their business.

Do you think — or does anyone else — that because Angie and Victor made public note in this forum of their affection, their emotions, and finally their meeting, you have an unlimited right and license to comment on and judge the standards and behavior of that relationship? If so, well, you have no such right and no such license. To presume that you are in any position to offer such advice is to go where you do not belong.

When someone shares a value, or the knowledge of it, with others, this doesn't mean that any of those others have a moral right to make prescriptions or proclamations to those doing the sharing. More simply: They did not ask for your advice, Brant.

As for "doesn't exist," a truly nasty comment not couched in anything suggesting that you were facetious:

I'm one of the few here who actually has met Angie in person, as most of you know. I'm going to waste some money right now to demonstrate this: I have 15 exposures left on a camera (non-digital) wherein a picture resides of my having met Angie. I'm going to get that film prematurely developed, and that picture scanned and posted, in order to prove — with one of the highest possible Objectivist ironies — that Angie's existence exists.

Is that "necessary" on my part? No, of course not. But it's a gesture, in the face of a nauseating personal attack. This isn't just a superfluous twisting of the knife on someone whose absentia has already long been made plain. This is an attack on his highest personal values, wherein nobody has business treading.

And that ought to be seen, by everyone around here, as being unacceptable. We'll see.