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May 27, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
24:06
1369 Tricky Trollz!

Hey, do you hear anything under the bridge? ;)

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Hi everybody, it's Steph. Hope you're doing well.
It is the 20x of May 2009, Wednesday for sure.
Out for a short walk with the bellycakes.
And I thought it might be interesting, or perhaps even instructive, to do a wee video On the general anatomy of a troll attack, of a troll interaction, because there have been a few floating around.
Actually, the board's been really great over the last couple of months.
Just wanted to mention that, and thank you so much to those who are not engaging, and a stern whack of the finger to those who do, myself included, from time to time.
Just something to remind each other of.
And there are two, in my experience, I guess, as running this thing for a couple of years and having to deal with a couple of dozen trials perhaps over the time.
There is... There are two kinds of trolls, and the first is pretty obvious, and the second is a little more subtle.
The first kind of troll is the one who's just an upfront jerk, right?
Some guy came up and posted and was like, so why do you register your children for government paperwork?
I mean, are we supposed to really be into liberty, or are we just supposed to talk about it, right?
Right. Call me crazy.
Call me... Overindulgent.
But I am sort of of the opinion that medical care and education for my child is kind of a good thing.
And I'm not going to make the decision to exclude her from participation in society.
For her, right? Which, you know, a little bit of paperwork and who cares, right?
On the other hand, if she wants to go off the grid when she's an adult, she can make that choice for herself, I suppose.
But it's not a choice I'm going to make for her.
And as I said, you know...
I feel that some medical attention and education is to name just a few of the many things which you need government paperwork to do.
So sort of making that point, right?
Guy comes back, you know, it's like, you know, you are making a decision for her.
It's like, it's like baptism.
And of course, it's completely not even close.
It's not even Close to baptism.
Baptism is an empty, meaningless gesture where no contract is signed and no exchange of money takes place and there's no evidence after the fact whether it's occurred or not, right?
And you can get medical attention and education for your children if they're not baptized.
They can participate in something.
I mean, it's not a contract which provides or excludes Generally required child.
I mean, it's not even close, right?
So this is when somebody is just nuts, right?
They can't process even the sort of basic realities.
And then I just gave up, right?
Because it's like, well... And the guy sort of comes in and basically is calling everyone a hypocrite.
And of course, you know, my general approach...
Sorry, I just find this stuff kind of funny, right?
I just think of these guys in their basements, you know, coming off all pompous and superior when you know they're just...
Thoroughly unlikable, nasty little people in real life.
But it's just kind of funny. It's like, baptism?
What the hell? Okay, a few drops of water on my daughter's head.
It's exactly the same as getting government paperwork that gives her access to healthcare and education.
And, you know, then he comes back and says, oh, and no one's responding, I guess.
I guess my arguments are too powerful.
That's just... Oh, man.
I mean, that to me... And my general approach to people who come in with their moral high ground is kind of like this, right?
And, you know, if you hear this, and I don't think you are, but if you hear this and you're sort of interested in...
You know, coming off all high and mighty around ethics with people.
I think that's great, you know, but earn it, right?
Because it seems hard to imagine that this fellow is in a city or someplace with access to the internet, has bought a computer, has a home of some kind, has a job of some kind so that he can afford a computer and internet access, is using government-sponsored technology like the internet and some certain aspects of TCPIP and so on.
That this fellow is not participating in civil society at all.
And it's hard to imagine that he has children that he has never registered with any state agency or anything like that.
So to me, you know, if you want...
But if you want to... Come and tell people how moral it is to avoid government registration and how immoral it is to register, then show people, right?
Understand the difficulty that people would have with not doing it.
Be gentle and curious in your approach and step people through The argument, the process, right?
I mean, if it was that easy to make thunderously exaggerated moral claims, then I wouldn't need so many podcasts, right?
But it's really, excuse me, really tough to change people's minds about things, particularly fundamental things like this.
And so if you want to do it, then you know if somebody really wants to help you understand something that's a real challenge for you, that they'll be patient and kind and recognize that it's difficult for them as well.
And they're in the trenches with you, but here's what they think is beneficial.
They don't just sort of come in and say, you're all hypocrites, I'm superior, right?
Because that has nothing to do with actually educating people.
That's just being a dickhead, right?
So, this is something which is...
They lack empathy, right?
Lack empathy and lack any interest in actually advancing their cause, right?
These sort of primitive trolls, so to speak.
Trolls, mark one, right?
If... I mean, if you have a radical truth...
That you want to get it across to people.
Your ego, your desire for superiority or self-righteousness or whatever should be entirely cast by the wayside because everybody understands that these are enormously unpleasant traits and that if you want to get a radical truth across to people Then you need to surrender yourself,
if you are actually interested in helping people and getting the truth across, then you need to surrender yourself and your ego to the requirements of communicating a radical truth, which is to first practice it yourself so you understand how difficult it is and the pitfalls and the challenges, so that you can be gentle and positive when it comes to communicating things to people.
You subject your own impatience or ego or vanity To the actual requirements of getting a radical truth across to people.
And since everybody understands that peremptory moral haughtiness, superiority, and condescension are going to turn any reasonable person off what you're saying, you don't do that, right?
Because your goal is to communicate the truth, not to puff up your own ego like one of those semi-poisonous Japanese puffer fish.
And so people who don't do that, who don't say, well, you know, I got a radical truth.
I want to get across. It's going to be difficult for people to swallow.
So I need to come gently. I need to be empathetic.
I need to have tried it myself so that I'm not talking emptily.
Things that I have taken as an approach and which has worked thunderously well.
That's something that's really important when somebody's just coming thundering at you with some nonsense truth.
You know, like, for instance, the existence of God.
I mean, we'll get to the second troll type person in a moment.
So that first troll type, you know that they're not interested in helping you to understand the truth because they're just being jerks.
And being jerks turns people off the truth, and so their goal is not to communicate the truth, even if they're right.
In this case, this guy is not particularly right, or at least I don't think he is.
But their goal is not to...
So if somebody's not interested in communicating the truth to you, then they're just being jerks, right?
And you get lost, right?
So that's sort of the more primitive type, when they just escalate and so on, and don't listen to what you say, you know, the usual base-of-the-brain ape-like nonsense.
Now, the second kind, though, is more interesting, and this is a fellow who came by.
He didn't find out about Free Domain Radio from his own particular searches, but a guy who watches my videos, who's an atheist, was debating with him and sent him to my Proofs of God video.
I'm not going to get into his name, which I know, because it doesn't really matter.
He's just a type, right? And this kind of troll is more sophisticated because they start off criticizing your viewpoint.
And what you'll notice, and what I pointed out to this fellow, is that the criticism doesn't actually address your arguments, right?
But it's all basically a kind of argument from authority, which is fundamentally an argument from ignorance and insecurity.
So, in the proofs for God, I put up a lot of arguments, and this guy was responding over and over again, things like, well, of course, you haven't taken Swinburne's ontological X, Y, and Z into account when discussing these issues, which I think is a critical oversight on your part, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
And, of course, that's actually not an argument, right?
Yeah. Because it's not actually addressing and proving the logic of any of my points.
You're wrong because you should read someone.
Well, that's actually not the issue.
If I've made a mistake, then tell me how I've made a mistake.
And if I haven't made a mistake, just telling me to go read someone, not particularly helpful.
And this, I mean, I know that sometimes people have said this about UPB, but still, you should be able to, and other things, right?
And that's fine. I mean, it's not like the end of the world to say that, but if you're going to initiate An attack upon someone's position, rather than someone comes in, this argument's been hashed out a million times, and here's the reference, right?
If you're responding to it, it's a little different.
But if you're initiating a critique of someone's position, saying, well, you need to go and read this person, and that's why you're wrong, is not an argument, right?
It's silly. And certainly nobody would say that UPB is proven because you have to go and read UPB, right?
That would be sort of tautological.
And so this guy says, you're wrong because you haven't, and he, you know, tossed up half a dozen thinkers that I supposedly hadn't read and hadn't addressed the arguments of, and then he got upset because one of my videos, I'm actually driving, and he says, oh, so you think you can demolish the ontological argument for God while you're driving a car?
Well, of course, that's not an argument, right?
I mean, it's pathetic is what it is, which, of course, is the nature of What is called theology, right?
What is called theology is nothing more than sad, pitiful, manipulative brain witchcraft, right?
It's not philosophy.
It's just superstition, right?
I mean, it's as close to philosophy as the anatomy of the beholder in Dungeons& Dragons, right?
It's no validity whatsoever.
It's not empirical.
It's not rational. It's nonsense, right?
So this guy just kept basically throwing, oh, you should read this person.
Oh, you haven't addressed this person's arguments.
Oh, give me a list of everyone you've read in the realm of theology.
And it's like, A, those aren't arguments, right?
And I put forward pretty, you know, it's got PowerPoint, it's laid out, it's a pretty solid series of arguments.
And, you know, he's welcome to say where I've made a logical error.
Or empirical evidence contradicts the evidence that I've quoted.
But none of that occurs, right?
And the reason that people do that...
And the reason that theologians will always do that is because theology is false and dumb and insane, right?
Because there is no evidence, either empirical or rational, for the existence of God, right?
So they can't respond to the empirical evidence of your actual argument because there is no empirical evidence for that which they believe in, i.e., a deity, right?
So that's why they will always try, like Platonists, right?
They will always try and draw you into a world of words and definitions and stuff that makes your head spin, because language is manipulatable, but manipulable?
Language can be manipulated, whereas reality cannot, right?
So they will always try and not engage with you in the realm of argument, but engage with you in the realm of books and definitions and concepts and so on, because...
There's no God in reality, so in order to preserve some fantasy notion of God, they have to live in the world of language and of manipulation and of bad concepts and of redefinitions and all this kind of stuff, right?
And so then this guy followed Free Debate Radio over to the board and started posting all of this brain-twisty nonsense full of condescension and demands that people read X, Y, and Z's Theologian, and saying, this was his other argument, right?
He's saying, oh, so you guys are quoting Dawkins, but Dawkins is an amateur in X, Y, and Z realm sociology, I think, on something like that.
And this other guy, who was an atheist, says that Dawkins is an embarrassment to atheism, right?
Now, only a theist could imagine that because someone writes something, it is true, right?
God exists. Ooh, it's written.
It's got to be true. I have a concept of God in my head, says the ontological argument.
Therefore, God exists, right?
Because you can't have something in your head that doesn't exist, right?
Nonsense. But, um...
God is a negation of concepts.
God is not a concept. God is an anti-concept.
Right? And only a theist could imagine that because somebody wrote that Dawkins is an embarrassment, that Dawkins is actually an embarrassment.
Right? Because it's not an argument, right?
It's just saying someone has a certain emotional response to Dawkins, and therefore Dawkins is wrong.
But that's, of course, perfectly in accordance with theists, because I have a feeling that God exists or a desire for God to exist.
God exists, right? So because somebody is embarrassed by Dawkins, Dawkins is wrong.
It's a perfect theological argument.
It just is completely ridiculous in the realm of actual facts and truth, right?
In the realm of philosophy. So, he's writing all this kind of stuff, and I made a comment about, oh, he said, such and such is a belief that atheists put forward, which is utterly at odds with all known science and physics, right? And first of all, nobody knows what all known science and physics is because everybody specializes, right?
So that's a grandiose nonsense claim that anyone would be pretty much embarrassed if they had any sense to make.
But, you know, whatever, right? So I said, oh, okay, so that's a contradiction of all the known laws of science and physics.
But a being with consciousness, but no physical presence, who lives forever, who knows everything, who can do anything, and yet is outside time and dimension and space and has no characteristics of existence, yet completely exists, who is uncaused first mover in the universe that requires that everything has a cause, that doesn't violate any philosophy of physics, right?
And he got really upset, right?
And he's like, oh, that is a ridiculous definition of a monotheistic deity, right?
And to me, that's all kinds of silly, right?
I mean, on so many levels. First of all, then I said, okay, well, what's your definition of a monotheistic deity?
And he said, all-knowing, omniscient, everything, a person without a body, everything that I had said, he basically said was his definition after saying that my definition was ridiculous and insulting.
And that's when you just lose patience, right?
Because you're just in a nonsense realm, right?
You're in a nonsense realm where you might as well be yelling vowel sounds at each other and thinking you're having some kind of debate.
Sorry, low plane. Sorry about that.
And that's when I just sort of lost patience with the guy because it's just...
Oh, forget it.
I just can't crawl into a dictionary and manipulate a text and think that I'm achieving anything in the real world.
It's just too embarrassing, right?
Too silly. And I hope nobody thinks that this guy's wrong because I'm embarrassed.
I've sort of given my arguments.
But the result is that if you've got any kind of rational sense to you, it's just a silly thing to look at.
Oh yeah, so one other thing that this fellow was talking about.
So I asked him to stop posting, but of course he kept posting.
So then I just sort of hid his posts from the general view, right?
Because I didn't particularly want to get involved in a wrangle.
But anyway, so then I guess he figured it out or whatever, right?
And accused me of deleting all his posts, which I didn't.
And then he starts posting all of this stuff, which is typical, right?
I've been banned, right?
So he sends me an email saying I've been locked out, which I didn't lock him out or ban his account.
I've been locked out and so on, right?
And what's going on?
Could I get a response? And then before I had a chance to respond to him, he posts all this stuff on my Proofs for God video about how...
I'm an ignorant fool who knows nothing about philosophy and theology.
And it's true. I know nothing about theology because there's nothing to know about theology.
The same way I don't know anything about the anatomy of a beholder, right?
You know, how many brain cells Frodo had.
So... And of course then censorship, right?
Oh, it's censorship.
Again, because theologians live in a world of words...
They can whip themselves up into all kinds of high moral dungeon using terms like censorship and so on with no recognition of reality whatsoever.
No recognition of reality whatsoever.
If you come to my dinner party and you insult my wife, and I say, I don't want you to come back to my dinner party in the future, you can cry censorship.
But that's just a ridiculous and silly use of the term.
It's not relevant at all to reality.
Censorship is the initiation of force against someone.
Who is expressing opinion on his own property, right?
You don't have the right to express your opinion on my property any more than you have a right to take a leak in my living room.
Except for Isabella. So it's the initiation of force when someone is expressing an opinion on his own property, using his own property.
That's censorship. Of course, there's no initiation of force.
I got a fair number of complaints about this guy.
I found him to be annoying, self-righteous, manipulative, evasive, redefining stuff, insulting.
And it's like, no thanks, right?
I don't want people like that.
On my server, right?
It's not what I paid for.
I'm certainly not going to support people.
I spend a lot of time and energy and money developing my YouTube channel.
And I don't want...
To support negative, silly comments about me on the board or on my YouTube channel.
Of course not. Any more than if you're advertising Coke, you want Coke sucks and Pepsi is great on your billboard, right?
Of course not, right?
Of course not. If you want to take out an ad saying, you know, Coke sucks and Pepsi is great, then go do it, right?
But if I'm printing up the ad and putting it out there, I'm not going to put Steph sucks on my ad, right?
So I'm just not going to do it, right?
I mean, because I don't think that I suck.
And certainly if I've made mistakes, I will generally apologize and retract, at least to my memory and knowledge.
So I'm just not going to have people...
I mean, of course not, right?
I mean, how low a self-esteem would you have to have in order to feel that it was just and fair to pay time and money to publicize people's insults of you?
I mean, that would be pretty sad, right?
I mean, if I took out advertisements on the internet saying Free Domain Radio is a cult and Steph is a You know, a crazy ass clown, wouldn't you think that that would be rather bizarre of me to do?
Right? That would be like some alternate personality that was attacking me or something.
There are billboards out where?
I mean, you would consider that to be a kind of crazy thing for me to do.
And in the same way, if people start becoming insulting towards me, or my listeners, or philosophy, then no, I'm not going to pay to publicize their negative comments.
Of course not. Hey, you want to, you know, become some creepy little, stalky, nasty little whatever, go pay for your own service and do whatever you want, right?
I mean, that's fine with me.
But... But the idea that...
I mean, assuming that you're not going to libel, right?
But, yeah, this is all...
It's all complete nonsense, but these trolls are more sophisticated, right?
And it's really...
I mean, I know this sounds kind of odd, and it's important to verify these things logically, but...
And philosophically, sorry, the way that you figure out this sort of stuff that there's a problem is when you start to feel really bewildered, right?
Like if someone is coming to teach you a complex subject, you hopefully should not feel bewildered from the very beginning, right?
Or if you feel like, what?
Or like you're talking past each other or like two television sets trying to debate.
If you get that sort of feeling, like, what?
And it's kind of heaviness and it's kind of despair and it's a kind of...
Not fun, not pleasant.
And generally the way that we try to respond to those kinds of feelings is with anger, right?
We get angry and then we engage and feed the troll and so on, right?
But if you have that feeling...
When you're debating with someone, where it's just you feel like every step you take gets you sort of further and further into the murk, then you just stop, right?
Stop. I mean, you can't debate with someone if you don't respect him.
You can't debate with someone if you don't share the same methodology, which is why you can't debate with theologians.
Because theologians have no methodology.
They just have whim and manipulation.
That's all religion is.
Whim, will and manipulation.
If you find that you're not enjoying a debate, if you find that it's not exciting, if you find that it's not positive, if you find that you're not learning something new that is of value to you, if you don't respect the person you're debating with, Stop doing it.
I mean, I did offer to debate this fellow just because I knew where it was going to go, and it had been a while since I'd had a real go at a theologian, and I was...
Happy to give it a shot.
But, of course, he didn't show up for the debate, right?
Because it's tougher to manipulate and be evasive when someone can call you on that live, right?
Which is why these kinds of gutless wanderers always prefer boards, right?
Where they can change definitions and manipulate and so on.
And you can't stop the mid-sentence and say, no, no, no, wait, what was your definition?
Write it down, read it back to them, have them go on, point out their contradictions.
That's why these people don't want to debate live.
It's why people who have big problems with UPB never call into live shows, right?
Because they don't want to get into a realm where evidence can be passed back and forth in a very neat and encapsulated fashion.
They want to stay on a board, which is a language-based universe where manipulations and redefinitions can always be put in.
And it's very hard to call anyone on anything because the time lag is too great.
And so anyway, I hope that that helps you to figure out at least my approach to it.
And I hope, of course, that you will refrain from engaging with these people.
And if you see me doing it, please remind me to.
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