Good things are good! No good things are bad ....

[Greene Paine]

It seems like every time a well thought out argument for -anything- is posted on an internet forum, the opposite side of the argument is trolled and defended with a complete lack of factual exchange (i.e. total ego bashing for lack of any real argument.)

So I was curious, is it possible to have ANY online argument without -any- trolls emerging? What if the argument is already proven 100% correct and there is no other side? Would it be possible to craft an argument so perfectly that no troll could find ammunition, or their counter-argument would be so silly as to invoke endless laughter?

Let's find out! Good things are good, no good things are bad.

This statement semantically is 100% correct and you can not disagree with it any more than you can argue that 1+1 is anything but 2.

So ... *ahem* Allow me to invoke the sacred 'call of the trolls' to find the angry opposite side of this argument. "COME ANGRY INTERNET TROLLS! AWAKE FROM YOUR SLUMBER TO FEAST ON THE FLESH OF OTHERWISE CIVILIZED DISCUSSION!" *stomps magic staff into ground thus completing the summoning*

[Qwalyphi Korpov]

The resident who provided the previous content, if any, has replaced it with this generic statement.

[Carole Franizzi]

I think that probably forums and the like, although they serve an "official" purpose which is a fusion of socialising, information sharing, community building, etc., also hold an enormous appeal for the anti-social and those with personality issues of varying degrees of gravity.

Why do you get more instantly-inflammible interactions between strangers here than in equivalent and semi-equivalent circumstances in real-life? Hidden identities allow for unfettered self-expression and instead of smiling politely or attempting diplomatically to convince and persuade another of your point of view, which is what you'd do in RL, here you can just tear into anybody who contradicts you, disagrees with you, has a name which reminds you of your first hated school-teacher, with no concern about possible consequences. I said varying degrees of personality issues...we all suffer from bad days or have a stinker of a week or have to put up with longer periods of life which test how far we can be pushed without snapping, but it's undeniable that some of us will have quite serious disturbances which, in many cases, will be receiving some sort of medical attention.

The word "troll" is kinda cutesy and in its "cutseyness" it can sound misleadingly non-serious - a bit  like the words "nuisance" and "pest" which are vague and harmless-sounding and pretty much non-descriptive. My feeling is that the sort of person you're talking about - someone who spends their time disrupting Internet interactions and furiously typing abuse - is, in almost all cases, a sufferer of some sort of condition (which may or may not yet have been diagnosed). Therefore, in answer to your question - no, I don't believe that there's any way of ensuring one of them will not turn up and wreck havoc in a discussion, as the Internet and forums in particular are always going to appeal to them immensely.

[Carole Franizzi]

Ooops. Forgot to reply to the title question.

I don't believe in the existence of absolute goodness or absolute badness. Which means I not only disagree with the statement but also with the premise of the argument. Does that make me a troll? Yay!

 

[Jacki Silverfall]

You will have no argument with your subject, but the rest of your post will probably get trolled. :smileyindifferent:

[Qie Niangao]

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Too much of anything is too much.

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Enough is enough!

[Mayalily]

I'd don't see any actual arguments here, more a debate along the lines of opinion.  And some people just like to sometimes over-exaggerate their posts with a lot of bleeps and foul language just to try to see what they are allowed under the terms of free speech; at least that's what I think they are doing....?   Some posters on forums are a little over the top with foul language.  However, to me a troll is someone who posts false info.  For instance I was reading a review on a Youtube particular song and this one poster kept posting "this song is plagiarism as so and so did this song already and the chords and the lyrics were stolen, yada, yada".  Upon comparing the two songs, they were nothing alike at all period.  I was wondering what was up with the Youtube poster?   'Cuz that person was definitely in the Twilight Zone, and all the other posters said so too.  The two songs were absolutely nothing alike, not the chords, not the lyrics, nothing. 

And yes things that are considered good can be bad if used to excess, like sugar instead of fruit for example, or SL taking preference over RL responsibilities, etc....  

[Void Singer]

if I were the trolling sort I'd attack your grammar and your premise, as well as your definitions...

because there's always room for semantics =P

[Marigold Devin]

Too tired to troll...

 

[Suella Ember]

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Greene Paine wrote:

Let's find out!

Good things are good, no good things are bad.

This statement semantically is 100% correct and you can not disagree with it any more than you can argue that 1+1 is anything but 2.

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Chocolate is good. It taste's yummy. I could eat it all day, every day. However, that would be bad and would probably kill me.

Hey! Turns out this trolling lark can be quite fun!

:matte-motes-shocked:

[Ceka Cianci]

it would probably be pretty robotic if everyone conformed to what everyone else thought was good..

wow i just lost 1,000 L$ =bad

Hey i just found 1,000 L$= good

just depends on where you are standing at the time i guess..

[Penny Patton]

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Greene Paine wrote:

So I was curious, is it possible to have ANY online argument without -any- trolls emerging? What if the argument is already proven 100% correct and there is no other side? Would it be possible to craft an argument so perfectly that no troll could find ammunition, or their counter-argument would be so silly as to invoke endless laughter?

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 I wrote an article about scale in SL. The article had nothing to do with judging the size of current SL avatars or even trying to convince them to shrink down, rather the article was focused on the effects of scale in SL. Pointing out basic, gradeschool geometry such as the fact that four 10x10m squares will fit inside a single 20x20m square.

 All of the dissenting comments were from people who somehow twisted that around to me wanting to impose size limits on avatars, have LL force everyone to shrink their avatars down, and one particularly off balanced person even suggested it was some sort of age player conspiracy.

 

 In fact, at one point before I wrote my article I was trying to explain this to a person using that specific example, that four 10x10m squares will fit inside a single 20x20m square and they claimed that was not true.

 

 So, yes, trolls will come out even if their "counter-arguments" so completely miss the mark as to be laughably silly.

[Echo Charisma]

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Greene Paine wrote:

What if the argument is already proven 100% correct and there is no other side? Would it be possible to craft an argument so perfectly that no troll could find ammunition, or their counter-argument would be so silly as to invoke endless laughter?

Let's find out!

Good things are good, no good things are bad.

This statement semantically is 100% correct and you can not disagree with it any more than you can argue that 1+1 is anything but 2.

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Other than the fact that the terms "good" and "bad" are extremely vague terms that are subject to a wide variety of interpretation.  Dictionary.com has 41 definitions for the "good", and 36 for bad , both as adjectives.  The definitions of "bad" range from "not good in any manner or degree" to "outstandingly excellent; first-rate."   With that range of definition, it's very possible to describe someone can be devoted or skilled (good) to a theory or cause which is incorrect or morally repugnant (bad).  An example sentence using the two together would be: "Finding a poster with a good track record of spouting bad logic is very common on message boards these days."

Kudos for comparing the relationship between two highly subjective words with the addition of natural numbers, but I'm pretty sure proofs concerning the adjectives "good" and "bad" are not covered in the Peano postulates.  

A few other posters have made the argument for the law of diminishing returns: that often while more is better, too much of a good thing is usually a bad thing.

[Hugsy Penguin]

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Greene Paine wrote:

... you can not disagree with it any more than you can argue that 1+1 is anything but 2.

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1. Original statement:

 

    1 + 1 = 2

 

2. Let x = 2

 

    1 + 1 = x

 

3. Replace 1 + 1 with supposed value from original statement:

 

    2 = x

 

4. Multiply each side by x:

 

    2 * x = x * x

 

5. Substract 2^2 from both sides:

 

    2x - 2^2 = x^2 - 2^2

 

6. Factor both sides:

 

    2(x - 2) = (x - 2)(x + 2)

 

7. Divide by (x - 2) on each side:

 

    2 = x - 2

   

8. Add 2 to both sides:

 

    2 + 2 = x - 2 + 2

 

9. Combine like terms:

 

    4 = x

   

10. Replace x from statement 2:

 

    1 + 1 = 4

 

:smileytongue:

[Void Singer]

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Hugsy Penguin wrote:

6. Factor both sides

 

    2(x - 2) = (x - 2)(x + 2)

 

7. Divide by (x - 2) on each side:

 

  

  2 = x - 2  

 

2 = x + 2

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 and we won't eve get into the fact that you never applied all those manipulations of X to the left side of the original equation when you reinserted X into only one side of the equation =P

[Hugsy Penguin]

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Void Singer wrote:

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Hugsy Penguin wrote:

6. Factor both sides

 

    2(x - 2) = (x - 2)(x + 2)

 

7. Divide by (x - 2) on each side:

 

  

  2 = x - 2  

 

2 = x + 2

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 and we won't eve get into the fact that you never applied all those manipulations of X to the left side of the original equation when you reinserted X into only one side of the equation =P

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LOL, ok you got me.  In my defense, troll posts don't have to be proof-read or be very accurate.  :matte-motes-evil-invert:

[Void Singer]

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Hugsy Penguin wrote:

LOL, ok you got me.  In my defense, troll posts don't have to be proof-read or be very accurate.  :matte-motes-evil-invert:

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 fair enough =P