Psychology: January 2004 Archive Page

Trolling is like playing chess - there is a point to the game, and that point is to win. Unlike chess, though, there are various ways of winning for the internet troll. These might include:

• gaining credence for false and invidious ideas
• driving bona fide list members, and/or particular groups, out of the mailing list
• dominating the list with messages/posts that they have generated
• gaining recognition or an award for their trolling from fellow trollers
• getting reprimanded by individuals, list managers or internet authorities
• gaining the confidence, trust and support of bona fide list members
• distracting list members from their own bona fide discussions or objectives.

• gaining attention that they cannot get using their real personalities
  

Sometimes trolls operate alone, and sometimes they operate in groups,
but for all of them trolling is a game.
--Beware the Troll (Team Technology)

One of my first experiences with Usenet involved being baited by a troll. I had just written a paper on some subject that was being discussed on a group, and I posted a general inquiry asking whether it would be appropriate to post a paper of X length on the site. I was probably too timid about mentioning the length, because a troll replied with, "sure," and then promptly attacked me for posting "lengthy bullshit." I was very new to newsgroup culture, and it was years before I realized I had been trolled.

We copulate, we procreate, the species thrives. Love and every other emotion that we connect to it are the froth of nature'swildness. But if it is froth, it is wonderful froth. But I think that stepping back and admitting that romantic love is not an entity with a life of its own allows us to recognize that love, even romantic love, takes its likeness and continuity from the stories we tell about it. And as stories change, so does that experience. --John Spurlock --Love and Lovesickness 2 (The Blue Monkey Review)

Richard Dawkins's theory of the "meme" (a cultural unit that spreads, almost like a living virus, from brain to brain) is very useful in deconstructing cultural truths that are powerful because they work extremely well. Have you read the story of the creation of the diamond engagement ring custom? It does a great job deconstructing that particular "timeless" myth. (I recently blogged about diamond engagement rings.)

I'm busy working on the new t-shirt order page and getting the forums back up and running, but I don't think you care. All you want are more emotions. You all are animals! Animals I tell you! --Emo Eric --Eric Conveys an EmotionEmotionEric.com)

From "Happiness" to "Getting a great idea... while falling to your doom," Eric posts pictures of himself expressing emotions requested from his fans. He's no Marcel Marceau, but he's amusing. Via Work in Progress.

I'd get mic'd up and have a projection screen behind me the size of a drive-in theater, to use for overheads and analyzing film clips. It was like being a rock star or something -- the performative aspect of teaching took on a grandiose dimension. I'd make a silly joke and the room roared. I'd ask questions and have a field of faces to choose on at random. I could see thirty heads nodding in agreement when I made a point. It was a thrill. A daunting experience, but a thrill nonetheless. --Mike Arnzen --Working the Huge Room (Pedablogue)

My colleague discusses the dynamics of teaching a large class. We don't have huge classes at Seton HIll, but when I have on occasion addressed large audiences, the energy I could sense from the room really is palpable. It's important to focus on that energy, and to have a backup plan so that when it starts to fade, you can quickly shift gears and gain their interest again.

Teens Finding Stupid Ways to DieJerz's Literacy Weblog)

I've come across several recent examples of "It's fun until someone gets killed." It's bad enough when a young person dies, but when the family has to grieve over such stupid reasons... ouch, that hurts. My heart goes out to these families.

I used to date a girl who regularly won trophies for running marathons and playing in tennis tournaments. I told her the only trophy I had ever won was 4th place in a shuffleboard tournament. At the age of nine. So she said, "so of all the nine year olds who turned out that day to play shuffleboard, you were the fourth best." I said, "Yes." She said, "is that the same trophy I saw on your mantle today?" I said, "Yes". She said, "Twenty seven years later and you still display the trophy?" I said, "Yes." -Jon --Letters from Pathetic Geeks (Pathetic Geek Stories)

A great letter from the new home of Maria Schneider's Pathetic Geek Stories, a comic strip formerly featured on The Onion (behind several layers of annoying advertisements, in a popup window that hides the URL so you can't bookmark it directly).

I learned from this interview with Maria Schneider that she was the author of the T. Herman Zwiebel editorials for as long as I had been following them. They were strangely compelling, though the series stopped several years ago.

He never learned to use the MLA citation method, but today he's a successful engineer who supports the local arts council. | What counts as intelligence depends almost entirely on context. I find that my students are as smart, diligent, and idealistic as they have always been -- as I was. But what they know, as a generation, is inevitably different from what my profession defines as knowledge. --Thomas H. Benton --When Our Students Don't Respect Us (Chronicle)

Benton offers a good analysis of the professorial ritual of lamenting the inadequacies of our students. I confess I've done my share of this, just as when I was a student I lamented the self-centeredness and unavailability of my professors. But I've also done my share of defending the strengths of my students; I have yet to encounter a student who absolutely *cannot* switch into a more formal mode when required. (The student who inappropriately uses smileys or IM acronyms has usually mistaken the assignment for something much less formal.)

When I used to teach technical writing to engineering students, I quickly realized that by teaching basic writing skills (or, in the case of the many international students, basic English skills), I had the opportunity to contribute something to people who would one day design the highways and bridges and airplanes that I and my family would use. It was precisely because of their need that I had a job; and in my present position, too, my special skills mean that I can make a difference.

The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion. --Michael Crichton --Aliens Cause Global Warming (Crichton Official Website)

SETI is the "Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence" project. A screen-saver popular among uber-geeks actually gives your computer calculations to do in order to help out the whole SETI program. The "Drake equation" is a way of figuring out, out of all the stars where planets might exist, where those planets might support intelligent life, where those life forms might attempt to communicate with outsiders, and where those signals might actually have been broadcast at precisely the time necessary for us to be able to receive them now. I have a vivid memory of Carl Sagan introducing this equation in the classic PBS series "Cosmos." (See a few of my thoughts on religion and Sagan's novel "Contact".)

Since we have no meaningful way to supply numbers for most or all of these variables, Crichton calls this guesswork "prejudice."

From time to time I blog about how the news media accepts unquestioningly the "fact" that global warming is caused by human activity, and I confess to feeling a bit smug each time I see a "mistaken" story.

But I've got to be honest with myself. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, and rejoice in every law that makes it easier for me to breathe fresh air. Crichton gives an interesting account of how the EPA used "junk science" to "prove" that second-hand smoke causes cancer. And it's really easy for me to want to pat the anti-smoking activists on the back for their cleverness.

If the pro-smokers are so tobacco-addled that they can't see how yucky their habit is, and if it will take a little bit of scientific hocus-pocus to reduce the effect their nasty habit has on my nose, then bravo! If it's true that the science that supports smoking bans is no better than the science that supports global warming doomsday scenarios, then I'm employing a double standard, calling junk science duckspeak (George Orwell's term for an utterance which, when spoken by a supporter, is true and just and good, but when spoken by an opponent, is false and wrong and bad.) (And, of course, all this presumes that what Crichton and others call junk science really is junk. Since I'm not a scientist, I have to accept -- on faith -- the word of experts. I've been following the global warming/population bomb meme complex for long enough that I can see where journalists are oversimplifying or selectively reporting in order to reinforce a particular bias; I am not as informed about smoking issues (nor, to be honest, do I plan to investigate, since I'm personally in favor of the current anti-smoking trend).

An older link, popular now thanks to the skeptics at Arts & Letters Daily.