I gotta say, since I already spent way too much time re-reading this conversation. As much as I don't agree with @[email protected]'s extrapolation of previous facts into how they apply for this conversation today. They make a clear arguement, based in the reality we all live in and back it up with how they got there.
Even looking over their post history, I find plenty of strong arguments they bring to conversations that I tend to agree with from my understanding of the world today. Once again, I don't agree with what they are saying here, but I don't believe this behavior is "trolling". If we want open discourse people need to be able to have strong opinions regardless of how much everyone else agrees.
That's my take, too, except for the part about looking at @surph_ninja's (or anyone's) post history. Life is too short and this thread too unimportant for such investigations.
Fair, life is too short for a lot that I do online, but I'm cursed with a day job that requires me in front of the computer all day and find looking over the comment/post history of a user can be helpful when trying to determine if I would consider them a troll worth blocking and never listening to again.
Yeah. It's sort of sad that the nature of the network is such that it's sometimes necessary to invest some effort in figuring out what the history is, of the person you're talking to, whether they're coming from a place of conversation or a place of broadcasting a bad-faith argument to distort the conversation, but them's the breaks. I think it's necessary sometimes to be a pain in the ass about these types of minor annoyances, or else they'll take over and the whole place will be populated with only annoyance instead of real conversation between humans.
What do you think your post history says about you? What impression do you think people get from continually pushing US propaganda, telling other people not to engage with people or read sources that counter your narrative, and attacking everyone who disagrees with ad hominems?
Better yet, what do you think your constant comments on strategies for running bots is making people think? You really believe people are stupid enough to think, ‘gee, surely if he was an astroturfer he wouldn’t be telling people exactly how to astroturf.’ Hanging a lantern on it isn’t the brilliant strategy you seem to believe it to be.
Oops, you're right, I need to make some smokescreen posts. I posted a B movie to a media community just now. Maybe too much effort, though. It took a few minutes, I could have spent that on like 5 random memes I found on the internet thrown around in a meme community.