I don't know why I do this to myself

[pecunium]

Fred Clark, The Slacktivist, posted about the recent article relating to the book by the interrogator who is haunted by what he did.

It's part of why I've not been posting much lately. I made the mistake of getting involved in the discussion

There's an asshat who favors torture, and is engaging in the various debating tricks of those who are advocating the immoral.

Me, it pushes my buttons. I hate that it does, but it does. It screws me up. It makes me grumpy, and irritable. I find myself wanting to drink more, and lash out at people, and not motivated to do much of anything.

It's just one of those things I have to deal with. None of us comes back as we were; harder in some ways, tougher in others, and surprisingly brittle at the oddest of moments.

C'est la guerre

Comments

[kathryn-ironic.livejournal.com]

That's one annoying thing about trolls, that they can provoke some of our best arguments and longest comments and yet they just keep on with the ever-changing goalposts. And just as annoying (for me) is that I don't recognize the troll until well into the argument.

I've run into people like that troll- not on this topic, but on topics that can have similar intensity (for example, one I saw recently was on lifesaving (or life-losing) healthcare decisions). If someone doesn't come in to call a troll a troll- and in 99% of forums and comment threads no one does this- then it's easy to lose a few hours and 20 points of blood pressure to a troll.

Now I use the 'blood pressure spiking' measure all by itself to judge a troll a troll.

They're good at doing what they do- whether it's by choice (to be a troll) or block-headed nature. Non-troll humans will always be a bit vulnerable to trolls, because it's an outcome of assuming the other readers are fellow students and teachers of life. Trolls see nothing but puppets and mirrors.

At the end of the day you're bothered by his block-headedness. He likely doesn't even know he is one. You win.