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Comment by 082349872349872 | Hacker News Reader

Cosplaytriots attempting to use LARPing as an excuse is reminiscent of:

> "Never believe that [they] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. ... They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert." — JPS

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Sartre on Anti-Semites

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7870768-never-believe-that-...

Once you realize many individuals see written language not as a means to share ideas and have mutual constructive discussion, but as just another weapon to achieve their ends, a lot of human interactions (especially online) make a lot more sense. It's very dangerous since many of us (myself included) instinctively assume good faith and approach conflicts as possible misunderstandings or opportunities for constructive common ground finding; but the other person (regardless of how they present themselves) isn't interested in any of that at all. They would just as quickly hit you over the head with a club.

That reminds me of Scalzi's interesting post "The Gamification of Rhetoric". He describes how many people are not interested in issues or discussion, but are just trying to win with a sequence of stock arguments. He refers to this as slapping down cards from a "Debate: The Gathering" stack.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2018/08/03/the-gamification-of-r...

Notably, John Scalzi.

This is one of the least understood things in our society, and one of the things we need to understand most urgently.

The same people who use rhetoric in bad faith would happily use violence if they thought it would be a more effective method to advance their motives.

If you've not watched the Alt-Right Playbook by Innuendo Studios on Youtube, you should stop what you're doing and watch all 20 or so episodes. One of the most enlightening series on this topic I've seen.

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