MacCruiskeen wrote:thegovernmentflu wrote:Hugh pulled the same exact vanishing act on the "Psyops and Meme Management" board, when FourthBase posted the topic "Why don't keywords enhance memorability?
Again, I would really really like to see a response to that and the other valid points raised in this thread. By avoiding the question altogether, isn't Hugh sort of tacitly acknowledging the gaping holes in his own theory?
Also, it's easy to get caught up in picking on people online without necessarily realizing that you're doing it, especially if the consensus among your particular online community is that the person is worthy of ridicule. After a couple months of making sarcastic remarks in Hugh's threads, I realized I was being an asshole and I stopped.
tgf, the point you raise in your last paragraph is one you already answered in the rest of your post. It's the blithe intellectual dishonesty that riles people up. When gaping holes in Hugh's arguments are pointed out to him (whether rudely or politely), he never admits to them, but instead claims that such apparent weaknesses are in fact strengths, or else (when this simply won't work) he does his nifty "vanishing act ".
You're not "being an asshole" when you point out that pernicious nonsense is pernicious nonsense, because pernicious nonsense wastes people's time and energy, not least the time and energy of the person posting it. So it should be opposed. And there's as much reason to oppose such nonsense when Hugh produces it as there is when the NYT or the Guardian or the CIA is the culprit.
Even
more reason, maybe; because he's taking an important point (that the media are manipulated and manipulative) and making it look ridiculous by arguing it so badly. In persisting even when he must know he's wrong, he is cheerfully inconsiderate of other's people's time and patience. And finally (not least): he's damaging himself.
Yeah, I definitely understand where you're coming from.
It could be that I'm being too considerate, but when everyone piles on Hugh at once and he inevitably ducks out shortly after being challenged, I get the mental image of some dejected guy weeping at his computer.
I think it's easy for a discussion to devolve into an illogical emotional argument when one of the participants feels as if he has something personally invested in it. The quickest route to transform a rational discussion into an emotional one is by introducing personal attacks and ridicule.
When someone disagrees with Hugh's theories, the best approach would be to engage Hugh in legitimate debate. This means no ad hominem attacks, but it also means that Hugh will be forced to respond to certain points rather than ignore them.
He's already unconsciously aware of the flaws in his theory; if he wasn't, he would have been able to respond to that question on the Psyop board. When people viciously attack Hugh, they're providing him with further psychological incentive to cling to his pet theories against all logic, and they're also giving him an excuse to duck out of the discussion at the most convenient moment.
Devoid of causality.
