What's the deal with KPO?

POSTED BY: HKCavalier
UPDATED: Friday, June 7, 2013 19:26
VIEWED: 22000
PAGE 9 of 12

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There is no evidence that responding with similar behaviour changes anyones behaviour.

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Actually, there is. There is a game theory tournament in Toronto every ten years or so. A number of years ago, they had computer tournament of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Computer and game theorists from all over N America entered their programs into the fray, for several hundred rounds against the other competitors, then on to the playoffs. The program that won was not at all complicated, it was just a few lines of code and it was called "tit for tat". The way it worked was that it would initiate with a cooperative move, and after that it would simply mirror the move of the other player. Not only did "tit for tat" have the highest total points, it trained the games it played against to also be cooperative, and THEY had higher points when they played "tit for tat".

There is a caveat to that, though: that assumes that each player views the same things as reward and the same things as punishment.

We took a class on parenting difficult children, most of whom had either ADHD or ODD. Now, ADHD children LOVE attention more than anything! But what usually happens is that when children are behaving well, the parents say "that's nice dear" and they scurry off to do all of the things they couldn't do when their child was misbehaving. But when the child is MISbehaving, the parents scold, slap... but they're PAYING ATTENTION. The parents THINK they're punishing their child, but it is in fact VERY REWARDING! The exact behavior they're trying to eliminate, they're actually encouraging. Sooner or later, it leads to real abuse. What the child finds very punishing is isolation.

See where I'm going with this?

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As I've pointed out time and time again, our best weapon against zealotry and fundamentalism is mockery and ridicule. Wait - our TWO best weapons are mockery, ridicule, and - hold on - our THREE best weapons are...

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As much as I appreciate your rapier logic... I laugh out loud and read it to hubby.... it's never worked on rappy. The guy is immune to logic or facts, apparently.

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Furthermore, I will counter his attempts to ruin my rational discussion by mocking him. Because, first of all, this tone of conversation started with him, and second because it doesn't hurt him. He comes back to it, again and again with apparent glee.

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Well, unless you like to mock him for YOUR enjoyment, this is another approach that doesn't seem to be working.

I read a paper - which I can't find anymore- that explains why people become even more intractable in their irrational beliefs when presented with contrary information. They hold these beliefs so firmly that whenever they can convince themselves (once again) they they're correct, they get a shot of dopamine (the addiction chemical). It gets to the point where they seek out conflict just to get that dopamine fix. I know it's a strange reward system, but having watched rappy over the years, I'd have to say it's true.

The other key to understanding rappy is that he ONLY responds to fear. Fear is the driving force behind everything he does... he's afraid of certain people, but his response is to dive into a middle of the biggest, baddest group that he can find. Now, this group that rappy wants protecting him can't be a group of namby-pamby libruls, they have to make HIM feel afraid, because only scary, powerful people can protect him from other scary people. Being isolated from a group of softy-liberals doesn't worry him too much, because ... hell, they're just softy-liberals, HOW can they possibly protect him??? KIKI remembers part of the isolation experiment, but not the whole thing... before I isolated him, I subtly threatened him to establish my authority. Yanno what?? It worked. Rappy responds to fear, and for a (little) while he wanted to be part of MY group, and being excluded made him nervous.

I woul

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I never said self defence isn't valid, I said that a) I don't understand a lot of Americans attitude to self defense b) I don't think what is going on here is self defense.

Re a) I think if you do have to use self defense, you need to do so with inflicting the least possible harm necessary. therefore, shooting someone in the head who is trying to steal from you is a disproportionate response.

Re b) pretty self explanatory.

I am interested in your reference to game theory. I'd like to see more information on that. It goes against behavioural theory, which is more along the lines of what you described re ADHD kids. I've seen people, including parents, including myself, escalate conflict by doing the same behaviours as the other ie shouting, swearing.

In any event, I see the tit for tat too often in politics. It is the reasonable person's dilemna in my view. Do you keep being reasonable and ignored by the media, look weak, continiously be abused, or do you jump into the fray with the same hideous tactics as the opposition. Yeah, well then you have no reasonable candidates, everyone's a bastard and voters lose faith. Kind of what is happening.

Personally, I prefer the starve something of oxygen theory, and if you do have to be mean, be mean and clever and funny. Not just nasty. Why I love Colbert and the other one whose name escapes me.

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MAL4- You have yet to explain to me WHY you were so horrified when I equated genocide-promoting rappy with a rapist. If there wasn't real genocide going on, if rappy wasn't there clapping, cheering, and singing "another one bites the dust" it would all just be theoretical. But it's not. Please, tell me where his behavior rates on YOUR scale of ethics.

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OMG. You really are going full out Rappy on this one, aren't you? This is exactly the kind of stuff I expect from him. I explained in spades. The fact that you don't understand or accept my explanation does not mean I didn't explain.

Here, I will try to sum it up for you one more time. Genocide is not rape. Kay? Got it now?

I'm done talking to you about this. If you want to throw around terms that don't apply, have at it. But don't be confused as to why I think less of you. Especially when you're using such staight-up Rappy tactics.

And yes, my preferred response to Rappy is to ignore him. When I mock him its only one or two posts then I ignore his hysterics. His "arguments", or really, tactics aren't worth more that.

So when I ignore you now, guess what that's saying?

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Wow, Mal4, so much said so well--not that I agree with it all, but nonetheless...

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As for being a bully, honey, I am real curious as to why you don't apply that term to Rappy. He's been MUCH more abusive on these boards than me. Why are you so happy to see him as some kind of victim here?[/quote

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In spades. So many times I've tried to back off and be reasonable with Rap, but what I get back is so consistently insulting, eventually I start responding in kind.

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Really, there's some seriously lack of reality about him. I admit, it's a little fascinating. He's like a puzzle. Extra annoying because I can't figure it out.

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Part of the reason I keep thinking he just wants attention, is just SO contrarian and abusive only in order to get reples. Hadn't thought about it, but you're right; in all the time I've been here, I don't know SQUAT about Rap as a human being, tho' I know quite a bit about others. I must have picked up somewhere that he's said he's in Washington, and 46. I've noticed he likes dogs (and possibly other animals), seen references to Star Trek and Dr. Who, has some interest in astronomy, and we've been able to converse on a few non-political subjects. That's all (of course I only "know" him in RWED). It IS interesting, since others have shared enough over time for me to have at least a few other ideas about them. I see I've been here since July of 2009...so in almost four years, after a HUGE volume of posts, I know virtually nothing about Rap as a human being. Interesting.

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OTOH, having been on the board from the very beginning, I've seen probably thousands of person-hours if not tens of thousands of person-hours wasted every year on these posters. Of reasoned, factual, documented and validated argument about any number of topics: poverty and death. Muslims. wiretapping. the death penalty. birth control. abortion. Bush's magical shrinking economy and magical ballooning deficit. Iraq's magical disappearing WMDs. gun control. human rights. global warming. health care. drugs. homosexuality. ... you name it, we've been there, done that as a general group of people on a website, many many times over.

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Okay, I've only been here four years, but I've seen all that. I wasn't here when people ignored Rap so I never got to see any "moderating" of his behavior, and I HAVE never seen any, CERTAINLY not with respect to me.

On the other hand, Kiki:

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So, did Niki post snark? No. Did she call him or anyone names? no.

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That's not true. A LOT of what I put up is anti-right-wing, which counts every bit as much as Jong's anti-left-wing when it comes to a kind of "neener, neener" snark. Watching Jong do it these days, I can certainly see how it would FEEL to righties like I "flood the board". And certainly I call people names, I don't know how you could miss that...well, insofar as I refer to them in "disparaging terms", admittedly not individual nasty monikers. I don't think I'm nearly as overtly nasty as Rap or some others, but I've snarked with the worst of them. And good gawd, you can't possibly be serious with "sans partisanship"! ;o)

Wow, Sig, that "treatise" was splendiferous, many thanx! The misbehaving kids is why I got the belief I did about Rap--I'm not so sure about the reasoning about Rap's fear, tho'. Certainly it's easy to see that fear is behind virtually everything about the posts he writes (if they're for real), but I find it hard to believe that fear would change his attitude here; isolation, maybe, and UNQUESTIONABLY "If not, it would certainly reduce the percentage of posts devoted to rappy!" I'm so sick to death of those unending back-and-forths and scrolling past them to TRY and find something worth reading/replying to...it

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