Was Johnathan Swift a troll?

[Rambhutan]

He was original, imaginative, and funny - so no he wasn't a troll.

[The Parkus Empire]

He was original, imaginative, and funny - so no he wasn't a troll.

Isn't that kind of a reverse "no true Scotsman" fallacy? An "every true Scotsman", if you will.

[Enatai]

No, unless he wrote "A Modest Proposal" purely to piss people off, which he did not. A troll is someone who does something specifically to get a pissed off reaction out of someone else, anything other than that is not really pure trolling.

[The Parkus Empire]

No, unless he wrote "A Modest Proposal" purely to piss people off, which he did not. A troll is someone who does something specifically to get a pissed off reaction out of someone else, anything other than that is not really pure trolling.

A troll is someone who deceptively misrepresents themselves to get a strong, emotional reaction, anger simply being the most common.

[Caninope]

He was original, imaginative, and funny - so no he wasn't a troll.

Isn't that kind of a reverse "no true Scotsman" fallacy? An "every true Scotsman", if you will.

Yeah, it's called being part of a definition.

[The Parkus Empire]

Isn't that kind of a reverse "no true Scotsman" fallacy? An "every true Scotsman", if you will.

Yeah, it's called being part of a definition.

Being unoriginal, unimaginative and unfunny are hardly part of the definition of trolling. Connotation, tops.

[Caninope]

Yeah, it's called being part of a definition.

Being unoriginal, unimaginative and unfunny are hardly part of the definition of trolling. Connotation, tops.

Eh, I was responding more to your fallacy post than to him.

[Rambhutan]

Yeah, it's called being part of a definition.

Being unoriginal, unimaginative and unfunny are hardly part of the definition of trolling. Connotation, tops.

Might not be part of the definition of a troll more my experience of what they are like - they seriously lack wit for the most part. To use a street art metaphor hardly any of them are Banksy nearly all of them are sad little anonymous losers artlessly scrawling their initials on a wall with a marker pen.

[The Parkus Empire]

Being unoriginal, unimaginative and unfunny are hardly part of the definition of trolling. Connotation, tops.

Eh, I was responding more to your fallacy post than to him.

The "no true Scotsman" fallacy by, well, definition, means excluding someone/something from a certain group, despite that something fitting the definition of said group, on the basis of criteria that is not part of the definition.

[The Parkus Empire]

Being unoriginal, unimaginative and unfunny are hardly part of the definition of trolling. Connotation, tops.

Might not be part of the definition of a troll more my experience of what they are like - they seriously lack wit for the most part. To use a street art metaphor hardly any of them are Banksy nearly all of them are sad little anonymous losers artlessly scrawling their initials on a wall with a marker pen.

This is true, yet even skilled artists of the pursuit are still graffitiers, no?

[Caninope]

Eh, I was responding more to your fallacy post than to him.

The "no true Scotsman" fallacy by, well, definition, means excluding someone/something from a certain group, despite that something fitting the definition of said group, on the basis of criteria that is not part of the definition.

I meant your "every true Scotsman" jab.

[The Parkus Empire]

The "no true Scotsman" fallacy by, well, definition, means excluding someone/something from a certain group, despite that something fitting the definition of said group, on the basis of criteria that is not part of the definition.

I meant your "every true Scotsman" jab.

I'm unsure what you meant. The phrase was just a coined corollary.

[Caninope]

I meant your "every true Scotsman" jab.

I'm unsure what you meant. The phrase was just a coined corollary.

Your corollary was just the definition of definition/category.

[Sovereign Spirits]

When Wikipedia says "an emotional response," they are using pretentious talk to say "anger." A troll's goal is to piss people off to feed his/her own ego. A satirist's goal is to provoke thought and inquiry about the state of modern culture. They really couldn't be more different.

Perhaps they couldn't be more different, yet for many, they couldn't be more difficult to distinguish.

[Zebbstar]

No, but Voltaire was.

[The Parkus Empire]

I'm unsure what you meant. The phrase was just a coined corollary.

Your corollary was just the definition of definition/category.

No, I implied that like "no true Scotsman", the qualifications for the category were arbitrary compiled, and not a part of the definition.

[Rambhutan]

Might not be part of the definition of a troll more my experience of what they are like - they seriously lack wit for the most part. To use a street art metaphor hardly any of them are Banksy nearly all of them are sad little anonymous losers artlessly scrawling their initials on a wall with a marker pen.

This is true, yet even skilled artists of the pursuit are still graffitiers, no?

I prefer to look at it as: they might use similar tools but there is still a division between those that are artists, and those that are merely vandals.

[The Parkus Empire]

This is true, yet even skilled artists of the pursuit are still graffitiers, no?

I prefer to look at it as: they might use similar tools but there is still a division between those that are artists, and those that are merely vandals.

Was not John Dillinger a crook?

[Serrland]

I don't know, I didn't find it that hard to find the tone in A Modest Proposal. I caught on right away that it was satire. Good satire, at that. Good enough to be remembered today hundreds of years later.

Not trolling.

[Caninope]

Your corollary was just the definition of definition/category.

No, I implied that like "no true Scotsman", the qualifications for the category were arbitrary compiled, and not a part of the definition.

They certainly seemed to be part of the connotations surrounding the words.

[Offenheim]

I don't know, I didn't find it that hard to find the tone in A Modest Proposal. I caught on right away that it was satire. Good satire, at that. Good enough to be remembered today hundreds of years later.

Not trolling.

But you have the advantage of a few hundred years between yourself and Swift's time. In fact, the way Proposal is presented to you is as satire. Few people present it as, "here's an essay, read it and discuss."

Furthermore, the culture when it was written was vastly different from today. Satire is firmly cemented in English culture. There's been so many similar works to Proposal that even if you were reading it without any knowledge that it was satire or Swift's place in history, you'd probably be familiar with either an homage or parody of the original work.

In Britain in the 18th Century though, dealing with the Irish was a common discussion, and one which Swift was reacting to. Proposal inherently mocks many of the solutions that were being proposed by British thinkers to Irish suffering, many of which were extremely callous. Proposal is remembered precisely because people failed to realize it was satire. If people had realized it was satire immediately, it wouldn't be a classic, it'd be some lesser-known work.

Congratulating yourself for getting it's satire a few hundred years after the fact doesn't mean anything. In its day and age, could it have been considered trolling?

For another modern example: Arm the Homeless.

[Seperates]

All satirists are trolls, but not all trolls are satirists.

Obv.

...

Mark Twain was not a "troll". He did not wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and all of his other books to troll Southerners.

That was part of it though.

[Jello Biafra]

Wouldn't this mean that anyone who takes a devil's advocate position is also trolling, if that position creates an emotional response?

[Caninope]

...

Mark Twain was not a "troll". He did not wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and all of his other books to troll Southerners.

That was part of it though.

No, it really wasn't.

[Conserative Morality]

Primary idea of trolling: reaction to an extreme idea or action for it's own sake.

Primary idea of satire: humor and/or proving a point.