You really are a wonderful person. I am glad I met you. Ciao guapita!
I can understand the hurt feelings because there were very hard comments, but please, please, find a way to remain here and hopefully resolve the conflict, or at least ignore the bad moments, because we all have a lot to gain.
Remember, this is not perfect, but it is not a cult to Jerome, either, and he wouldn´t want it to be.
Stick around. We all get better! Especially the women (: Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
I'm calling you, meta. I want to know why you 4'd that comment.
You know, mmmm may have an irreplaceable role here if she can push so many buttons and get so many comments to defend so few. I wish I could have reacted sooner because it was painful and some of us can handle more than others.
I really feel she got more attention than fair treatment for a new member and only a couple spoke up when an out of control member was endlessly insulting and humiliating towards her. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
she had not addressed you
So the rule is you only comment here in answer to someone who addresses you? Speak when you're spoken to?
I'm a member here like her and you, and, you know what? They're MY comments. :-)
If I want to say that m-whatever she calls herself regularly uses the posture of the offended party, the victim, the better to launch unfair personal attacks and, simply, cause trouble, then I will say it.
mmmm may have an irreplaceable role here if she can push so many buttons
It's easy to push buttons the mmmm way. You think that's useful?
(insulting but well-founded) comment to Jerome
So you are in fact supporting mmmm's accusation that Jérôme is an ambitious person who hurts other people as a means of getting "where he is".
That at least was worth making clear.
m-whatever she calls herself )-:
I'm not mmmm's pro-bono attorney, but we are not perfect here and personally I can´t hold everyone to the same standards, in the same areas, at the same moment. It doesn´t feel right to me because we are all at very different stages, so I have my bias.
Pushing buttons is not useful, but it helps us if we question why we allow them to get pushed. I know, I know. I´m looking in the mirror.
I hereby "Rewind&Rephrase" point #2:
The reason for my 4 on the (insulting, but understandable-in-hurt-feelings, given past incidents) comment to Jerome, will follow to him below.
Uuuuffff, I need at least a vermouth, now. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
Below you speak of not recognizing past incidents. You surely saw this diary last July, where mmmm accused Jérôme of very specific arrogant behaviour on DKos, failed to produce any evidence but would not back down, and, when Jérôme pointed to a DKos diary on the French EU referendum where one mishimishi accused him of being an elitist arrogant snob, sidestepped to avoid confirming she was mishimishi. I don't wish it on you to take a look through mishimishi's comments on DKos (from a couple of years back), but you'd find she was a tall blonde engineer, Canadian and French.
What you surely can't have noticed, joining ET when you did, is that we are lucky enough to have had two tall blonde Canadian / French engineers here. The other one oddly enough began with an m- too. Here is her Goodbye assholes scene. Please note how she divides people into two camps, the demons and the angels.
So m-whatever could refer to mmmm, or mishimishi, mishi, or other m-combinations. I didn't say it, or explain this, to drag up dirt. Just to say, as Migeru pointed out above, that it looks like a story of an (unexplained) grudge coming over from DKos - not so much a "new" member. And that it gets frustrating, over time, to see the trollish behaviour and how people get manipulated - and how it divides the community. So I get judgemental. I should go off on a Zen retreat for a while.
Hope I haven't spoiled your after-lunch digestion! ;)
How about spending a week at La Gendronière together? Oye, vatos, dees English sink todos mi ships, chinga sus madres, so escuche: el fleet es ahora refloated, OK? — The War Nerd
I might have a certain amount of approach work to do before a week like that, too ;)
If you cannot solve this problem, there is trouble ahead. If you cannot find the means to resolve differences with members of the audience who come in half-sympathetic, then how the F are you going to persuade people who are unsympathetic? It has Jacobin overtones which I don't like.
I'll give you my personal historical view, and it is very personalized because I don't read everything here at ET. There were two crucial events. Both of them concern subjects which are apparently not open to discussion here in any way, shape or form. Both involved mmmm and also myself. My interpretation of such events, I stress, is subjective.
Number one was a quickly curtailed discussion about the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11. Mmmm, as an engineer with apparently some considerable experience as an obseerver of airplane crashes (I have no way of knowing if this was true - but the anecdotal evdence suggested it was), was tallking about the fact that the impact area of the Pentagon - before the collapse of the facade sometime later, and fully documented in photographs and in expert testimony. It was an anomaly and IMO still worthy of discussion from an expert point of view. But mmmm was ridiculed ( so was I, but I am used to it). That was Number One.
Number two was the curtailed astrology discussion in which Mmmm took an active part. I have made my views clear on this - it was not an area in which I had much interest, but I, and I think several others, were interested to hear about it from mythological viewpoint. But no. that was also dismissed as ridiculous and unworthy of discussion. Even though it was a conditioned response.
The diary by RG on the Tarot 2 days later, and the wealth of contributions was an act of defiance (IMHO). The <snarky> remarks were more of the same. ET as Samizdat. It doesn't matter whether the remarks from 'above' were intentionally hurtful or not. It is all about (as usual) perceptions.
In my analysis, these were the two events that turned mmmm defensive. After that it was all just 'heat of the debate' stuff. and everyone is 'wrong' But those two were the real hurts for Mmmm. IMHO
If you can't read or listen to alternative arguments with a sense of fairness, then I think you are committing the sin that you are fighting against. It doen't matter whether what you say is intended to be hurtful or not. It is only how it is perceived that is important.
And unless you understand those perceptions, (not only in a sympathetic audience, but also in an unsympathetic one), then all your fact-finding will change the world much less than you wish.
I haven't even started about community and what that means. This is enough for now, for the sky to fall.
It has never been enough to be right - you also have to be seen to be right. it is an area that is underdiscussed here, because it seems so easy- so obvious. It is not easy. Persuading people is perilous! What if you are not right? You can't be me, I'm taken
This is enough for now, for the sky to fall.
You wish, me duck?
I would much rather my voice was heard in some small way, and I were able to discuss my life-long professsional experience and that it had had some value here. It is in a different area from you guys. I do not agree on the tactics, but I agree on the destination. If you cannot agree to work together, so be it. You can't be me, I'm taken
But I was not knee-jerking, I was joking. As perceptions rule, according to you, I see my little wisecrack failed miserably. And now you've called it knee-jerking, so it will be perceived.
Tough cheese for me.
M is very good at holding grudges and has a selective memory. When m is putting on one of her theatrical exits she is quick to move people from the "angels" to the "demons" column based on what comments people give a '4' to. To underscore her inconsistency, look at what she said of Jerome in this discussion which took place after the infamous Astrology thread
Re: Open Thread - Friday (none / 1) I don't think Jerome will be very happy to be associated with you, Ted. Jerome is firstly a very intelligent man, who feels he has a responsibility to his family and to others to improve the world in the only way he knows how. He is a loving father and husband, a good friend, and a sociable person. He sometimes get irritable, but is not a nasty person. In all of these ways, he differs from you. It's really too bad that even living in Nice hasn't been able to soften your misanthropism. I feel sorry for anyone who comes into contact with you, including yourself. by mmmm (missyET at gmail.com) on Sat Sep 1st, 2007 at 02:15:56 PM BST
Jerome is firstly a very intelligent man, who feels he has a responsibility to his family and to others to improve the world in the only way he knows how.
He is a loving father and husband, a good friend, and a sociable person.
He sometimes get irritable, but is not a nasty person.
In all of these ways, he differs from you. It's really too bad that even living in Nice hasn't been able to soften your misanthropism. I feel sorry for anyone who comes into contact with you, including yourself. by mmmm (missyET at gmail.com) on Sat Sep 1st, 2007 at 02:15:56 PM BST
Sorry, dude, this is an open thread and I'm enjoying the opportunity to pick the brain of a fellow geek in her area of expertise.
The astrology thing came from a comment by me that everybody but mmmm (and you, probably for different reasons) chose to take at full face value and make a huge scandal about. It led to everybody jokingly talking about astrology for 3 days with no retorsion or any other consequence, but has been taken ever since by you and mmmm as a great example of oppression of the masses by the ET elites .
It's a bit silly, really. I know that you're just playing around, but you should be mindful of mmmm, who seemingly takes all of this seriously. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Mmm said 'I'm an engineer'. You believed DoDo WAS an engineer. Do you not understand how that comes out? MMm had been an aeronautics engineer, but DoDo was another type of enginer. And these equate? Do you have no respect for alternative positions? Or is it just 'intuition'? My 'intuition' says different.
I am NOT playing around. Your lack of success in translating your obvious intellect and compassion into action is FOR A REASON. When you understand that we can move forward.
Call me silly, but ET is not a Holy Site. It is just one of the efforts on the way to real change. It will be superceded - it is a stepping stone to real change. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked. You deserve it, but don't expect to be lionized. It is too mythological. You can't be me, I'm taken
It was mmmm who brought up expertise, her own. I tried to get her to make expert arguments, and whether you elieve me or not, out of genuine interest for expert arguments. But those didn't came, we wouldn't understand it came instead, so I argued that I could follow her expert arguments with the basic technical knowledge of a trained physicist. No one equated expertises, and no one tried to compete in expertise with her, though I do remember her making such a misinterpretation.
If you want to continue this, we'll have to dig up that thread and make quotes verbatim. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I do not want to argue several cogent alternative engineering views of what happened at the Pentagon, 9/11. We are not allowed; as I understand the situation.
I maybe made my case too vociferously, such that it appeared conspiratorial. My point was that, talking about 911, there appear to be a number of engineerng anomalies that have yet to be officially explained. These anomalies have been proposed by professonal pilots of long experience, as well as believable senior military representatives. There is no doubt in my mind that an alternative exists, and that a failure to understand that view renders arguments one sided.
While I accept that the notion of a 911 (neocon) conspiracy is probably bizarre, I nevertheless think that, as good detectives, we follow the evidence where it leads..
But if you have already made up your minds, then you are not a client that I'd like to work wiih You can't be me, I'm taken
We are not allowed; as I understand the situation.
And that 9/11 thread you refer to demonstrates why: the people that bring up the 9/11 conspiracy theories, and those that are willing to believe them will never be convinced by any argument, however well based on facts, evidence and physics. Thus it is an absolute waste of time to make the arguments. Like I said, DoDo, stormy and others provided massive amounts of evidence to debunk the various points raised by mmmm (with new ones coming up each time).
But you seem to think that no argument has been provided, and you use the thread as an example to whine about how the poor hoi polloi are oppressed, censored and not taken seriously on ET. Well, you're 100% wrong on this.
If that thread did not change your mind on 9/11, nothing will, and that's a real case of "if you have already made up your minds,..."
These anomalies have been proposed by professonal pilots of long experience, as well as believable senior military representatives.
Just FYI - this is again the argument by authority, not by facts.
There is no doubt in my mind that an alternative exists, and that a failure to understand that view renders arguments one sided.
"no doubt in my mind" - that supposedly open mind of yours? "an alternative exists" - all the version that have been proposed are, each time, a lot more absurd and bizarre than the version they purport to debunk.
you are not a client that I'd like to work wiih
Is that meant as an insult? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
And that 9/11 thread you refer to demonstrates why
You just exposed yourself to more allegations of suppressing multiple views...
To make the argument to Sven a bit differently and hopefully in a way perceived less confrontatively: Had it been not allowed, I and later stormy wouldn't have made detailed counter-arguments. But in fact it seems that for you, it is the real or claimed expertise of the claim-maker that counts, and you are less inclined to consider the arguments itself, as I have done. It is true that you as a non-technical person, you are justified to bow out of judging the technical validity of the arguments itself. However,
A lot of people here have experience, professional or other expertise. You bring yours up often in support of your ideas as a kind of higher claim to consideration.
But, if you're now posing as a consultant to ET... Remember that no one called you to ask for a quote.
I am walking thin ground here, but that's something I could even agree could on some way be validly argued. However, you chose a completely wrong example for that. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
John Crook was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1970, but resigned in 1980 over the academy's failure to expel the art historian and traitor, Anthony Blunt.
Emphasis mine.
mmmm wrote "I'm an engineer, you should listen to me claims". Dodo provided arguments, links, photographs - and took a lot of time to debunk mmmm's obviously absurd claims. She was taken seriously, a lot more thna she deserved, in fact. If you cannot tell the difference, there's very little I can do for you.
Your lack of success in translating your obvious intellect and compassion into action is FOR A REASON.
If this is lack of success, I'm very much looking forward to success, you know.
Call me silly, but ET is not a Holy Site.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Which you'll say is precisely my problem, allowing you to feel smug and superior. Go ahead. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I will note that I won't characterise the claims of m and other 9/11 anomalists' on ET (which also included in one way or another Sven, Migeru, UpstateNY, Fran, and many others) as "obviously absurd". At least not all of them. Maybe not properly checked against all the available evidence is the word. (E.g. I didn't pull out the counter-argument photos out of thin air or produced them with my endless IQ, just went searching and found them.) Though less so in manon's case, where I was hoping for specifics to her claims that didn't came. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Nope. She protested of being ridiculed, playing the victimisation card, while she was only called to make expert arguments if she brought her expertise up. The Pentagon derbis matter was discussed, with photo evidence against conspiracy claims, which she then dismissed out of hand. (If that's not clear, this debate involved me, so I am talking as the accused.)
In my analysis, these were the two events that turned mmmm defensive.
It is true that there were a few months mmmm appeared to seriously try to fit in, and even I thought that some of the first rows could have been better managed, but your analysis is too simple a reading.
You forget that m had a gripe with Jérôme from before ET was created, from dKos and the EU referendum debate. That and other grudges (for example with poemless from the manon times) she seems to hold on to, though her memorry of events is seriously warped (see the episode when she 'remembered' Jerome a Paris using argument from the authority of an elite school alumni turned financier, which turned out to have been stuff written by Welshman). Call it what you want, but this is not something that can be catered to.
It doen't matter whether what you say is intended to be hurtful or not. It is only how it is perceived that is important.
Let me turn that on you. In one of the rows mmmm instigated, you said: "Girls, girls, simmer down." *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Was this arcane? No - I sometimes wonder if ET is autistic, ie unable to empathise. But I admit - I was unaware of the Dkos background. And the Welshman has always given me the heebie-jeebies. Quaker though he is...
I usually ask of clients: do you want to maintan or increase market share? Do do you believe that market share is your right? The latter are the most diffiicult clients to deal with.
Preaching to the converted is easy. But if you really want change, you need to persuade the unconverted. And that means understanding where the unconverted come from. A little Devil's Advocate can work wonders ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
I was unaware of the Dkos background
It was pointed out in a thread I mentioned above, where m-- claimed to "recall", verbatim, extremely arrogant and quite uncharacteristic words from Jérôme on DKos. You might have missed it - though I had just explained it to metavision, who also seemed to have missed it. You did, however, take your cue from my comment, since you took it as understood that manon and mmmm were one person (which you may have privately concluded before - but which had never been openly stated).
So why did you ignore the DKos background in your rewrite of "how manon and mmmm were hurt"? It's simply self-serving to take two episodes - 9/11 and astrology - and conclude that once again the "leadership" has been feelingless and oppressive and hasn't got a clue. I am quite certain you have not read, thread by thread and comment by comment, m-'s progress through ET as front-pagers have. If you want a breakdown, it would be tedious, but it's possible. Including an explanation of how m- seizes on any opposition to make out she's the injured party (eg that her expertise as an engineer was scorned out of misogyny, which was not true - but helps create those perceptions you make so much of).
It should be clear by now that m- has a history that features a certain fixation on Jérôme (and may be extended to any "authority" figure associated with him). How can one say anything about this? Are we to go into psychology? How can we do that with an online multiple-avatar persona who offers a copious amounts of her life-story, but of whose real life we know nothing? Or should we take a narrow view and say: this user is sock-puppeting, this is bad faith towards the community, let's read the riot act?
We (the front-pagers) did neither. We didn't denounce mmmm and let her be in hopes things would work out better this time round. We are now accused of lacking empathy, humanity, understanding, an open mind, but that's plain nonsense. ET is a vibrant and warm community to be part of, and I think the constant carping, largely deaconed by you, Sven, is unjustified. Whatever her personal reasons, mmmm was steering a course towards a door-slam like manon's, and as far as I can make out, mishimishi's on DKos. Those who believed they were empathising with her might at least admit that things might be more complicated and shadowy than they thought.
I think many of us independently figured that. I figured it out before her first conflict as mmmm, at a time she seemed to try to fit back in and even avoided the prior hot-button issues for its sake.
I was hoping it would work out, even after the row in the course of which Sven didn't realise how "Girls, girls, simmer down" can be perceived as offensive, a hope I began to lose after that thread you linked. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
mmmm posted comment n° 11 asking after LEP.
She received a friendly response, n° 14, from In Wales, followed by a friendly response from you, n° 33, from metavision.
ceebs added another friendly-to-mmmm comment, n° 34.
So far, it's 3-to-1 "piling on" in being friendly to mmmm.
Her response was, first, to answer metavision (in comment n° 35), containing:
I didn't feel welcome thanks to Jerome
second, to answer ceebs, in comment n° 38, where she says:
Jerome might have some success but I wonder how many people he's hurt to get to where he is.
which goes further than saying Jérôme made her feel unwelcome, it develops a whole (slanderous, imo) narrative about Jérôme.
No one was attacking mmmm, but she attacked first, and most unpleasantly. But, by always posing as a victim, she gets away, not only with causing a shitstorm, but with getting people to actually support her.
Manipulation is the name of this game.
the (insulting but well-founded) comment to Jerome
The comment is:
What does that mean, exactly? Where am I? On ET? Speaking about offshore wind farms? And who did I hurt to get there ? Hurting people's feelings because I don't like discussion of astrological signs or unfounded conspiracy theories is one thing, but how exactly did that get me anywhere ?
Or are you somehow saying that I hurt people elsewhere to get to that "there" you're thinking about?
I would appreciate your making explicit what you seem to imply. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Otherwise, mmmm´s words are not mine. I discriminate between personal and professional roles, so there is no connection there, but I´m glad you recognize hurting feelings and I hope you tell mmmm.
Reviewing her comment, I see a hurt reaction and it is not expressed appropriately, so I will remove that 4 now.
Out to lunch. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
[...] Now, with a smart-ass little pirouette and some pretty insulting quibbling on words (when and where did "authors say" that free lending was a "crime"?), you show your true colours. [...] I'm sure they'd be better off if they worked in a bank.
Now tell me what this has to do with supporting an unfounded slur on Jérôme with a four.
You´ll have to remind me of that one when I need it. (: Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
Its one thing to have a difference of an opinion and express strong feelings about a topic. That happens...we have all done that at one time or another.
But to me, it is destructive of the atmosphere here for a person to come to ET with an agenda to disrupt, suck for negative attention, to attack others personally (especially when one tries to set limits on weird behavior), and who generally has an anti-authoritarain agenda. That is trollish behavior.
And further, while definitely people have the right to their opinions and such, I feel strongly that it is destructive to the friendly, supportive, and inquiring atmosphere we have tried to build here are at ET for people to support a person who continully throws tantrums, sucks for negative attention, and then gets nasty when confronted about it. What's the point?
Obviously there are a lot of strong personalities here, and it is what makes this an intersting place to be. But, while I have no personal grudge or problem with mmmm, it really pisses me off that this crap keeps happening with her...and she pulls for it...so why do some people keep supporting this? Sometimes I wonder if person like m is just provide a sock puppet for people to act out their own anti-authoritarian or hostility stuff. And maybe I'm off...but again, what's the point? Please, lets keep it positive..its much more interesting. "Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia
My guess, (and it is just a guess) is that the point is to be friendly, supportive and inquiring. We all have different perceptions of situations and persons. We also have individual limits on what behaviour falls under plainly disruptive.
Now I missed the astrology diary (not a great interest of mine), and don't care to inform me of what went down there, so these are just some general observations. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
