Yes the name-calling satisfies the berating I had anticipated.

And when we do, it's almost always caused by faulty assumptions we didn't have to make. Depending on what sort of conscience you have, it can lead to a "damn, I should have known better" feeling. Sometimes this feeling is called embarassment.

Of course others prefer to believe these are not matters of cause-and-effect in which they actively participated, preferring to convince themselves it's more like a roll of dice. This certainly avoids a feeling of embarassment but it does nothing to reduce future occurrences and prevents them from learning from their mistakes.

I think you're onto something here.

It's certainly been a long time since I could read a single Slashdot discussion without witnessing the following behavior: 1) Read a post. 2) Note that it sounds vaguely like something you really find offensive, at least, if you twist most of the words around, put words in the poster's mouth, ignore context, and pay no attention to the actual point they were making. 3) Rail against that person, hellfire and brimstone, using various name-calling, ad-hominems, and other invectives while being careful not to actually refute anything they said.

Optional steps follow: 4) Continue bickering and splitting hairs long after they correct you and show you how easy it would have been to understand what they plainly said and plainly didn't say, being careful never to admit your mistake no matter how obvious to everyone it may be. 5) When you run out of excuses and methods of attempting to save face, just suddenly stop replying to the thread, employing the old "ignore it and hope it goes away" strategy.

The main reason I am starting to look at Soylentnews and other Slashdot alternatives is not the incompetent and bumbling "editors", not the choice of stories, not the Beta redesign, etc. It's because deliberately misunderstanding plain black-and-white text just to have something to moan and bitch about has become trendy on this site. I don't want to be the only sane person in a lunatic asylum, nor do I want to be the only adult in a roomful of screaming children. That's what Slashdot is becoming.

And here I was thinking my comment was so absurd, so over-the-top, so obviously hyperbole, that no one would actually take it seriously.

Because of you, sir, I admit I was wrong. Someone did decide to take it seriously after all.

That feeling of embarassment you experience upon reading this will quickly pass. You can cover it up by denying that it happened. Or you could take the offensive and berate me some more. Y'know, if you believe such things will save face.

I love meeting people who are smarter than me. That's when my personal policy of listening much more than speaking really pays off. If I meet such a person who is also emotionally mature enough to be humble and modest, that's better still.

Real bigotry and prejudice does still exist, sadly. Note that I never once denied that. What I said was that the specific word "racist" has lost all meaning. It lost all meaning because a lot of knee-jerk types with no skill at argumentation found it politically useful to brand everything they dislike as "racist". For example, lots of people who disagreed with President Obama have been called "racist" simply because they thought a different policy would work better, despite showing no actual prejudice.

Speaking of growing up, one sign that someone has done so is their ability to fully understand and calmly respond to something instead of instantly getting offended and emotional. You tell me I need to grow up and you lecture me about life and you throw in a gratuitous "fuck you" because you thought I was denying the existence of all racism. Re-read my post (god damn do I get tired of asking volatile people to do that...). Not once did I say that. My prior comment was about the word "racism" not the existence of racism.

I'm glad you had a personal transformation concerning bigotry and prejudice. Perhaps now you will recognize a need to make another transformation concerning actually understanding what you read before making knee-jerk reactions to it. It'll definitely reduce your stress levels, if you are in need of a self-centered reason to give it a try. If you really want to be a grown man or a grown woman, you can write a new post admitting that your failure to control your emotions blinded you to what I said despite your obvious intellectual capability of understanding it.

Hypothetically speaking...

Yes, just as some rapists are a little more progressive because they put on a condom before jamming their dick up your ass.

The fundamentals of the situation remain unchanged.

"Elitist" has become what the word "racist" has become: originally it referred to something important that should be understood and resisted. Now it just means "I have decided I don't like what you said, but I can't find any fault with it. Rather than admit my dislike of it is irrational and should be changed, I'll just call you names now."

Lots of childish people waste their energy hating reality, leading them to resent anyone who is mature enough to spend that energy looking for better ways of dealing with reality. The contrast embarasses them. Since these small-minded people are resistant to change and growth, they perform variuos mental gymnastics to convince themselves this is your fault. After all, they could go on pretending that everyone agreed with them ... until you came along.

And yet strangely, the technique and how to recognize it is not taught as a regular part of every school's history or civics class.

In a less dysfunctional society where at least a few important things are not run by sociopaths, "Divide and Conquer" (perhaps taught by reading some Julius Caesar), "Propaganda Techniques", and "Logical Fallacies" would be mandatory courses for every human being.

I've used X11 and later Xorg for about the last 15 years. I've never had issues with tearing or any other visual artifacts. Back in the day I certainly had a real good time with modelines (fun!) but I've never had problems with tearing.

Am I the only one who hears complaints like this and scratches his head wondering what the fuss is all about? Lots of these mysterious complaints have never happened to me. I don't believe you are being dishonest, I just would like a more in-depth explanation about what problem you had, what solutions you tried that didn't work, and what you think the working solution would or should be.

That trick is at least as unnecessary as it is difficult.

I assume you thought to reply to me because of the similarity between your scenario and the mistake GP made?

It really sounds like another instance of regulatory capture, in which the industry encourages or allows an idea to become enshrined into law that just so happens to benefit its bottom line. The fossil fuel industry is one that can bring to bear a nearly unlimited budget for things like lawyers, lobbyists, advertisers, etc. If they ignore or applaud a law, it's because it serves their interests. Otherwise you'd get a demonstration of the clout they wield. I mean, to anyone unfamiliar with this industry, "you keep the first few years' revenue, then you pay" sounds gracefully fair.

So how do you do one without also doing the other? Or to put it another way: if you raise the taxes of all oil/gas companies, what do you think those companies are going to do next?

Comparing the current tax rate to the proposed tax increase is not a "rounding error" at all. It's five percent, just as you say.

Comparing the additional cost of this proposed tax increase to all the other costs involved in obtaining the fuels is what has been identified as a rounding error.

So, while what you say is correct, you're missing the point entirely. This is why context is more important than trying to show everyone how clever you are for finding the obvious "flaw" everyone else "missed". It would be wonderful to see a single Slashdot discussion where your mistake isn't repeated.

That's a useless statement of the obvious until and unless you provide another definition of "fair" that you believe better applies to society. The AC at least provided a line of reasoning.

Personally I'd like to see the IRS eliminated and the Fair Tax Act implemented. The funny thing about that Act: I've never seen someone rail against it who actually understood how it works. Of course total ignorance about its most basic details didn't seem to stop such people from passionately demonizing it. Gotta love that. One could say that a notion of "fairness" includes not opposing something you aren't even slightly familiar with.

What did you observe that led you to that conclusion? And ... where can I go to make the same observations?