***
"Go read this description of yourself Turton...
http://www.spiked-online.com/
There is all the difference in the world between arguing and defending a point, and simply denying other people the chance to make their arguments in the first place - which is what you do. "Beyond reason" - you've got some fucking nerve, you wannabe commissar.
I deserved better than being banned, and you know it."
"It must suck for you when the people you talk to can only be reached by evidence."
"It's the people who ban me who don't listen to evidence or reason. Two cases in point, one on the science, one on your absurd commie bullshit about Big Oil...
1. One degree climate sensitivity, there or thereabouts - the evidence for three or more (the critique of Lindzen recently featured at "getting skeptical about climate skeptics") is not strong.
2. Big Oil gives more money to CAGW promoting groups than it does to Heartland - their funding is a tiny fraction of what the likes of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club get.
Be a man and own up to your and your side's mistakes: the monstrous oversell and denial of scientific uncertainty and the childish and fearful attempt to bully "deniers". Your banning of me was characteristic of your side - Gleick was invited to debate at Heartland and he turned it down for the chance to just make shit up."
"Michael, there's 150 years of science behind this, real science, not the shit fossil fuel firms invented.
I banned you because of your abusive, obsessive manner. I just don't need Creationists* hurling insults on my blog, it adds nothing to the discourse."
"Bringing up the problems of the CRU coding and the comments by Graham-Cunning that it was not even under version control and so forth... this is evidence to the point about replicability which bears on the broader point about how trustworthy the work is, which is in addition to the point of how trustworthy the claims made on behalf of the work were.
That is what you banned me for. For having the temerity to evince my point with reference to facts. You did not ban me for throwing in the odd insult. You explicitly said, and I quote:
"Mike, all of this is bullshit. Moreover, you know perfectly well it is bullshit. I have zero respect for people who argue in bad faith for wholly anti-science positions."
And further...
"Stay off my blog. I don't have time to waste on flat-earthers, creationists, and agw denialists."
I might be "obsessive" in pursuing a point, but I was not making the point in "bad faith" and I was outraged by your casual and entirely unsupported accusation of dishonesty.
The fact that you casually lied about it later (and are even trying to maintain the lie now) further discredits you and reflects in microcosm the sort of thing that people like Gleick stooped to. The Guardian lost 17% of its readership last year, and your own people on the centre-left - and even Mike Hulme at East Anglia are distancing themselves from the likes of you and the Naomi Kleins of the far-Left.
You're done.
And here's the thing Turton: it's a crying shame, because nobody else in Taiwan has the energy and range that you do."
"Alas, merely fronting for corporate anti-science is not the only thing I banned you for, as I stated elsewhere.
Please stop bothering me. This kind of obsessive behavior is why I can't allow you on my blog. You have your own blog. Build your own brand."
***
*I mention here for the benefit of those quick-trigger guessers on the Left that I am not a creationist and neither am I one of the religious cartoon figures you read about in the Guardian. In all liklihood, I know my way around the "Extended Phenotype" and the "Gay Science" better than some of you do (I've lent out several copies of both books over the years and haven't gotten them back).
"There is all the difference in the world between arguing and defending a point, and simply denying other people the chance to make their arguments in the first place - which is what you do. "Beyond reason" - you've got some fucking nerve, you wannabe commissar.
ReplyDeleteI deserved better than being banned, and you know it."
"It must suck for you when the people you talk to can only be reached by evidence."
I don't know this "Turton" that you write about, but here he simply responded in a way that demonstrates perfectly what you were complaining about. Then he goes on to insult you, which is the reason you're supposedly banned at his blog? Absurd. It's clear they don't listen to you, because it's too taxing. The Left like to say things like "That's illogical", then simply repeat their statements--which are usually nothing more than a statement of some problem (pollution, poor people, global warming, international problems, etc.), they then 'argue' how the government should solve this problem at once.
"Your banning of me was characteristic of your side - Gleick was invited to debate at Heartland and he turned it down for the chance to just make shit up.""
That's why the Left and Power are like bread and butter.
Turton is a miserable person and he enjoys insulting people that don't agree with him.
ReplyDeleteHe also has contempt for Taiwanese people, and he admits it indirectly, he said
"Politeness in Taiwan society is like a pearl in an oyster: a beautiful excrescence around a major irritant. This fear of the foreign/Other is always below the surface and interacts with many other Taiwanese perceptions of the self/other -- like the perception that Taiwan is always behind, or falling into anarchy. Etc."
Obviously an educated man, but he tends to use his intellect to taunt and insult.
Why people follow him is beyond me. I quit visiting his site after reading so many insulting posts by him.
He's a big fish in Taiwan, so he believes, but take him out of Taiwan....well, I think you get the idea.
A sad little man.
No actually, that's not quite my reading of him.
ReplyDeleteCertainly he is irritated by people who disagree with him on particular things (and sometimes he has good reason to be irritated - the quality of comments at his place can be dire at times).
And I don't think he's miserable either - he has children, and obviously a bit of money, lots of friends (both foreigner and Taiwanese) and he's always posting pictures of his biking trips out in Miaoli, the East coast and elsewhere.
On the politeness comment... I wouldn't say that illustrated a general contempt for Taiwanese people, but a lack of good sense (and, tinge of irony, politeness) on his part in putting a point of criticism a bit too sharply - at least for your sensitivities.
However, I do agree with you that he holds Taiwan's people in contempt - but not because of that comment. It's because he is a fervent advocate of democratic principles against freedom. I should add however, that I don't think this contempt he has is only for Taiwanese people - it's there for others as well (e.g. the conservatives and tea party people back in the U.S.).
"Obviously an educated man, but he tends to use his intellect to taunt and insult."
For some value of "educated" maybe, but I think he's all graft and craft at one end, and a bit sturm und drang at the other - rather than properly "intelligent" (not too many people are, and I certainly don't qualify for that adjective often enough myself).
"Why people follow him is beyond me..."
Because they want to. I read his stuff from time to time for two reasons: first, he shifts a lot of stories and links, and second I want to keep an eye on him as a sort of weather bell on the Left.
"He's a big fish in Taiwan, so he believes, but take him out of Taiwan....well, I think you get the idea."
Well I'm a little fish in Taiwan, and a little fish outside of Taiwan too, so there!
I must admit I also enjoy a good argument, and I enjoy words - puns, smart-arse sayings and the like... but really I'd just be happy with enjoying nature, drinking beer, reading books and having some titty time now and again with the naughty girls.