A postscript to "what happened to me"

[arewethereyet]

I’m pretty sure people aren’t saying it’s good. 

It's been walked back a little bit. Someone said recently that nasty personal insults are "acceptable." 

But by posting lots of them, people demonstrate that they think it's good to post them.

They’re saying he didn’t do what you say he did.

Now this is almost scary. That the memory hole can be so deep and so efficient is a surprise, even to me, who has seen it in action before. 

Here's what happened:

The guy in question posted a quote from Spinoza in order to make fun of it. It was clear at a glance that there was a mistranslation in the quote, because it contrasted "immanent" with "transient." But that has nothing to do with Spinoza's thought (or anyone else's). The contrasting word is "transcendent." 

So I made a joke about how spell-check apps were primitive in Spinoza's time, and provided a more modern and accurate translation, with the link to the published source. 

The guy in question spent the rest of the afternoon responding with silly personal insults about how "transient" was really the opposite of "immanent," and how I was a horrible person (expressed in more colorful language), etc. 

This is all as clear as yesterday in my memory. 

I believe that no one remembers it because at the time it was considered a good and funny thing to do. 

I didn't intend to go into detail about his failings, because that wasn't the point I wanted to make. I made, and still am only interested in, the point about the shocking double standard of how we treat in-group vs. out-group discussions. I think it is immoral.

As I expected...someone hurt your feelings.

And your response is to wait till the person dies and then talk shit about them.

And still with the insults.  The man is dead and cannot stick up for himself.  Takes a lot of courage to speak out against someone who can't defend themselves.  Aren't you proud of what you have accomplished?  You think you got the last word and that's what you really wanted all along.