(tag removed) mergeto|Flatlanders}}
Nguyễn Bảo is a dirty rotten scoundrel who lives in a fantasy world of his own creation, in which he believes he actually knows something about pre- WWII Vietnamese history, consensus reality, logic and logical fallacies, healthy multiplicity, and monkeys. In truth, he... well, he can't actually tell you the truth, because he's actually writing this section himself in the third person. But he's fairly certain that his genuine expertise extends to post- Renaissance art history, the English language, monologueing, the difference between multiplicity and sockpuppets, and making random enemies because he is a horrible awful jerk who excuses outrageous behavior with a documented diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome... unless said enemies are actually hallucinatory products of his paranoid mind, which is independent of his Asperger's, which was probably misdiagnosed anyway because rar rar rar goat marathon beach towel ad nauseum.
See? Total transparency. Plus, if all the stupid drama is self-directed and limited to this page, why bother making more of it?
Seriously speaking, though, I'm not a troll. I'm just some guy who has the crappiest social skills in the world when it comes to things like figuring out if people are bored or enrapt, sarcastic or serious, whether someone needs to be left alone or talked to, or what, and I'm completely blind to certain types of subtle interaction, like saying one thing and meaning another. I've pissed people off because of this, perhaps rightfully so, perhaps not. I'm a Livejournal ex-patriate by choice, for reasons that have to do with not one, but two separate drama messes.
I'm mentioning this here because I recognize that bad mojo follows me like a ball and chain. Whether that's because I'm an emotionally manipulative crackpot or the unluckiest guy on the internet, that's your call. A pseudonym would get blasted open upon discovery, and pretending I've never been the butt of any controversy would probably be inviting some kind of retaliation for trying to get on with my life. So, total transparency: I'm Astaroth and flatulence and Satan and bologna. Okay? Now let's get to wiki-ing.
I only use my full name in this user page to avoid confusion with User:NguyenHue or with wikisource:vi:Nguyễn Huệ; in talk page signatures and most other places on Wikipedia, I intend to go by Bảo. (Bao, without diacritics, is okay, too; I just spell it with them so that my name isn't "bag" all the time.) I'm not related to the last emperor of Vietnam. I'm not impersonating anyone, and if there are any edits from this IP that aren't under this username, comment on the talk page.
My sense of humor tends towards the absurd, especially non sequitors and reduction to the absurd. In debates or controversies, on the other hand, I focus on pointing out logical inconsistancies in another argument. For example, most debates I participate in look like this:
Not the best arguments I've ever made, I'll grant that; I find holes in them now that embarrass me a bit. However, I still don't think any are straw men or false analogies.
Either way, I generally don't present positive arguments until after I've determined whether or not the person in question can admit and/or correct such inconsistancies without flippant dismissal or resorting to countering with ad hominem attacks. In the cited example, I actually agreed with the idea that supernatural experiences are probably the result of stimulation of the temporal lobe, but disagreed with the argument that this automatically lead to the one conclusion that all such experiences are not supernatural, or that the idea did not need to be tested at the same level of standards as any other control experiment. In such situations, I'm usually assumed to have a personal bias that I often don't actually possess.
This sometimes leads to the confusing situation where I am assumed to have beliefs that turn out to be a hodge-podge of my humorous writings, the assumption that I totally disagree with everyone whose arguments I question, and guilt by association.
I'm new to contributing to wikis, though not to perusing them. Veterans, have mercy. I registered because I plan to work on the following articles:
These are not the lyrics to A Cockatrice is a Blue Bird, by the way. In fact, they're totally unrelated. (And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.)
(tag removed) mergeto|Flatlanders}}
Nguyễn Bảo is a dirty rotten scoundrel who lives in a fantasy world of his own creation, in which he believes he actually knows something about pre- WWII Vietnamese history, consensus reality, logic and logical fallacies, healthy multiplicity, and monkeys. In truth, he... well, he can't actually tell you the truth, because he's actually writing this section himself in the third person. But he's fairly certain that his genuine expertise extends to post- Renaissance art history, the English language, monologueing, the difference between multiplicity and sockpuppets, and making random enemies because he is a horrible awful jerk who excuses outrageous behavior with a documented diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome... unless said enemies are actually hallucinatory products of his paranoid mind, which is independent of his Asperger's, which was probably misdiagnosed anyway because rar rar rar goat marathon beach towel ad nauseum.
See? Total transparency. Plus, if all the stupid drama is self-directed and limited to this page, why bother making more of it?
Seriously speaking, though, I'm not a troll. I'm just some guy who has the crappiest social skills in the world when it comes to things like figuring out if people are bored or enrapt, sarcastic or serious, whether someone needs to be left alone or talked to, or what, and I'm completely blind to certain types of subtle interaction, like saying one thing and meaning another. I've pissed people off because of this, perhaps rightfully so, perhaps not. I'm a Livejournal ex-patriate by choice, for reasons that have to do with not one, but two separate drama messes.
I'm mentioning this here because I recognize that bad mojo follows me like a ball and chain. Whether that's because I'm an emotionally manipulative crackpot or the unluckiest guy on the internet, that's your call. A pseudonym would get blasted open upon discovery, and pretending I've never been the butt of any controversy would probably be inviting some kind of retaliation for trying to get on with my life. So, total transparency: I'm Astaroth and flatulence and Satan and bologna. Okay? Now let's get to wiki-ing.
I only use my full name in this user page to avoid confusion with User:NguyenHue or with wikisource:vi:Nguyễn Huệ; in talk page signatures and most other places on Wikipedia, I intend to go by Bảo. (Bao, without diacritics, is okay, too; I just spell it with them so that my name isn't "bag" all the time.) I'm not related to the last emperor of Vietnam. I'm not impersonating anyone, and if there are any edits from this IP that aren't under this username, comment on the talk page.
My sense of humor tends towards the absurd, especially non sequitors and reduction to the absurd. In debates or controversies, on the other hand, I focus on pointing out logical inconsistancies in another argument. For example, most debates I participate in look like this:
Not the best arguments I've ever made, I'll grant that; I find holes in them now that embarrass me a bit. However, I still don't think any are straw men or false analogies.
Either way, I generally don't present positive arguments until after I've determined whether or not the person in question can admit and/or correct such inconsistancies without flippant dismissal or resorting to countering with ad hominem attacks. In the cited example, I actually agreed with the idea that supernatural experiences are probably the result of stimulation of the temporal lobe, but disagreed with the argument that this automatically lead to the one conclusion that all such experiences are not supernatural, or that the idea did not need to be tested at the same level of standards as any other control experiment. In such situations, I'm usually assumed to have a personal bias that I often don't actually possess.
This sometimes leads to the confusing situation where I am assumed to have beliefs that turn out to be a hodge-podge of my humorous writings, the assumption that I totally disagree with everyone whose arguments I question, and guilt by association.
I'm new to contributing to wikis, though not to perusing them. Veterans, have mercy. I registered because I plan to work on the following articles:
These are not the lyrics to A Cockatrice is a Blue Bird, by the way. In fact, they're totally unrelated. (And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.)