And why is that? What does he do that makes you think "he is intentionally misrepresenting his positions to cause drama"?
Dodges out of conversations, drops false information (disproven elsewhere) into unrelated topics to stir up disagreement, avoids answering questions while dropping more "gems" for people to argue over. You and I have been in many of those threads together. You and I had many arguments and debates in those threads. You sure your memory is still functioning?
Well, the active userbase here, in particular when it comes to political threads contains a huge number of people who are staunchly right leaning (or callit anti-social justice activists, I hope you know what position I mean) specifically on social issues and the people who call him a troll are clearly a subset of those. I've yet to see a moderate-"progressive" or "progressive" leaning (on these issues; I do not like the moniker progressive, because it is, frankly, arrogant, but "left" is probably even more inaccurate because it has nothing to do with traditional leftism) poster call him that. This is a strong indicator that being opposed to social justice activists is a prime factor to this valuation.
Unfalsifiable claims are your forte, Yoshi. Just because you haven't seen a moderate or progressive leaning person call him a troll does not mean no one has, and it certainly doesn't stand as evidence ("a strong indicator" as you put it) that NI is opposed because of his opinions. You are fabricating your own evidence. This is known as "confirmation bias".
I have seen progressives and left-leaning posters call him out and call him a troll, even in this thread. The burden of proof is on you to show that he is being attacked because of his viewpoints, even though people like myself are
plainly explaining that it is because of his lack of honesty.
Don't get me wrong, you are a good discussion partner on various topics and can absolutely deal with arguments from different view points. This does not seem to be true with social justice issues though and here the difference between you and me is much smaller than the one between
Nobody_Important
and you.
This frustrates me, because how am I supposed to defend against it?
Thanks for the compliment, but what is your evidence that I can't handle different social justice viewpoints? I'd like you to either take this back or to show me the same caliber of evidence that you're demanding out of me. You are poisoning the well again -- just like you made it your mission to insist GAF was a den of "right-leaning" (EDIT: said alt-right which is an incorrect statement about your position) ideology many months ago -- and this makes me doubt your earnestness.
EDIT: you can actually see my viewpoints on "social justice" offered freely and openly
here. If it seems like I was unable to deal with arguments from different viewpoints in that thread, please point out an example.
Where is NI dishonest or duplicitous (full disclaimer: I did not know the word, so I had to look it up and my understanding of it might not be ideal yet; I understand it here as deliberately misleading)? NI often gets called out, but mostly for things that are not true. E.g. I can remember the Smollett thread, where he actually kept updating it when he was online with newer information and acknlowedging them.
You and I have many threads across many months where we've already disagreed on NI. I'm not going to drag out old threads. Have you forgotten, or are you just trying to bog me down with homework?
Why?
EDIT: And I want to add: I think one possible reason for falsely thinking Nobody is a troll is that his position is too foreign to you. In a similar way as it was difficult for me to understand devout Christian's arguments that use statements in the bible as definitive proof for various claims in the context of discussing e.g. Intelligent Design. My first impulse was to disregard ID positions and related arguments as bad faith ones, but I have come to learn that a good number of people come from a very different way of looking at things and consider (parts of) the bible basically axiomatic and truly believe what they say. Note, I personally find NI's positions understandable and often agreeable, so I do not think they are completely "out there", but for someone coming from a a drastically different standpoint, legitimate opinions and arguments may appear too outlandish to be considered legit.
Our conversation in this thread is a good example of why you aren't qualified to speak about NI: you are engaging with me, offering counterpoints, disagreeing and explaining why, and that's great! I appreciate you as a conversation partner because you'll pick apart my arguments and ask relevant questions. Some of the time you go off in strange directions but on the whole you stay on topic and avoid most of the common debate foibles.
And you apply this same critique to other posters if you disagree, which is also fine. It shows you to be a consistent person...
...except in the case of NI.
I've never witnessed a shred of your skepticism or critical eye applied to NI, not once. In every case, you rise to their defense. I didn't even state their name (merely linking to a post) and here we are, arguing about NI again, as though his plight could summon you from afar. And since not seeing something is taken as evidence, I would consider this "a strong indicator" (your words, your logic) that you are either in cahoots with NI or are intellectually incapable of seeing their flaws. Right?
You fancy yourself a mind reader. You throw up your hands and say "NI a troll? No, show me the evidence. I think they are a good person" and then proceed to make a heap of unfalsifiable, empty statements toward me like "his position is too foreign to you, which is why you disagree".
No, as I've stated quite clearly, their lack of honesty is why I disagree. Is there a particular reason why you ignore the words I've typed and instead inserted your own head-fiction? This is called strawmanning. You are making assumptions about my inner thoughts, my motivations, and yet you haven't presented one bit of evidence to support that.
I wonder why you must attack my capacity to understand others' viewpoints, although I've already mentioned that I seem to get along with plenty of other GAFers who hold far-left positions across numerous topics. Don't try to poison the well and imply that I disagree with NI because I'm incapable of understanding their position.
If my disagreement with NI is because we disagree on topics, then I will apply that same leap of logic to yourself and say that since you agree with NI on topics, you lack the objectivity to determine their honesty. Fair? Of course not. I have no interest in painting you into a corner with such stupid debate tactics, so if you won't mind, please do not attempt to use them on me.