The Adequacy Style Troll (AST): A Brief Refresher (Meta)

[pynchonoid]

[...]  We all know about trolls. They leave insulting
or profane messages in comment threads not because
they believe in their own outrageous statements, but
in order to observe the chaos as other users reply to
them. But while anyone can leave a post questioning
another user's sexual orientation or calling them a
fucktard, a special breed of troll exists to distill
chaos into its purest discernible form. Popularized
and raised to a fine art by now-defunct website
Adequacy, the Adequacy Style Troll, or AST, brings a
blender to the ordinary practice of shit-stirring. 

[...] The AST achieves its goal by a combination of
proven techniques:


*	A tone of calmness and rationalism is maintained.
This creates an enhanced contrast between the AST
itself and the responses, which are likely to be
emotional and less thoroughly considered. 
*	The initial starting position for argument is
unassailably sensible. 
*	Each step of the argument is completely reasonable. 
*	Substantial, even excessive, documentation is
provided. 
*	The final conclusion is outrageous and completely
unacceptable to the target victim group. 
The hard part of creating a successful AST is making
the last item flow naturally from the preceeding ones.
The successul AST leaves a typical victim, who is not
versed in the minutae of logic, sputtering and
flustered as he finds himself almost tempted, for
however brief a moment, to believe in the unacceptably
outrageous conclusion of the argument.

Subject

The AST is not bound to any particular political
theory, as the amusingly contradictory mission
statement for the now-defunct Adequacy site attested.
An AST works toward a conclusion so outrageous that
absolutely nobody anywhere in the world (except maybe
for a few total kooks) would accept it. Some examples
which either did or should have appeared on the
now-defunct Adequacy site might be: 

*	Paedophiles perform a public service by accelerating
the rate of maturity of our kids 
*	Jeffrey Dahmer was actually a swell guy who is
routinely misunderstood 
*	Mister Rogers was actually a criminal pervert who
should have been locked up 
*	England would greatly benefit from joining the USA
as a new state 
*	Vermont should secede from the USA 
*	Senator Joe McCarthy was a great patriot who only
had the USA's best interests at heart 
*	The USA should invade Norway 
*	The death penalty should apply to misdemeanors
* Zoyd wakes up one morning in 1984 and feels guilty
because he finally realizes he's a welfare cheat and
President Reagan doesn't like that 
I could go on, but I'm not really very good at this
myself. You should get the idea. [...] 

<http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/7/18/205013/523>

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<http://www.pynchonoid.org/>

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