So if I take the excessive love juice over there and lay it on as thick as I can... I could get in trouble? That's just sick.

F**king Retard.

(Oh how I pine for the days when I was a mod. I would so change Biz's member category to "faux uber hater". I guess that's why I am not a mod anymore.)

Been thinking about this for along time, trying to put into words exactly what I mean.

Ultimately, happiness is one thing - self-acceptance. Total satisfaction with who you are as a person in every regard. Happiness is derived internally, not externally. No one can make you happy, nor can you make anyone else happy. (Trust me on this one - two divorces gives me lots of experience in that regard). Of course, there are nearly infinite paths to self-acceptance, one of which is finding people that appreciate, encourage and inspire you to greater things (which is obviously one of the reasons why marriages/relationships can have such a big impact on someone's happiness).

Pleasure, however, is something that is derived externally, like pleasure in a book, drugs, having sex, or a good joke. Pleasure is inherently short-lived. Pleasure can (and usually does) exist completely devoid of any self-examination or awareness.

Now, both happiness and pleasure can be expressed through laughter, which is primarily how the two can get so easily mixed up.

The only pleasure you feel from insulting someone else(which is really what you're talking about, no matter what words you use) is the false satisfaction in feeling you are better than someone else. That comes from two things - 1. Feeling you are superior and 2. Making someone else feel inferior. Either way, they are illusions.

For my own personal path to happiness (which has taken way too many detours), I feel that people only have the power over me which -I- give them. Therefore, when people insult me or when I feel the urge to insult them, I try to remind myself that they are inconsequential to my happiness.

Your argument that people need tougher skins, frankly, is no different than other examples of brutality against others:

- If he didn't want me to hit him, he should have shut up
- If she didn't want to have sex, she shouldn't have dressed like that

You gain NOTHING by insulting someone else. Whatever pleasure you feel from your insults is completely ephemeral.

And you can certainly make the argument that your insults make it harder for someone else to achieve happiness.

I always find it hard to define two words, such as "self-acceptance" and "happiness" as the same thing, because why would both words exist?

As for the premises of why I laugh when I insult others, I disagree. That may be why some people laugh, but I find all kinds of things funny, not the least of which is the random images that appear when you insult someone.

How many times, when referring to someone as a "son of a #####", have you actually imagined someone being nagged at by a wolf-mother? Or, how many times have you heard someone called a "mother ####er", and thought, "Well, I guess it's like the old saying goes, 'Incest is best, put your sister to the test.'"? And those are just the non-humorous ones!

Honestly, I had no idea what a "knob" was until Kamiza posted that (although I can guess). When I first read "Knob Licker" (or whatever the insult was) I started picturing someone licking a door.

My real problem with your definition of happiness is it provides no room for pleasure which comes from inside, as pleasure is inherently external, according to your definitions. I don't think happiness would just be due to self-acceptance, I think it can also come from our own thoughts on things other than ourselves. I often time think entertaining thoughts. What can I say, it makes me "happy" (or maybe "pleasurable", I don't know what we call it).

If you knew me in real life, you'd know I oftentimes wear a smile. I oftentimes chuckle at things that don't seem very funny, or just random incidents that happen. It's not because I think I'm better than the person I'm chuckling at, or that I think they're less than me (which, really, why are these two things different?), but, rather, I thought of something entertaining about the situation.

And, honestly, if you can't have internally-derived thoughts that give you "happiness" (or maybe "pleasure"), then that's really, really just too bad. Maybe it's my blessing or something. Or maybe my mutant power, that I can manifest my own happiness.

Which it may just be my laid-back attitude and thought process as a whole that leads to me not caring about insults that come in and brushing them off, gaining pleasure in the fact that me as a target allowed others to gain pleasure by laughing. I do think everyone should have an attitude like this, at least when it comes to insults.

After all, if someone is really trying to get you pissed off, them failing is usually the best revenge possible. And if someone is just trying to have fun, why not have fun with them?

P.S. I meant to point out, but obviously forgot until now, that you also have much more experience in real-life matters than me, so, for all I know, my thinking I'm deriving my own happiness with my thoughts may end up being my illusion of pleasure being shattered in the future, followed up by me realizing that, while I thought I had the ability to make my own happiness without even thinking about myself, I actually can only gain happiness by accepting myself. As such, I do have to forfeit to your side a little bit, as you have much more credibility in the "real-world" side of things.

All semantics aside, I truly enjoy both sides of this Yin Yang. I agree wholeheartedly with the "happiness is self-acceptance" idea, and I will carry it with me for the rest of my life. I also enjoy a good trash talk quite often. My problem comes when I dedicate myself to making this community better every day. I mean, let's take off the gloves for a second and get real.

There is a young person who plays in our local PCQs. The last two times I have seen him, three months apart, he has gotten very excited by re-telling the story of foilball ridiculing Dalton in the worst of ways. He even called his mom over to the computer to read the insult. He treats it like a great accomplishment and he really honors foilball because of it.

I just can't understand that. Chad's post helps, I guess it does make some people feel superior to belittle others, but I just can't make myself feel it no matter how I try. Maybe I really am old.

Okay, here's an example that has nothing to do with the topic.

You tell me that you have $1 in your wallet. I have $50 in my wallet that you don't know about.

1. I could show you my $50 and tell you how much more money I have than you. That is to make me feel superior to you.

2. I could tell you that having $1 in your wallet is pathetic and that you must be poor and worthless. That is to make you feel worse about yourself.

Either way, what you say has no impact whatsoever on the money that we have, nor what that money might be spent on.

Does that make it a bit clearer?

I'm not so sure it's an age thing, it's only a matter of perspective. Your belief of how people should treat each other in a perfect world. As I'm sure many can attest to, we don't live in anyone's perfect world.

Kam's point about the "yin" and "yang" is a good one: Things have a way of balancing out after a bit. It's not perfect for anyone, but it's the most agreeable point.

You can berate others on this site, but only to a certain extent. You can't type a post filled with nothing but the the worst word you can think of 5,000 times, the word will be blocked and the thread deleted, because others find it inappropriate.

Sorry to rant, just my thoughts.

-B

On the way home I saw a bumper sticker that said:

"Mean people breed little mean people."

I honestly am not trying to create a perfect world, I am just trying to keep kindness alive. It is how I was raised, to be kind.

However ... the same is true in the inverse. No matter what happens, one person has the 1 dollar and the other has the 50.

If the person is instead encouraging "Hey, if you work hard, you could get more money" ... they guy still has 1 dollar in the pocket ... so the natural conclusion to the analogy is that any form of interaction, whether intended to make yourself feel superior/other person feel inferior OR to make the other person 'feel better', etc ... would be entirely pointless.

If happiness can only come from within, how can external forces prevent it, or 'ruin' it?

And if it's impossible to make someone else happy ... how could the inverse be possible?

If anything, the 'hate' only encourages people to realize that the external opinions is not what 'matters' ... and they start listening to their own internal opinion of themselves.

In most cases, people will not listen to someone stating the 'truth' in unambiguous terms. Thus in many ways, Sarcasm or Satire can be prefered.

Many people are quite cynical, and the more earnest someone is, the less 'truthful' they seem.

This is sort of 'off the top of my head' ... but bear with me.

I am a fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ... a show which, basically, over the course of 10 seasons ... hurled insults, ridicule, obsure references, etc ... at films.

Anyone who heard the premise of MST3K would probably think that anyone who enjoyed the show, and those that were part of the show must hate movies and are just feeding into the cynical nature of criticism. That those who are unable to create anything good must only be able to tear things down for the amusement of others.

But honestly, a well placed barb is funny.

But more than that, in their case, it's sculpture in a way.

I'm a huge fan of film cinema. But, just like an editor removes parts of their film to make it as good as possible, just like [considering where we are] you try to remove those last few cards to get the sealed deck down to 30, etc ... removing the negative helps to accentuate the positive.

I forget his name, but a sculpture once said, when asked, how he did his work.

"I get the block, then I remove everything that isn't the sculpture."

In a sense, that's what they did. By pointing out the flaws in films, by mocking 'bad' movies, they were trying to point out, in a humorous and round about way ... what they do like about film.

Not all negativity is inherently negative is all I'm saying.

And, 'what's so funny about insults?'

Well, a FUNNY insult will often be one that is just ... odd, or strange.

Anyone can just degenerate into simplistic name calling ... and that's rarely humurous.

A barbed retort can be humurous taken out of it's context.

And, the very fact that there are "Insult Comics" means that it's something which some people will find funny regardless of the situation.

As for the "they should get over it" line of thinking ... well, ultimately, there are much worse things in the world than insults. If people are incapable of receiving criticism from an anonymous person on the internet, how would they respond to receiving it in person? Even if it's not as venemous in person ... at the very least, there is less chance of it being passive-aggressive online.

Not that the Realms should be some kind of microcosm of the real world ... but honestly, sheltering and nuturing is not really what Internet forums are for I would assume. While there should be a culture of community ... would it really be good to have a family of people who passive-aggresively insult each other on the sly instead of just making ridiculous insults which, are often ridiculous to the point of parody and which few will take seriously?

Anyway ... I'm all for hearts, rainbows, unicorns, etc ... but I know that, personally, I am arrogant enough to live in a DubYaBubble capable of ignoring any criticism that comes my way, and most people who have had a sibbling or have been through high school have probably developed some sort of defense mechanism against people hurling insults. And if things get too heated ... I trust the mods to step in and shut the situation down ... but honestly, the oversensitized will be insulted somewhere, so stopping it hear wouldn't do much of a difference.

I distinctly remember the first year or so... this website was all about sheltering and nurturing the game itself. We helped each other understand the mechanics, we shared our stories from the first year of tournament play, and we gave each other confidence to get out there and win. We built a culture of caring on an internet forum. Really, we did.

Well, that and pirate talk.
Even then, the supposed golden age of Realms only lasted until the first PC or so, when it became detrimental to help the competition TOO much. And even during the Pax Realmica, there was a fair amount of deliberate misinformation. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
You'll also recall that we had a decent number of intelligent posters, and relatively few idiots. The inteligent posters were bound to drift away a little, or post less, when the stakes became high enough that they couldn't really talk much about the game. The idiots were bound to show up as the game became more popular. The problem with the "I'm ok, you're ok" approach is that it doesn't really work when you're decidedly NOT ok. I think that negative feedback actually helps to improve some posters. An example is Vash (sorry to single you out, but you're the most obvious turn-around I can think of), who started out pretty awful and has become a very positive presence on these here forums.

Anyway, I think you're exagerating the following things:
1. The glorious golden age of realms.
2. The evil tone of today and the absence of the aforementioned tone in the past.
3. The number of lurkers who would post if not for the big meanies ready to pounce on them (people have been known to lurk for reasons other than fear).
4. The merits of the Happy Mondays.
5. A generational gap as the reason for people's varying reactions to insult-based humour.

That's what I said, Glory Days.

Who me? (Hiding this thread behind my back: http://www.vsrealms.com/forum/showth...&threadid=2024
Check the date on that sucker.)

I think you're right, and I think this has become quite a good thread. Thanks, that post really hauled ass.