11 ms·

Aristotle, “On Trolling”

180 points by diodorus 10y ago

chadzawistowski 10y ago
Non-broken link http://crookedtimber.org/2016/05/07/aristotle-on-trolling/ http://crookedtimber.org/2016/05/07/aristotle-on-trolling/
javajosh 10y ago
I was unaware that people trolled for any other reason than amusement. Is there an estimate of how frequently people troll for calculated (e.g. monetary) reasons? So my take is that she says trolls act as a kind of solvent to the natural bonds of community, and she lists a few frequently used constructions. I suppose the only beneficial use of trolls and trolling is to destroy communities of little worth. If trolls successfully kill even one terrorist cell, can we really call them evil? (And I'm not trying to troll with that question, I'm serious!) EDIT: I mean "let's blow up a school bus of infidel spawn" type terrorist, not the "I'd rather not repeal the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments to feel more secure" type 'terrorist'.
- paulgerhardt 10y ago
  Trolling for factions: http://www.theweek.co.uk/64829/russias-troll-army-how-the-propaganda-factory-operates http://www.theweek.co.uk/64829/russias-troll-army-how-the-pr... Trolling for profit: https://www.reddit.com/r/shills/comments/3uoxpl/internet_shills_101/ https://www.reddit.com/r/shills/comments/3uoxpl/internet_shi...
- emmelaich 10y ago
  What was called 'griefing' is now called trolling too, unfortunately. I think trolling can be positive and well-done. I'd say Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is an example.
  - vintermann 10y ago
    Swift is satire. People reading it weren't supposed to believe it was sincere. People use the word differently, but to me a troll is someone who really wants people to think he has opinions that he doesn't have - for whatever reason.
- igravious 10y ago
  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1555005/Seven-children-die-as-US-bombs-Afghan-school.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1555005/Seven-chil... Can we really call trolls evil if within a community they counteract group-think, wage a war on cliché, and subvert unthinking and tired stereotyping? Perhaps Aristotelian virtue theory can help us answer these questions?
  - gandarojin 10y ago
    I wonder, is there a correlation between the telegraph.co.uk article and your comment?
  - imakesnowflakes 10y ago
    This section from an essay I read recently [1] might be relavent here >In the 1960s, feminists faced social ridicule, media approbation and violent hostility. Now, mirroring the incremental changes seen in technology, social progress all too often finds itself down the blind alleyways of political correctness. Student bodies used to be hotbeds of dissent, even revolution; today’s hyper-conformist youth is more interested in the policing of language and stifling debate when it counters the prevailing wisdom. Forty years ago a burgeoning media allowed dissent to flower. Today’s very different social media seems, despite democratic appearances, to be enforcing a climate of timidity and encouraging groupthink. So we are conditioned by the social media to encourage groupthink, and so, we are conditioned to hate "trolls", when their behaviors threatens breaking groupthink. I see this manifested here in HN in discussions involving Tesla/SpaceX. In those threads, if you are in a position where you are going against the rabid enthusiasm, moderators will step in with a ban threat, if you are even slightly combative or go out of the line. But the other side is given a lot more slack, when it comes to silencing dissenting opinion.. [1] https://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in-science-and-technology-come-to-a-halt https://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in-science-and-technolog...
- mirimir 10y ago
  Well: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/persona-management-software-544/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/per...
sdegutis 10y ago
Fwiw, "proper" trolling can be an art form. Done well, it can be a beautiful form of entertainment. Ken M's best (authentic) comments are a great example of this.
- careersuicide 10y ago
  I think you mean "a art".
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  So can puns, but that doesn't make them socially acceptable either.
  - _vya7 10y ago
    What, like dad jokes? > I have a fear of speed bumps. Im slowly getting over it. Dad jokes are one of those things were people shake their heads and sigh, as if they're displeased, but internally they're laughing their butts off. ... Or maybe I only think that because I'm a dad?
    - GrinningFool 10y ago
      I think that's in the same category. Sadly, I have an affliction where I can resist no opportunity to pun. Or dad joke. It's a problem.
- nailer 10y ago
  Indeed. The first paragraph: > That trolling is a shameful thing, and that no one of sense would accept to be called ‘troll’, all are agreed No they are not. There are many smart, funny trolls who are quite happy to accept the label. I can understand the media getting confused between actual creative trolling and being particularly mean, but I'd expect more out of an academic publication.
kazinator 10y ago
> And this is how the troll generates strife. For what he indicates is known to be false or harmful or ignorant; but he does not say that thing, but rather something close. Haha, that is naive, or perhaps incomplete. Actually the "worst" trolls simply tell some uncomfortable truth (which isn't false or ignorant, and he who respects truth wouldn't dare call it harmful). That is to say, sometimes trolls disrupt communities that are formed around "group think", consisting of members who get together just to be around others who think the same way and avoid those who disagree with the shared ideas. If you surround yourself with others who confirm your opinions, then anyone who busts in with a dose of reality is a "troll". There are many forms of disruption, with many motivations, that all get lumped into the "troll" category.
- kenko 10y ago
  > Actually the "worst" trolls simply tell some uncomfortable truth (which isn't false or ignorant, and he who respects truth wouldn't dare call it harmful). Did you get to the part about Socrates?
- danielvf 10y ago
  Well played! That said, as the article points out the classic troll succeeds, not by appearing as an outside attacker to unite the community, but by posting in such a way that gets the community fighting among itself in response to the troll.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  One need not even tell a truth to troll - one can merely ask a question that has no good answer. These are my best trolls: "what are the underlying principles that lead you to believe X?" "what evidence - if any - would cause you to hold a different belief?" It's the best troll, because when folks come up with no answer they usually resort to ad-hominem attacks. That's usually how you know you've raised a very good point.
  - etherael 10y ago
    Why would you call that a troll, rather than simple rational enquiry?
reality_czech 10y ago
I love the pseudo-ancient Greek diction. The phrasing, the vocabulary, and the abundance of nested clauses do really remind me of translations of Aristotle. The only way this could be better is if he replaced the references to modern things like Republicans, Democrats, etc. with Thracians, Spartans, and other ancient Greek stuff. At that point you could try to pass this off as actual Aristotle, which would itself be a brilliant act of trolling.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jallmann 10y ago
Book one of Plato's Republic led to my lightbulb moment: witness Socrates's lilt of annoyance at Thrasymachus's behavior, which is not too far from what is being described here. People have not changed fundamentally in the last 2,500 years. Reading that amused me to no end. Plato is how I was able to make peace with the legions of Internet message-board nerds. (And observe in myself the traits of a troll, at times.) > no one is ever a troll involuntarily or by accident, but only an idiot who has posted in the wrong thread. Then again -- was Thrasymachus just "posting in the wrong thread?" The second lightbulb moment was reading some of Antonin Scalia's judicial opinions. My approximate train of thought: "Whait, am I actually reading this? This is like something I'd downvote on Hacker News. Well, justices are temperamental and opinionated people too, just like the rest of us..." RIP.
- visakanv 10y ago
  Yep. It's funny to me that people turn to Medium for life advice, because Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca etc all wrote it down in incredible detail hundreds of years ago. I'm half-tempted to do modern translations of those old works and essays.
labster 10y ago
for there is no art in what they do. I couldn't disagree more. There is common trolling and there is sublime trolling. The ability to sow the perfect amount of strife to create real change is a thing of beauty. This goes beyond the tactics of information warfare -- for which trolling has its uses -- and reveals truth to those in ignorance. For most true knowledge cannot be learned by the advice of elders alone, but must be learned through the long and winding path. Many of life's truths are best revealed through fiction. This essay reads like it fears trolls and their threats to social order. But the way of discord and strife is also true. Did Eris not troll Olympus most excellently with her golden apple? Did she not reveal that divine folly was no less than mortal folly? This is the awesome power that is trolling in a skilled hand.
- hguant 10y ago
  Your comment relies on a misunderstanding of what Aristotle - or his proxie here - means by the term "art". In modern usage, something that has no art to it is base, simple, and requires no effort to achieve. However, art meant something more nuanced to Aristotle (that nuance is why people still make a living arguing over the implications of what he said). For Aristotle, an art was something that pointed to the Good. Politics was the art of governing men, Ethics was the art of ruling oneself. These things involved skill - the skill you allude to the troll possessing, the power to weave webs of words and manipulate people - but also involved something more - an understanding that the purpose of the art was to further a good in some way. When "Aristotle" says there's not art in the troll's activities, he means they do not point to the good, and they will in fact do harm. PS apologies if this isn't well reasoned, I just got off a plane and am a bit jet lagged.
  - Kurtz79 10y ago
    In general, "art" had a different meaning in past times compared to today. It was the subject of this very interesting excerpt by Knuth, recently posted by pg. http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html
  - feedjoelpie 10y ago
    Would you consider, as I would, the Yes Men's activities as both trolling and more or less good? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI
Animats 10y ago
Sounds like Aristotle had a bad day with Socrates.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  Yes. This post gives me words to express what I always thought: They killed Socrates for trolling.
  - igravious 10y ago
    I read something recently that Socrates was killed because he supported the wrong political faction during a time of conflict. When their enemies gained power they exacted revenge by framing him by accusing him of impiety and corrupting the youth (won't somebody think of the children?). Besides they gave him an out (exile), which he declined so he chose martyrdom and the rest is history as they say. But at this remove, who knows. Can't for the life of me remember where I read that or I'd post a link.
    - CM30 10y ago
      I heard it was because some of his students rebelled against the government, took over and ended up acting as tyrants for a certain amount of time. So he kind of got the blame for their actions, as the one who 'inspired' them.
      - igravious 10y ago
        I imagine he doesn't get called a gadfly for nothing. The only Platonic dialogue I can stand is The Symposium because Socrates' method of interrogation is elsewhere too annoying†. Maybe instead of "don't feed the trolls" we should say "don't feed the gadflies". † Having said that, I recently got out of the library Heyting's _Intuitionism: An Introduction_ and it's in fictional dialogue format initially which irritated me no end. (So maybe it's not Socrates but the form!) I guess I don't appreciate it as a teaching method but I can see why it is used especially if otherwise there would be a lot of back-and-forth question-response type segments in the text. Not a fan :)
basicplus2 10y ago
"of all merely asks a simple question about the evidence for climate change" i am working on 'an investigation into the sex life of sterile coat hangers with particular reference to climate change' myself.
ionwake 10y ago
Please excuse my ignorance, but can someone tell me where in that article Aristotle comes into play? I did not see any attributed quotes, unless I missed one? Thank you
- sevensor 10y ago
  This is very much in the style of Aristotle's writings. The parenthesized Greek words appear as if placed there by a translator who had to reach for an approximate word in English and wanted to be precise about the meaning of the original.
  - ionwake 10y ago
    >And indeed trolling is said in many ways; for some call ‘troll’ anyone who is abusive on the internet, but this is only the disagreeable person, or in newspaper comments the angry old man. Sorry but if this prose is not Aristotle than where are his quotes? Or is the article simply meant to be written in his style?
    - capnrefsmmat 10y ago
      The article is facetiously claimed to be written by Aristotle and merely translated by a modern scholar, Rachel Barney.
- JulianMorrison 10y ago
  It's pseudepigraphical.
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  It's stylistically the same as Aristotle's writings. Very well done.
stefandekanski 10y ago
Trolling is just subtle abuse by people with sociopathic tendencies
GrinningFool 10y ago
This is very well written, it reads like Aristotle indeed.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
JohnLeTigre 10y ago
sending a drawing of a spider to pay your bill is what I would call art when it comes to trolling
studentrob 10y ago
> Trolls <are> not to be fed. But though everyone knows this, everyone does it; for the desire to be right on the internet is natural and present to all. Trolling is fed by frustration, not discourse. Discourse does not have to be frustrating. How you react to it is entirely up to you. I'd argue there's no such thing as a troll. People aren't all bad or all good. Trolling is a concept of negativity that spreads when given more negativity.
SFJulie 10y ago
Making Aristotle be not "pissed" at troll? O_o Aristotle like Plato were so convince that being right mattered so much more than ethic that they did not care and resorted to any means to make their points; lying, fallacies, spinning the truth, using auhority (they loved auhthority). And they would call sophists (troll) anyone who they would consider opposing them and ridicule them. They were the bulliers of the wisdom. They were the prominent philosophs lobbying for the Republic because Athenes was a democracy, and rich people was paying Plato to attack the concept of democracy so that the wealthiest could finally rule the city. (which resulted in the fall of Athenes) Aristotle and Plato were more than trolls, they were assholes.
tomc1985 10y ago
Noone else noticed the slight dissonance of reading something like this on an academic journal? Knowing nothing of the context here, it certainly sounds like an interesting story
- pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
  I find it refreshing that there is a place for humor in otherwise “dry” contexts, such as academic journals. After all, the joke is obvious to the intended audience, or at least ought to be, and gets published for its own sake.
CDokolas 10y ago
I like the Greek word comments, they greatly help my understanding of the meanings (I'm Greek; Greek words have more nuance).
womplord 10y ago
I didn't know they had the internet in ancient Greece
mark_chosenberg 10y ago
Speaking of trolls and Ancient Greece philosophers... When you troll your community so bad they sentence you to death by drinking hemlock.
- tremon 10y ago
  Socrates is mentioned in the article, as an example of not-a-troll.
  - mark_chosenberg 10y ago
    Mentioned as not being a troll for "telling the truth"... Right, because "truth" is a completely not subjective concept. Aka: "it's only trolling when I disagree with the opinions being expressed"
    - tremon 10y ago
      it belongs not to the serious person to be a troll but to the one who lacks education
      - mark_chosenberg 10y ago
        Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige's wall there was this one: "Matters of great concern should be treated lightly." Master lttei commented, "Matters of small concern should be treated seriously."
chippy 10y ago
I think we, as hackers, are somewhat lucky when identifying trolls. This is because our projects, our work with computers encourages less ambiguity. For example, if a troll enters a thread and asks a question about why a product doesnt support feature X we can give good, rational answers. If they don't get our message and press forward with their ignorance we can dismiss them as troll. We, as hackers, as members of communities outside our work or projects (for example, as an enthusiastic invested consumer of Apple, or a enthusiastic FOSS evangelist) where there is more ambiguity in whats true or false are more susceptible towards trolls. In the first case there is a certainty about reality, and in the second the troll disturbs a fabricated reality based on social dynamics. For example, if I were to say that you as part of the HN community believes things on faith which are not real or true, but you only believe these things because the community you belong to wouldnt accept you if you went against the group, you be slightly offended. I would be trolling you, but I would also be speaking the truth. In both examples, trolls are outside the group, and the best way to identify a troll is to examine you and your peers within the group. How do you label the troll, how do you/they discuss the individual? Look at the words - "neckbeard" "basement" "not educated" "pyjamas" "troublesome" "problematic" - these are all commonly used to further exclude an individual from a group. Trolls can show group dynamics in action. Codes of Conduct in online communities are all about group dynamics and security and not about making the community more inclusive or diverse. CoCs are anti troll measures. In summary though - here is a radical idea. Without trolls your group is weaker. Its only by pointing out a threat to a group, by identifying what is not the group that the group is stronger. By fighting against trolls you defend your own investments in the groups and communities (no matter how fake and useless) you belong to.
- iopq 10y ago
  The fact that people still discuss spaces vs. tabs easily disproves your point. Vi vs. emacs? Again, group dynamics in action, and those discussions still end up in thousands of replies.
  - chippy 10y ago
    >your point I made several points in my comment :-) I imagine you were referring to the first point - that we, as hackers are lucky in our projects and work in that there is often good clarity as to likely questions, but that vi vs emacs means that there is no clarity. I believe that this is not a good example of our work and our close technical projects but rather that you are agreeing with my other points, that it's about social dynamics and people being invested in a certain community. That is, vi vs emacs is about groups, but it's not about trolling. A troll is an individual. An entire other community, whilst helping to define other communities by its opposition cannot be labelled a community of trolls. Most people do not consider 4chan to be a community of trolls, for example. I don't think there has ever been a community of trolls, and if there has, they have never identified themselves as such.
clishem 10y ago
A lecture about the same treatise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ. Very funny to see that the modern word 'trolling' is used in this translation.
- zellyn 10y ago
  Oh very nice.
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  Video was a nice find and complements the article well.
kolbe 10y ago
So, it's trolling if you use a Socratic dialogue to peddle falsehoods, but not trolling if you use it to tell truths? Who is the arbitrator of truth? I think of trolling more as the method of argument, rather than the content. And in this way, Socrates was a troll. It just so happens that not all trolls are bad. They just have a bad label.

180 points by diodorus 10y ago

Non-broken link http://crookedtimber.org/2016/05/07/aristotle-on-trolling/ http://crookedtimber.org/2016/05/07/aristotle-on-trolling/

javajosh 10y ago

I was unaware that people trolled for any other reason than amusement. Is there an estimate of how frequently people troll for calculated (e.g. monetary) reasons? So my take is that she says trolls act as a kind of solvent to the natural bonds of community, and she lists a few frequently used constructions. I suppose the only beneficial use of trolls and trolling is to destroy communities of little worth. If trolls successfully kill even one terrorist cell, can we really call them evil? (And I'm not trying to troll with that question, I'm serious!) EDIT: I mean "let's blow up a school bus of infidel spawn" type terrorist, not the "I'd rather not repeal the 1st, 4th, and 5th Amendments to feel more secure" type 'terrorist'.

paulgerhardt 10y ago
Trolling for factions: http://www.theweek.co.uk/64829/russias-troll-army-how-the-propaganda-factory-operates http://www.theweek.co.uk/64829/russias-troll-army-how-the-pr... Trolling for profit: https://www.reddit.com/r/shills/comments/3uoxpl/internet_shills_101/ https://www.reddit.com/r/shills/comments/3uoxpl/internet_shi...
emmelaich 10y ago
What was called 'griefing' is now called trolling too, unfortunately. I think trolling can be positive and well-done. I'd say Swift's "A Modest Proposal" is an example.
- vintermann 10y ago
  Swift is satire. People reading it weren't supposed to believe it was sincere. People use the word differently, but to me a troll is someone who really wants people to think he has opinions that he doesn't have - for whatever reason.
igravious 10y ago
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1555005/Seven-children-die-as-US-bombs-Afghan-school.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1555005/Seven-chil... Can we really call trolls evil if within a community they counteract group-think, wage a war on cliché, and subvert unthinking and tired stereotyping? Perhaps Aristotelian virtue theory can help us answer these questions?
- gandarojin 10y ago
  I wonder, is there a correlation between the telegraph.co.uk article and your comment?
- imakesnowflakes 10y ago
  This section from an essay I read recently [1] might be relavent here >In the 1960s, feminists faced social ridicule, media approbation and violent hostility. Now, mirroring the incremental changes seen in technology, social progress all too often finds itself down the blind alleyways of political correctness. Student bodies used to be hotbeds of dissent, even revolution; today’s hyper-conformist youth is more interested in the policing of language and stifling debate when it counters the prevailing wisdom. Forty years ago a burgeoning media allowed dissent to flower. Today’s very different social media seems, despite democratic appearances, to be enforcing a climate of timidity and encouraging groupthink. So we are conditioned by the social media to encourage groupthink, and so, we are conditioned to hate "trolls", when their behaviors threatens breaking groupthink. I see this manifested here in HN in discussions involving Tesla/SpaceX. In those threads, if you are in a position where you are going against the rabid enthusiasm, moderators will step in with a ban threat, if you are even slightly combative or go out of the line. But the other side is given a lot more slack, when it comes to silencing dissenting opinion.. [1] https://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in-science-and-technology-come-to-a-halt https://aeon.co/essays/has-progress-in-science-and-technolog...
mirimir 10y ago
Well: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/persona-management-software-544/ https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/per...

sdegutis 10y ago

Fwiw, "proper" trolling can be an art form. Done well, it can be a beautiful form of entertainment. Ken M's best (authentic) comments are a great example of this.

careersuicide 10y ago
I think you mean "a art".
GrinningFool 10y ago
So can puns, but that doesn't make them socially acceptable either.
- _vya7 10y ago
  What, like dad jokes? > I have a fear of speed bumps. Im slowly getting over it. Dad jokes are one of those things were people shake their heads and sigh, as if they're displeased, but internally they're laughing their butts off. ... Or maybe I only think that because I'm a dad?
  - GrinningFool 10y ago
    I think that's in the same category. Sadly, I have an affliction where I can resist no opportunity to pun. Or dad joke. It's a problem.
nailer 10y ago
Indeed. The first paragraph: > That trolling is a shameful thing, and that no one of sense would accept to be called ‘troll’, all are agreed No they are not. There are many smart, funny trolls who are quite happy to accept the label. I can understand the media getting confused between actual creative trolling and being particularly mean, but I'd expect more out of an academic publication.

kazinator 10y ago

> And this is how the troll generates strife. For what he indicates is known to be false or harmful or ignorant; but he does not say that thing, but rather something close. Haha, that is naive, or perhaps incomplete. Actually the "worst" trolls simply tell some uncomfortable truth (which isn't false or ignorant, and he who respects truth wouldn't dare call it harmful). That is to say, sometimes trolls disrupt communities that are formed around "group think", consisting of members who get together just to be around others who think the same way and avoid those who disagree with the shared ideas. If you surround yourself with others who confirm your opinions, then anyone who busts in with a dose of reality is a "troll". There are many forms of disruption, with many motivations, that all get lumped into the "troll" category.

kenko 10y ago
> Actually the "worst" trolls simply tell some uncomfortable truth (which isn't false or ignorant, and he who respects truth wouldn't dare call it harmful). Did you get to the part about Socrates?
danielvf 10y ago
Well played! That said, as the article points out the classic troll succeeds, not by appearing as an outside attacker to unite the community, but by posting in such a way that gets the community fighting among itself in response to the troll.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
One need not even tell a truth to troll - one can merely ask a question that has no good answer. These are my best trolls: "what are the underlying principles that lead you to believe X?" "what evidence - if any - would cause you to hold a different belief?" It's the best troll, because when folks come up with no answer they usually resort to ad-hominem attacks. That's usually how you know you've raised a very good point.
- etherael 10y ago
  Why would you call that a troll, rather than simple rational enquiry?

reality_czech 10y ago

I love the pseudo-ancient Greek diction. The phrasing, the vocabulary, and the abundance of nested clauses do really remind me of translations of Aristotle. The only way this could be better is if he replaced the references to modern things like Republicans, Democrats, etc. with Thracians, Spartans, and other ancient Greek stuff. At that point you could try to pass this off as actual Aristotle, which would itself be a brilliant act of trolling.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jallmann 10y ago

Book one of Plato's Republic led to my lightbulb moment: witness Socrates's lilt of annoyance at Thrasymachus's behavior, which is not too far from what is being described here. People have not changed fundamentally in the last 2,500 years. Reading that amused me to no end. Plato is how I was able to make peace with the legions of Internet message-board nerds. (And observe in myself the traits of a troll, at times.) > no one is ever a troll involuntarily or by accident, but only an idiot who has posted in the wrong thread. Then again -- was Thrasymachus just "posting in the wrong thread?" The second lightbulb moment was reading some of Antonin Scalia's judicial opinions. My approximate train of thought: "Whait, am I actually reading this? This is like something I'd downvote on Hacker News. Well, justices are temperamental and opinionated people too, just like the rest of us..." RIP.

visakanv 10y ago
Yep. It's funny to me that people turn to Medium for life advice, because Shakespeare, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca etc all wrote it down in incredible detail hundreds of years ago. I'm half-tempted to do modern translations of those old works and essays.

labster 10y ago

for there is no art in what they do. I couldn't disagree more. There is common trolling and there is sublime trolling. The ability to sow the perfect amount of strife to create real change is a thing of beauty. This goes beyond the tactics of information warfare -- for which trolling has its uses -- and reveals truth to those in ignorance. For most true knowledge cannot be learned by the advice of elders alone, but must be learned through the long and winding path. Many of life's truths are best revealed through fiction. This essay reads like it fears trolls and their threats to social order. But the way of discord and strife is also true. Did Eris not troll Olympus most excellently with her golden apple? Did she not reveal that divine folly was no less than mortal folly? This is the awesome power that is trolling in a skilled hand.

hguant 10y ago
Your comment relies on a misunderstanding of what Aristotle - or his proxie here - means by the term "art". In modern usage, something that has no art to it is base, simple, and requires no effort to achieve. However, art meant something more nuanced to Aristotle (that nuance is why people still make a living arguing over the implications of what he said). For Aristotle, an art was something that pointed to the Good. Politics was the art of governing men, Ethics was the art of ruling oneself. These things involved skill - the skill you allude to the troll possessing, the power to weave webs of words and manipulate people - but also involved something more - an understanding that the purpose of the art was to further a good in some way. When "Aristotle" says there's not art in the troll's activities, he means they do not point to the good, and they will in fact do harm. PS apologies if this isn't well reasoned, I just got off a plane and am a bit jet lagged.
- Kurtz79 10y ago
  In general, "art" had a different meaning in past times compared to today. It was the subject of this very interesting excerpt by Knuth, recently posted by pg. http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html
- feedjoelpie 10y ago
  Would you consider, as I would, the Yes Men's activities as both trolling and more or less good? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiWlvBro9eI

Animats 10y ago

Sounds like Aristotle had a bad day with Socrates.

adrianratnapala 10y ago
Yes. This post gives me words to express what I always thought: They killed Socrates for trolling.
- igravious 10y ago
  I read something recently that Socrates was killed because he supported the wrong political faction during a time of conflict. When their enemies gained power they exacted revenge by framing him by accusing him of impiety and corrupting the youth (won't somebody think of the children?). Besides they gave him an out (exile), which he declined so he chose martyrdom and the rest is history as they say. But at this remove, who knows. Can't for the life of me remember where I read that or I'd post a link.
  - CM30 10y ago
    I heard it was because some of his students rebelled against the government, took over and ended up acting as tyrants for a certain amount of time. So he kind of got the blame for their actions, as the one who 'inspired' them.
    - igravious 10y ago
      I imagine he doesn't get called a gadfly for nothing. The only Platonic dialogue I can stand is The Symposium because Socrates' method of interrogation is elsewhere too annoying†. Maybe instead of "don't feed the trolls" we should say "don't feed the gadflies". † Having said that, I recently got out of the library Heyting's _Intuitionism: An Introduction_ and it's in fictional dialogue format initially which irritated me no end. (So maybe it's not Socrates but the form!) I guess I don't appreciate it as a teaching method but I can see why it is used especially if otherwise there would be a lot of back-and-forth question-response type segments in the text. Not a fan :)

basicplus2 10y ago

"of all merely asks a simple question about the evidence for climate change" i am working on 'an investigation into the sex life of sterile coat hangers with particular reference to climate change' myself.

ionwake 10y ago

Please excuse my ignorance, but can someone tell me where in that article Aristotle comes into play? I did not see any attributed quotes, unless I missed one? Thank you

sevensor 10y ago
This is very much in the style of Aristotle's writings. The parenthesized Greek words appear as if placed there by a translator who had to reach for an approximate word in English and wanted to be precise about the meaning of the original.
- ionwake 10y ago
  >And indeed trolling is said in many ways; for some call ‘troll’ anyone who is abusive on the internet, but this is only the disagreeable person, or in newspaper comments the angry old man. Sorry but if this prose is not Aristotle than where are his quotes? Or is the article simply meant to be written in his style?
  - capnrefsmmat 10y ago
    The article is facetiously claimed to be written by Aristotle and merely translated by a modern scholar, Rachel Barney.
JulianMorrison 10y ago
It's pseudepigraphical.
GrinningFool 10y ago
It's stylistically the same as Aristotle's writings. Very well done.

stefandekanski 10y ago

Trolling is just subtle abuse by people with sociopathic tendencies

GrinningFool 10y ago

This is very well written, it reads like Aristotle indeed.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

JohnLeTigre 10y ago

sending a drawing of a spider to pay your bill is what I would call art when it comes to trolling

studentrob 10y ago

> Trolls <are> not to be fed. But though everyone knows this, everyone does it; for the desire to be right on the internet is natural and present to all. Trolling is fed by frustration, not discourse. Discourse does not have to be frustrating. How you react to it is entirely up to you. I'd argue there's no such thing as a troll. People aren't all bad or all good. Trolling is a concept of negativity that spreads when given more negativity.

SFJulie 10y ago

Making Aristotle be not "pissed" at troll? O_o Aristotle like Plato were so convince that being right mattered so much more than ethic that they did not care and resorted to any means to make their points; lying, fallacies, spinning the truth, using auhority (they loved auhthority). And they would call sophists (troll) anyone who they would consider opposing them and ridicule them. They were the bulliers of the wisdom. They were the prominent philosophs lobbying for the Republic because Athenes was a democracy, and rich people was paying Plato to attack the concept of democracy so that the wealthiest could finally rule the city. (which resulted in the fall of Athenes) Aristotle and Plato were more than trolls, they were assholes.

tomc1985 10y ago

Noone else noticed the slight dissonance of reading something like this on an academic journal? Knowing nothing of the context here, it certainly sounds like an interesting story

pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
I find it refreshing that there is a place for humor in otherwise “dry” contexts, such as academic journals. After all, the joke is obvious to the intended audience, or at least ought to be, and gets published for its own sake.

CDokolas 10y ago

I like the Greek word comments, they greatly help my understanding of the meanings (I'm Greek; Greek words have more nuance).

womplord 10y ago

I didn't know they had the internet in ancient Greece

mark_chosenberg 10y ago

Speaking of trolls and Ancient Greece philosophers... When you troll your community so bad they sentence you to death by drinking hemlock.

tremon 10y ago
Socrates is mentioned in the article, as an example of not-a-troll.
- mark_chosenberg 10y ago
  Mentioned as not being a troll for "telling the truth"... Right, because "truth" is a completely not subjective concept. Aka: "it's only trolling when I disagree with the opinions being expressed"
  - tremon 10y ago
    it belongs not to the serious person to be a troll but to the one who lacks education
    - mark_chosenberg 10y ago
      Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige's wall there was this one: "Matters of great concern should be treated lightly." Master lttei commented, "Matters of small concern should be treated seriously."

chippy 10y ago

I think we, as hackers, are somewhat lucky when identifying trolls. This is because our projects, our work with computers encourages less ambiguity. For example, if a troll enters a thread and asks a question about why a product doesnt support feature X we can give good, rational answers. If they don't get our message and press forward with their ignorance we can dismiss them as troll. We, as hackers, as members of communities outside our work or projects (for example, as an enthusiastic invested consumer of Apple, or a enthusiastic FOSS evangelist) where there is more ambiguity in whats true or false are more susceptible towards trolls. In the first case there is a certainty about reality, and in the second the troll disturbs a fabricated reality based on social dynamics. For example, if I were to say that you as part of the HN community believes things on faith which are not real or true, but you only believe these things because the community you belong to wouldnt accept you if you went against the group, you be slightly offended. I would be trolling you, but I would also be speaking the truth. In both examples, trolls are outside the group, and the best way to identify a troll is to examine you and your peers within the group. How do you label the troll, how do you/they discuss the individual? Look at the words - "neckbeard" "basement" "not educated" "pyjamas" "troublesome" "problematic" - these are all commonly used to further exclude an individual from a group. Trolls can show group dynamics in action. Codes of Conduct in online communities are all about group dynamics and security and not about making the community more inclusive or diverse. CoCs are anti troll measures. In summary though - here is a radical idea. Without trolls your group is weaker. Its only by pointing out a threat to a group, by identifying what is not the group that the group is stronger. By fighting against trolls you defend your own investments in the groups and communities (no matter how fake and useless) you belong to.

iopq 10y ago
The fact that people still discuss spaces vs. tabs easily disproves your point. Vi vs. emacs? Again, group dynamics in action, and those discussions still end up in thousands of replies.
- chippy 10y ago
  >your point I made several points in my comment :-) I imagine you were referring to the first point - that we, as hackers are lucky in our projects and work in that there is often good clarity as to likely questions, but that vi vs emacs means that there is no clarity. I believe that this is not a good example of our work and our close technical projects but rather that you are agreeing with my other points, that it's about social dynamics and people being invested in a certain community. That is, vi vs emacs is about groups, but it's not about trolling. A troll is an individual. An entire other community, whilst helping to define other communities by its opposition cannot be labelled a community of trolls. Most people do not consider 4chan to be a community of trolls, for example. I don't think there has ever been a community of trolls, and if there has, they have never identified themselves as such.

clishem 10y ago

A lecture about the same treatise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ. Very funny to see that the modern word 'trolling' is used in this translation.

zellyn 10y ago
Oh very nice.
GrinningFool 10y ago
Video was a nice find and complements the article well.

kolbe 10y ago

So, it's trolling if you use a Socratic dialogue to peddle falsehoods, but not trolling if you use it to tell truths? Who is the arbitrator of truth? I think of trolling more as the method of argument, rather than the content. And in this way, Socrates was a troll. It just so happens that not all trolls are bad. They just have a bad label.