Quote:
Originally Posted by PsYcNeT
That's a hell of a galaxy-brained take to assume that you can't assess someone's post history/contextual interactions and glean what kind of biases they hold.
Really?
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You certainly can't. You don't have a slate of analytical tools to bring to bear, nor do you have any data outside of what's been posted on a vbulletin board. There are a thousand reasons why someone might take a position on any given subject. Let's be perfectly honest, you're not about to undertake a project of researching, categorizing and analyzing the history of the poster you want to call a racist to ensure that your hypothesis about him is free from motivated reasoning (after all, you're only engaging in this project because you don't like what he has to say and suspect he might be a bad person). That's not what's going on here.
Hell, I'll throw you a bone... If, each time you want to accuse someone of being a racist, you review their posting history and provide evidence to support your contention - not by simply mining for things you can spin to support your side, but honestly assessing those statements in context, and looking for contrary evidence that could disconfirm your hypothesis, and you then post the steps that led you to that conclusion, you might have a point. If memory serves, someone did at least a half-assed version of that with regard to one poster's use of the word "thug" in here - noting that they only ever used it with regard to black athletes. If you want to point out something like that, go nuts. But don't point to a position someone might have taken for any of a dozen reasons and accuse them of taking it because they're just a bad person. That's irrational and unfair.