Monbiot on tour - "come and have an argument"!

[williamp]

hornetrider said:

tinman0 said:

monbiot said:

But let's drop the vitriolic abuse, and stop suggesting that those with whom you disagree should be hurt or killed.

stuff

I'm sorry, I couldn't disagree more, it's all part of the irreverant comedy that makes PH what it is. Anyone who can't tell the jest from the serious needs their head looking at.

That is part of the problem. Compare Pistonheads with Mumsnet. Both websites and forums. Both with (probably) simmilar numbers of members. Both with, I bet simmilar demographic backgrounds (exclude the man, woman, but backround, household income etc).

One person on Mumsnet complains (rightly so) about the lack of care for her child, and it gets into the press, and the PM will writer her a personal letter.

People write here about genuine issues- businesses failing becaue of banks withdrawing overdeafts and breaking lives, cancer, the unfairness of the CSA etc etc. And most replies (myself included on occassion) get the "irreverant comedy" which means nobody will take the post, or the poster seriously.

As a motorists website, we could acheive so much more. Its a shame

Anyhow, As MOnboit reads this, a question I would ask is: now the fuel is increasing as you wish, is this what you really wanted?

[wolves_wanderer]

So he advocates drowning airline executives, that being banter cos he said it...but everything we say is a serious death threat is it? Clown.

[Johnnytheboy]

wolves_wanderer said:

So he advocates drowning airline executives, that being banter cos he said it...but everything we say is a serious death threat is it? Clown.

"As anyone who isn't being wilfully stupid can see, this comment was ironic."

Obviously the threats to kill Monbiot/Toynbee weren't ironic enough for someone as wilfully stupid as Monbiot to pick up on.

[The real Apache]

tinman0 said:

hornetrider said:

I don't write what I write on here for the benefit of 'outsiders' or indeed with any thought to the consequences.

Problem is that you are writing on a public forum.....

Regardless of humour, there has to be a line drawn, and that line has to be personal threats, whether said as humour or not. It demeans the argument, it demeans PH, and it's not really cricket at the end of the day.

Have either of you two heard of Mary Williams? a similar thing happened years ago and someone, not her, took it to the Bill, it got a bit tense till the Police realised it was a load of codswallop. We're between a rock and a hard place but I tend to agree with tinman, we are in the public eye now so, maybe, should leave the personal banter about what we'd like to do to Brown/Blair/Dinnerjacket/Kim Sun Il/ etc to CTF

[CommanderJameson]

hornetrider said:

I don't write what I write on here for the benefit of 'outsiders' or indeed with any thought to the consequences.

Unfortunately this is a public forum that requires no registration to read, so your approach is probably unwise.

Whether the misfortune will land on you or on Haymarket, though, is a different question.

[BOR]

tinman0 said:

monbiot said:

But let's drop the vitriolic abuse, and stop suggesting that those with whom you disagree should be hurt or killed.

Trouble is guys, he does have a point here.

Yes we do disagree with him, but even I felt that posters resorted to the "death to the disbelievers" line just a bit quickly. I know it's done in jest, but it can be taken the wrong way. Whatever your feelings are for the man, it's probably not the nicest thing to find people jesting about doing you harm on a public forum.

I agree with Tinman, with the small qualifier that I have no doubt that self-publicist GM understands this was trivial banter, but had bated a fairly transparent hook, and waited for some soundbites he could quote.

As someone else on the thread has already said, he's got the microphone now, and he can bend and distort PH quotes however he wants.

One-nil to GM so far. The only way to deal with someone like this is denial of the oxygen of publicity, or, by sticking to quoting of facts in the debate, without emotive comments.

[AndrewW-G]

The real Apache said:

tinman0 said:

hornetrider said:

I don't write what I write on here for the benefit of 'outsiders' or indeed with any thought to the consequences.

Problem is that you are writing on a public forum.....

Regardless of humour, there has to be a line drawn, and that line has to be personal threats, whether said as humour or not. It demeans the argument, it demeans PH, and it's not really cricket at the end of the day.

Have either of you two heard of Mary Williams? a similar thing happened years ago and someone, not her, took it to the Bill, it got a bit tense till the Police realised it was a load of codswallop. We're between a rock and a hard place but I tend to agree with tinman, we are in the public eye now so, maybe, should leave the personal banter about what we'd like to do to Brown/Blair/Dinnerjacket/Kim Sun Il/ etc to CTF

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, IMHO to change PH to fit in with their PC over sensitive stupidity is to destroy the essence of the NP&E section and as always the problem with this sort of self-censorship is that as with the labour government’s response to terrorists, as soon as we change our ways to fit in with their actions, we have lost and they have won.

Would it not be better to simply ensure that any such references are obviously nonsense . . . . . “We should shoot him in the face with a glock” could be taken seriously by the casual observer, however “we should shoot him in the face with a Howitzer” is very obviously nonsense, even to a complete ego surfing idiot like Moonbat

[pilchardthecat]

I'm now stuck with something of a dilemma. I like pistonheads as it allows me to vent, and become something of a caricature of myself (i don't actually drive around making wker signs to every Audi with those stupid lights).

If i'm going to have to behave in the same way on here as i would in the "real world" i might as well stop posting.

[The real Apache]

AndrewW-G said:

The real Apache said:

tinman0 said:

hornetrider said:

I don't write what I write on here for the benefit of 'outsiders' or indeed with any thought to the consequences.

Problem is that you are writing on a public forum.....

Regardless of humour, there has to be a line drawn, and that line has to be personal threats, whether said as humour or not. It demeans the argument, it demeans PH, and it's not really cricket at the end of the day.

Have either of you two heard of Mary Williams? a similar thing happened years ago and someone, not her, took it to the Bill, it got a bit tense till the Police realised it was a load of codswallop. We're between a rock and a hard place but I tend to agree with tinman, we are in the public eye now so, maybe, should leave the personal banter about what we'd like to do to Brown/Blair/Dinnerjacket/Kim Sun Il/ etc to CTF

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, IMHO to change PH to fit in with their PC over sensitive stupidity is to destroy the essence of the NP&E section and as always the problem with this sort of self-censorship is that as with the labour government’s response to terrorists, as soon as we change our ways to fit in with their actions, we have lost and they have won.

Would it not be better to simply ensure that any such references are obviously nonsense . . . . . “We should shoot him in the face with a glock” could be taken seriously by the casual observer, however “we should shoot him in the face with a Howitzer” is very obviously nonsense, even to a complete ego surfing idiot like Moonbat

Andrew, it's not about changing our ways it's about thinking ahead of the game, if Monbiot wanted to he could kick up another PR ststorm as before and it would put PH in a bad light, Haymarket would be forced to make another public apology and it would be another blow for the site. All you sacrifice to avoid this is?

[BOR]

You can continue to post like a , but you have to judge whether those posts could be (mis)used.

[AndrewW-G]

The real Apache said:

All you sacrifice to avoid this is?

One of the primary things that for me at least, makes this forum fun

[The real Apache]

AndrewW-G said:

The real Apache said:

All you sacrifice to avoid this is?

One of the primary things that for me at least, makes this forum fun

making imaginary threats against people you don't like? because that's all it's about

[pilchardthecat]

AndrewW-G said:

The real Apache said:

All you sacrifice to avoid this is?

One of the primary things that for me at least, makes this forum fun

+1 life is so constrained by rules these days, the internet and the anonymity that comes with it allows people to let off steam. Take that away and it loses much of it's appeal.
I would say everyone who uses the internet behaves differently to one degree or another, than they would in person. Hence it's unreliability as a source.

[CommanderJameson]

AndrewW-G said:

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, IMHO to change PH to fit in with their PC over sensitive stupidity is to destroy the essence of the NP&E section and as always the problem with this sort of self-censorship is that as with the labour government’s response to terrorists, as soon as we change our ways to fit in with their actions, we have lost and they have won.

I think you're overstating things somewhat here. What, exactly, have you lost if you have to state your position in a calm way, without "comedy" death threats?

AndrewW-G said:

Would it not be better to simply ensure that any such references are obviously nonsense . . . . . “We should shoot him in the face with a glock” could be taken seriously by the casual observer, however “we should shoot him in the face with a Howitzer” is very obviously nonsense, even to a complete ego surfing idiot like Moonbat

If you want to win a debate with Monbiot, it needs to be framed in such a way that it can be taken seriously.

This thread basically hands round one to George, which I very much doubt was the intent of any of the participants.

[AndrewW-G]

The real Apache said:

AndrewW-G said:

The real Apache said:

All you sacrifice to avoid this is?

One of the primary things that for me at least, makes this forum fun

making imaginary threats against people you don't like? because that's all it's about

That makes perfect sense . . . . . however so does - Ranting on here is for me an effective way of venting my frustration over things that are out of my control

However I cede your point and in threads relating to Moonbat will agree that for the greater good, I will not proffer my opinion that he should be dipped head first into boiling motor oil / Nuked from orbit by an MX5 / shot in the face with a Howitzer / taken up the OXO tower by Winky etc. etc.

[The real Apache]

AndrewW-G said:

The real Apache said:

AndrewW-G said:

The real Apache said:

All you sacrifice to avoid this is?

One of the primary things that for me at least, makes this forum fun

making imaginary threats against people you don't like? because that's all it's about

That makes perfect sense . . . . . however so does - Ranting on here is for me an effective way of venting my frustration over things that are out of my control

However I cede your point and in threads relating to Moonbat will agree that for the greater good, I will not proffer my opinion that he should be dipped head first into boiling motor oil / Nuked from orbit by an MX5 / shot in the face with a Howitzer / taken up the OXO tower by Winky etc. etc.

Nice one, you know, it just occured to me that Monbiot knows we monitor his site so did this to attract some traffic?

[hornetrider]

CommanderJameson said:

I think you're overstating things somewhat here. What, exactly, have you lost if you have to state your position in a calm way, without "comedy" death threats?

Er, the comedy?

[AndrewW-G]

The real Apache said:

you know, it just occured to me that Monbiot knows we monitor his site so did this to attract some traffic?

Has it got some form of advertising on it?

[audidoody]

If Mr Monbiot is such a delicate flower he should also refer his grievances about imagined threats against his person to The Daily Mash:

"Can we all please now return to some kind of sanity and tie George Monbiot to the back of a Range Rover?"

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/environment/cli...

The man has now shown himself to be an outlandish figure of fun who takes himself seriously to a degree that transcends the normal boundaries of behaviour for a 'journalist' who makes a living out of publicising his strange world view.

Edited by audidoody on Monday 24th January 09:42

[IainT]

LongQ said:

Someone seems to have upset that nice mild Mr. Monbiot.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbio...

It's a little disturbing that Monbiot is allowed to be ironic but the obviously ironic posts in this thread aren't.

Apparently random posters on a backwater thread are more likely to garner direct action against George than his fantasising about killing the CEOs of airlines.

His argument has about as much credibility and validity as the arguments for his beloved green causes. None.