Difference between verbal griefing and the right to be hatefull?

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Robert A. Heinlein

I have to agree a bit with Xio - the standard definition of griefing is to intentionally harrass. Far too many people in SL have decided that anything they don't like or approve of is griefing, without regard to intent. If I build a structure you find ugly that isn't griefing. When I build something specificially to antagonize you, that is griefing. Some people just want attention and negative attention is still attention in their eyes.

Someone in another thread mentioned how in many games the sound of an American accent turns people off, and "warned " us to be prepared for if voice ever shows up on the main grid. (Thanks for the heads up. If someone is going to prejudge someone based on their nationality as percieved by how their voice sounds, I don't want to waste my time with them anyway.) This humorous anecdote shows it's not waiting for voice to happen.

I was in a certain Irish Sim, sitting at the bar, listening to music. and cleanig out my inventory. A fellow was dancing by himself nearby. he IM'ed me.

Him: Bonjour
Me: Hello
hime Parlez vous Francais?
Meorry, no.
Him: Oh, you don't speak French. Are you in Ireland, or England?
Me:Neither. I'm American. No response.
He was rather new, so I asked: Are you enjoying Second Life So far?
A brief silence, then
"Sorry, I don't speak English".

Now I guess it's possible all the English this fellow knew in the world had just been relayed to me in that conversation, but I had to chuckle, shake my head and wish him a good day.

Speak softly and carry a big stick.
Theodore Roosevelt

I love Heinlein. I read Stranger in a Strange Land and afterwards had such a crush on Michael Valentine.

I guess my cane would count as a big stick. But I prefer a Government Model 1911.

But with the cane you dont have to accessorize

That doesn't make any sense to me. Of course you have to accessorize with a cane. There are different types of canes, different colors, different materials used to make the cane, and each type will require adequate clothing/jewerly/shoes/hair style/etc.

I was counting the cane as an accessory

Please note that I didn't write against the military in general, but against the drill sergeant types who do the breaking down part of the training you mentioned. That's no way to treat a human being in the 21st century. Break someone, rebuild and mold him? It's a form of brainwashing, only with physical forms of humiliation and punishment involved. I'm absolutely sure one could train a soldier the same way as any other worker is trained, with some respect and civility.

And I didn't write anything against hard-working people like coal miners etc. I clearly described a certain type of person with a certain sadistic mindset, misusing their power to humiliate people and break their spirit. If you belong to that group, you're free to feel insulted. If you never treated people like dirt, I didn't mean you.

The breaking down is also part of the conditioning required to overcome the innate adversion to taking a human life - one of the biggest obsticles for training soldiers.

I had a professor who was involved in Writing examinations to sort out Police candidates when He explained the different criteria it led to a pretty in depth discussion on these sorts of things.

Since we were (generally) liberal college kids we didnt understand the needs for these sorts of things either.

I guess from a basic level it makes sense - if you need to train someone to do something very base and primitive such as killing, using a very base and primitive training method is effective.

It is worth noting domestic violence statistics for women married to soldiers is measurably higher than the general population, so there definitely must be room for improvement.

Actually, my Drill Instructor was very educated, soft spoken and humble when not training a bunch of !@#%#$%#@$%##'s the proper way to do things. As for training a soldier the same way we train other workers, well how many other workers are forced to kill other human beings? How many other workers face holding their buddy's guts in their lap as he dies? Yes a warrior can show respect and civility, Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson are prime examples. I never met a member of the military that didn't hate their Drill Instructor during training, but didn't admire and respect him afterwards.


Your statement was the people who were needed when we "threw pointy things at animals". These people are the blue collar workers of today.

That's what you interpreted into it, not what I wrote. I think I made pretty clear what type of person I wrote against; people who enjoy a position of power where they can harrass, insult and humiliate people in a way that is no longer tolerated in any other area of a modern civilization.

I don't think that soldiers need to be turned into war machines who blindly follow orders, only because they might have to kill someone. I assume every person would be able to kill if they have to defend their lifes. And no one should be taught to kill on command without thinking. Especially police and military forces should always use their own judgement, in case the wrong people gain political power someday.

Griefing or simply being Unpleasent?
Personally, i don't see the need for either, But i believe it Is possible for one to be unpleasant without being Classed as a griefer. The problem is most rude, or unpleasent people are completely unaware that they are being so. In expressing themselves people can be Abrupt, Condecending, Contrary, or Negative. It isn't done specificly or Intentionally to be disruptive it is simply a Character trait (Flaw?). No Malice is Intended. The Good thing is people with these Challenges Can still be Very good friends, and Good people in general. With patience the more abrasive aspects of thier personality can be attenuated, and they can learn to express themselves in a more posative manner without compromising thier opinions or principles. The problem isn't with what they are saying so much with how they are saying it.
When one uses patience in Speaking to people one can very quickly determine if someone is intentionally causing trouble as opposed to simply expressing themselves poorly. The difference is, the Griefer Cannot in any way be reasoned with because his Intent is to be Unreasonable. he has no Opinion, or point of View, he Possesses only Invective and a need to distinguish Himself by Drawing attention to himself in the Only fashion that has, to date proved effective for him.

There is a Fair Difference, and sufficient that The two should not be clumped together as one. As we have determined before in Other thread variations on the question of "What makes a griefer?" The answer still seems to hinge on Intent.

Angel.

Hmm.. I define rude/hostile as differing from griefing. Wikipedia has a very interesting breakdown of the term griefing, by the way.

Simply put, if the person is doing it to merely annoy me, it's not griefing until they decide to orbit me. At which point, that crosses the line into the realm of 'physical.' Verbal/type alone is simply harassment, and AR'd differently. (Not that I AR most harassment, because mute is a wonderful tool!)

Someone simply being rude to me might wind up being mocked derisively or simply ignored. But they will not earn respect from me. Why should I treat a person who decided to be hateful/rude to ME with any sort of caring or concern? I also judge how others behave and act in regards to others, via what I witness. I do try to find out the reasons behind certain behaviors.. darn curiosity.

I am not one of the typically aggressive types and I can be down right blunt, which can also be considered rude. I tend to be blunt when I can't find a reasonable approach to what I need/want to say.

wilhelm's definition of griefing = if someone comes into my relaxation times and makes it not so relaxing and I log off because i'm no longer having fun then I consider myself "griefed". Would I report them? Probably not if they did it again I might. In other words if someone starts making my life miserable and I'm not payd to take the misery then its grief well at least it is to me. I ignore all wiki's, dictionarys and other such books. if i end up muting someone it means i was griefed. If I end up banning them I was griefed. If i end up reporting them I was griefed. If its in the time where I am paid to take such "grief" eg at work I consider it part of the job and ignore such things and deal with them completely differently or find another job. I dont think grief can be defined really because we are all different types of people so if whatever is being done to us during our fun time in SL makes us stop having that fun and leave or go elsewhere I would say that person is griefed. Yes words can cause grief just as easily as orbiting someone can in fact I find it less grieving to be orbitted beacuse it only takes up 2 minutes of my time to deal with it then to deal with a baragge of nasty IM's from a guy and his 20 alts. (its only happened once to me but it took more energy to deal with that then the orbiting in a cage thingy and caused me to log off)

If you don't submit to the principles of the process, that means you will either quit yourself, or be thrown out - so that's not too surprising. (I'm sure there are some who get through but after X centuries of military practice, you'd expect the system to be fairly good at recognising them by now.)

Here is what you wrote.

"People like army instructors or football coaches often belong to a genetic phenotype that was no longer needed when the human race stopped throwing heavy or pointy things at animals in order to kill them and started to breed lifestock. But they never go extinct, because they always elbow themselves into a position of power and always manage to find some poor, shy woman who falls for the chauvinistic caveman type, whom they can elbow around in the bedroom in order to breed more close-minded knuckleheads."

I don't see what harassment and abuse have to do with the job of hunting for the clan. It is the "genetic phenotype" that you are insulting that does the hard jobs in your "civilization".

The question I would ask you, have you ever, with your own hands, taken the life of another warm blooded creature? Could you? Would you? I have. It meant meat on the table for my family. It meant the wild predator would be stopped from preying on my animals and the animals of my neighbors.

When I was in, the only way to quit was to declare yourself a homosexual or claim a history of drug abuse, and you had to convince a shrink that you had committed either act. As for being thrown out, that was usually preceded by time in the brig.

People are quite capable of getting themselves thrown out, even with those requirements, if they really want to.

Military candidates are also self-selecting, too, which would tend to make it more likely that particular personality types will join. I imagine things would be rather different if conscripts were involved.

These principles have changed over time once upon a time yes this was the way it was err what is that movie? Platoon? was accurate but only during the time period for which it was made. Recently in the last 15 years or so they had to change that practice, but I remember going to school with a guy who was given one of two choices hehe to go to jail or the military (he chose the military of course) and I remember the description of what he was put through which was that stuff where they were made to feel like pond scum etc. Unfortunately it backfired in some cases and they had a few incidents of murder and suicide so about 15 years ago if not later then that they had to remove some of that stuff because of it.

Although basic training is stil obviously not a pleasant experience they dont use as much of those methods as in previous times because it did cause problems also the roles of military over times change and to create a pile of animal peacekeepers patrolling a boarder was not a good thing hehe. They had to find a balance and to my knowledge although the last person I spoke to this was now about 8 years ago they are no longer allowed to do this in basic training. So yes it has changed, how much I dont know as the the person didn't qualify what they meant but it was in referance to a film hehe and I remember it clearly because the descriptions that I remember of young guys who had gone through basic training matched. This is no longer the case though

Yep. People like army instructors or football coaches often (not always) etc. With that sentence, I made pretty clear which type of people I was referring to. They were useful in times we needed to hunt mammoths and defend the clan against cavebears. I didn't say that all hunters are evil, and that only these types could have done the job.

And yes, I'm capable of taking the life of an animal, although I hate to do that. My family always had cats, and when they got bored playing with their prey and left a half-dead mouse or bird (even young rabbits in case of one cat) crawling over the terrace, I put them out of their misery. I'd also be capable of killing an animal in order to get food onto the table if I had to, I guess, but I see no reason to do so if I can buy meat that is free of all pathogenic germs in the next store.

In Germany we have a compulsory military service for all males. It's quite hard to avoid getting drawn; the only way out is to do alternative civilian service in hospitals and other institutions, basically slave labor. Once you're in the army, there's no way to get out for a year, other than by self-mutilation or suicide.

It's always said to be strenghtening, character-forming etc., even if some young people perish there or get messed up for their whole life. That's why I react so strongly when I read that humiliating drill is somehow good for one's education.

tell her 2 x!!!!!!

look it trick...i'm just tryin to spread knowledge to the world!

Knowledge + Unintelligibility = Failure to spread knowledge.