Some people may be worried that if they have discussions with me, they’ll end up called out and exposed in a blog post attacking them. So I want to clarify who I do that to and why.
A callout post is one where I’m trying to draw public attention to a problem I’m having with someone who has mistreated me.
I call out people who violate my rights. That requires things like getting banned and then ban evading to post harassment on my sites, like Andy B. Or persistently lying about being coached and mentored by me, like Rami Rustom did, so I needed to deny that. Or spreading really nasty lies about me, such as Dennis Hackethal’s lie that I threatened him with violence or David Deutsch’s lie that I broke several requests to stop contacting him. Plagiarizing my ideas is also something I will blog about if you refuse to fix it. (I mention that because it’s debatable whether plagiarism is a rights violation).
I also frequently criticize public figures regarding publicly available information like their writing. And I also have critical discussions on forums, but if a non-public-figure loses a debate with me I don’t go call them out on my blog. My goal in those discussions isn’t to call public attention to the flaws of my discussion partners.
Let’s discuss some examples of callouts I’ve done.
I never blogged about Rustom when he was just some fan who was bad at learning. I never mocked him for stuff that many people would laugh at. I still didn’t blog about him after he wrote a book heavily plagiarizing me, because he apologized and took it down instead of ending communication (as Hackethal did about his plagiarized book). Rustom merely got one negative blog post after I found out he was lying to people about his association with me – and I was unable to get the matter resolved privately – so I considered it necessary to publicly deny association with him. He was actually using my name to try to sell his business coaching products. In response to me making it harder for him to sell my name for his profit, Rustom further violated my rights by making threats, escalating his threats, sharing a private recording, lying about me, and spamming my blog. My restrained response was merely to update my one blog post to cover the new developments.
I never blogged about Hackethal when he was just some guy who had admitted to me (with no reasonable expectation of privacy) that he was a second-handed social climber who cared about reputation over truth. Hackethal quit my community (at least I thought he did – but I later discovered he’d kept reading my blog in order to include mangled versions of my posts in his book without credit) because, basically, he thinks I’m autistic. He wanted to interact with people who are more responsive to social hints instead of reasoned statements or explicit requests – but I didn’t publicize his bigoted, ableist attitude. I only blogged about Hackethal due to his book plagiarizing my ideas and his involvement in harassment (including his public collaboration with Andy B, his libel against me, and his role in the DDoSing of this website). I know which woke, cancel-culture-friendly employer Hackethal works for but I never contacted them or named them because, even when extremely provoked, I act with restraint.
Before he harassed me, I never cared or talked about Andy B rage quitting my group over an intellectual disagreement. I still didn’t blog about the issue after he initially harassed me and got caught. I only made a big deal of it after I discovered he was behind months of extensive sock puppeting (using false identities) and harassment. I’ve always been tolerant of rude posters and minor, short-lived harassment.
Everyone I’ve called out got multiple warnings first. I tried to speak privately with Rustom, Hackethal, Andy B and Deutsch before blogging anything negative about them.
The point is, those people did really bad and easily avoidable things, and then persisted and amplified the issues when given multiple opportunities to change course. Anyone who wants to can avoid doing what they did and getting called out. It’s easy. I’m actually more tolerant than most people and I try to resolve things privately first. In each case, I only called people out on my blog after they refused to try to solve the problem privately.
I focus my blog criticism on public intellectuals and on people who initiate substantial force against me plus refuse communication. So if you aren’t going to do that, you’ve got nothing to fear.
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