Re: Fall River/New Bedford Commuter Rail
Is the solution to poo-slinging itself more poo-slinging? Can we stop perpetuating such comments and get back to analysis of the project at hand?
What I saw of what Rover said is pointing out a bunch of posts before have was speculating things real estate owners are what driving this project and etc which we have seen zero evidence. And Rover getting a little hostile by saying "maybe you're not as smart as you think you are". That is a little hostile but that's far less hostile responding the post is "anti-intellectual shitposting".
And Rifleman keeps devolving his posts into making it about Liberals and Conservatives and stuff. I fail to see how Rover saying "maybe you're not as smart as you think you are" and pointing that the previous posts really did speculate without evidence of things like real estate speculation is in the same category.
If you to see what is shitposting, go look up Armpitsofmight's posts on this site (interestingly, he perfected how to shitpost before that term was even coined). Go to reddit.com/r/memes more examples of shitposting. Rover's post is not shitposting.
But I guess that is besides the point. Getting into semantics doesn't address you point which if Rover is arguing in bad faith. That's called trolling - that meaning ranges a bit but the crux is if Rover is just making arguments to trigger arguments and other reactions without genuine belief in the arguments.
Do I agree he is trolling? Well, I don't have the confidence in my own readings on that. He seems genuine in his belief to me. Either I don't have the expertise to see how bad his arguments or I just cannot agree he is trolling.
I do want to note that your assessment sounds correct that Phase 1 is bad.
I was going to let it go, because (perhaps) there are more appropriate places to litigate what one feels about members of this site who are unnecessarily inflammatory, trollish, or obvious trolls. But, since, as trolls do, Rover has continued to fuel the fire I will respond to these remarks here.
What I was referring to, and what F-Line was quite definitely referring to in his initial remark that kicked off this whole spat, was not simply Rover's most recent post, but his history on this site of [what I would most definitely call] shitposting. His general modus operandi is to to wade in with snipes but then back away when confronted, using facts very selectively, and making not-so-subtle digs at people who disagree with him and then NOT RESPONDING in detail to the thoughtful, reasoned counterpoints against whatever it is he may be saying.
Now, this combination of jabs and pseudointellectual bloviation might not be trolling—really, the only question is whether this is a learned personality trait that has helped him win arguments in his social circles in the "leafy, loaded and liberal suburb" in which he resides or whether he is intentionally trying to upset people. Rifleman wanted to stir things up, no other goal as far as I can tell. Certainly a troll. I think perhaps Rover, at least consciously, would like to participate in the discussion here. But the way he goes about it—jab, then talking around the points of the opponent, then flat out failing to address in any specific, concrete, factual way the specific, concrete and factual counterpoints that have been levied at him—is NOT in good faith, and I for one do not feel contribute positively to this forum. The repeated pattern of skirmish, insult, then dodge constitutes the very definition of shitposting, even if it's not as absurdly obvious as armpitsofmight or Rifleman. Yes, I'm well familiar with the former user.
No. Can we stop taking "We fundamentally disagree on this issue" to mean the same thing as "People that disagree with me are bad"? Yours are the posts that are far more inflammatory than theirs. This is an issue of fundamental disagreement over various aspects of the discussion, it doesn't mean that Rover is only posting to upset you personally.
Correct. F-Line is a rightful aB legend but sometimes he has trouble locating his thermostat. If I had a nickel for every time I got sideways with F-Line over something like this, I'm pretty sure I'd have five cents.
The fact that F-Line attacks people who disagree with him, at times, and may or may not have thermostat regulation issues does not change the fact that Rover is not negotiating in good faith. I do not like that one user's history (a user who's contributed a lot more, in fact) is being used to negate the argument here. F-line has also been rude to me, and yeah, that's not OK, but it doesn't change the facts of this particular case. Furthermore, while he may go on the attacks against people he disagrees with, he never, ever, has accused anyone on here of being a troll, simply in the heat of a dispute—when the person is not trolling. He may bark, but that accusation is not levied lightly. So let's just be a little bit more objective here. He is correctly responding in anger to someone who perseverates in playing fast and loose with the facts but when the counterpoints are levied, won't actually respond in anything more than either cherry picked information that ignores the real points or platitudinous generalities; in either case, always heavily laden with sarcastic tone. I think people who don't seem to realize what's going on here may need review some of the past to understand the context.
HOWEVER, Rover, you can't ask an "honest question" about whether someone has ever been to Fall River in one paragraph, and then dismiss "the good people of Hyannis, population 14,000" in the next paragraph. The Cape and Islands region has a year-round population almost exactly the same as the combined populations of NB, FR and Taunton, around 242k (
source). In the summer the population is widely estimated to swell by 250%, or greater than the year-round population of all of Bristol County. And during that high season, its accessibility by road is worse by a magnitude than access by road to any of those cities. No, it's not likely ever to be a daily commuter train, and nobody is arguing that it's worthier of service than the South Coast. But it has a demonstrated ability to support a seasonal route, one which the powers-that-be would do well to expand to at least daily service in the summer, either direct to Boston or via shuttle train to Middleboro. And when they have to start replacing those awful old bridges over the canal*, the train could play a vital role as a release valve for the decade-plus of vehicular chaos that will likely ensue. F-Line's point is that the squeezing of the Old Colony schedule brought about by SCR Phase I could make any additional direct service from Boston to Cape Cod impossible, and that such service would indeed be worthy. The point that Phase I is part of a zero-sum game with negative consequences to other transit services, real or potential, can't be waved away so easily.
*This is coming sooner than we might expect; the House just proposed appropriating design funds for these replacements (the bridges are managed by the Army Corps of Engineers) and Baker's $18B transpo bond bill included $350M for the approach roads.
Exactly. Facts, please. This is a typical sample of a point-counterpoint with this user. Ernie posts this, and yet, this is the response we get to this actually reasoned post:
I don't disagree with too much here but this isn't an apples to orange comparison. You're equating the population of the Cape and Islands with only FR, NB and Taunton if I'm reading you correctly. Put aside the Islands as maybe belonging in their own category as getting to Hyannis if that's your starting point is a bunch of added logistics involving a ferry at the very least. Are you including the other towns in the South Coast region? Off the top of my head Freetown, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Acushnet, Westport, Dighton, etc should also be part of the analysis and that very well could be another 100K people.
Regarding Fall River its a simple question for F-Line (that he ducked). He's writing about the bus terminal locations and this and that like its a fatal problem for the rail's success, but I'm curious if he's ever been there to judge that firsthand or if he's looking at Google Earth. I personally have been to both places multiple times so I do have some context for what its worth.
I'm sorry, how is this not shitposting? This is a pseudo-reasoned response, replete with personal snipes. Bringing in the additional towns of the South Coast without any (apparent) knowledge of transit patterns of those towns, where people work, where the demand is, or even actually bothering to look up the populations but just guessing that, oh, maybe they add up to 100k and that somehow makes this project equivalent should arouse suspicions in any reader. Notice that having a granular knowledge of movement patterns of the urban regions may be lacking in almost all of us here on aB, but simply indicating that "I've been to the bus station in FR, F-Line probably hasn't, ergo he doesn't know what he's talking about re: every single very well reasoned point about this project" is utterly insane.
The fact that each response we ever get is, in the correct words of F-Line, "dripping [with] contempt and personal attacks", again reinforces my impression that this is either a troll or a troll equivalent who is not actually here to debate in good faith, but, at the very possible best, here to derive self-satisfaction over his own arguments and, at worst, to piss other people off. People on here put a lot of time, effort and knowledge into their posts, and to see someone so consistently play so fast and loose with facts in combination with personal insults, is a user I for one don't appreciate on this forum.
Not sure where you got this from but I merely stated from an economic justice perspective not every dollar should be spent in Boston. Personally I live in the leafy loaded and liberal western suburbs of Boston so the Boston based improvements would benefit me a lot more than South Coast rail which I don't plan on using as I don't live there. 
