A Plea for Sanity re: MVD

On 21 May 2004 02:52:12 -0700, [email hidden] (Johnny Two Pedals)

Quoted message said:

Okay...okay....I give up. I can no longer lurk here in the
weeds listening to this drivel. I am finally compelled to
speak out.

Long ago, my Mother told me a few "Truths" about life. With
the exception

Quoted message said:

them have tuned out to be fairly wise. One of these truisms
was never to argue with a drunk, a zealot or an imbecile.
It's akin to peeing yourself while wearing a dark
suit....it gives you a temporary warm feeling, but no one
really notices. I have no idea whether MVD is a drunk, and
cast no aspersions in this regard. However, we have more
than enough proof of his zealotry, and the imbecility of
most of his positions speak for themselves.

To Wit: (cut an pasted in context from a number of posts,
without editorial comment (almost))

Poster: I don't think that trail usage is regularly
contested in the UK.
MVD: Maybe because you have destroyed most of your habitat
already, so people don't try to protect it..

MVD: All of which is IRRELEVANT to the damage that
mountain biking does. DUH! I swear you mountain
bikers are getting stupider by the day (followed a
bit later by (to another poster)) Respect IS as
respect DOES

Poster: I often see hikers do this. They tiptoe along the
footpaths, delicately avoiding stepping on anything that
might break.
MVD: Right.

Poster: It sounds like you don't venture farther than your
neighborhood park.
MVD: No, I usually don't. And I'm proud of it.

MVD: Some people work on protecting the environment that
you are destroying. Their life is FAR more
interesting and satisfying than yours.

An interesting contradiction:
MVD: Sorry, I don't own a motor vehicle. But I am willing
to bet that YOU do! (followed in another post by🙂
Near Canterbury <England>? I was just there in 2002.
<How?>

MVD: Selfish arguments aren't persuasive

Poster: So a responsible hiker would wear soft flat
soled shoes?
MVD: Yes.

And the icing on the cake:

MVD: I have witnessed empty parks full of mountain bikers.

The list could go on.

MVD has a PhD in what can gracefully be described as a
pseudoscience, and yet he pontificates on physics and
mechanics. His ego is fed by enticing you entering into
arguments that YOU can't win. Has anybody else noticed the
similarity between MVD's posts and the question "Have you
stopped beating your wife yet?" You can't win. Anyone who
tries will loose, not because of the truth or fallacy of
your argument, but because of MVD's unwillingness to
rationally look at the subject. MVD resorts to the
infantile argument mode of a 6 year old; name calling and
puerile negations. How does one expect to advance a thought
with him, much less win an argument? Would you argue the
existence of God or the holiness of Mohammed with a true
believer and expect the decision to go your way? Hardly.

Well said!

Quoted message said:

If you care to feed his ego, inflate his self importance,
and give him more ammunition in his fight than please, go
right ahead and argue with him. The danger of MVD and his
philosophy is based almost solely on the reactions he
elicits. However, if you ignore him and his rants,
eventually his artificially enhanced stature will decrease
to it's proper level, and he will be yet another harmless
kook on an electronic soapbox.

I don't think so.

Regrettably, even the most sophisticated among us can
sometimes fall victim to what another Dr. (This one an MD)
has called "The VIP Syndrome."

Simply put, most people assume that anyone who calls himself
"Dr." is an authority on whatever subject they are
discussing. The most obvious example that readily springs to
mind is the "Dr. Greg Cycloman, Phd." (not sure of the
spelling) who hawks weight loss pills on US cable TV. I bet
a lot of folks fall for his spiel, simply because he calls
himself a "Dr.", and don't take the time to discover in what
discipline his Phd was awarded. (My money is on something
esoteric, like Early Medieval Turkish Cuisine.) They don't
notice the infantile, but instead focus on the credentials,
thinking somewhere along the lines of "... Well, he's a
Doctor. I guess he should know what he's talking about...."

To prevent the gullible and the newbies from being initially
totally overwhelmed by this kind of huckster, you need
someone like Jeff to constantly battle the beast,
otherwise....

Do you remember or know about the PTL scandal in the US back
in the 1980's? I'm talking about another symptom of the same
disease, only in the Bakker case, it was "... I'm a real
good Christian with a great TV show, Jesus Loves You. Send
me your money so I can tell other people that I'm a real
good Christian with a great TV show and that jesus loves
you. Oh, I'd like a blowjob from the church secretary with
that please....". In MVD's case, as you have already very
nicely pointed out, the spiel is "... I'm a Phd, so listen
to my arguments, They make sense. Really. If you don't
believe me, you're a lair. Because I know what I'm talking
about...." Classic setup for the VIP impaired to buy
whatever snake oil the huckster is plying.

Jeff hang in there.

MOM

(xposted to rec.backcountry where I can followup to any
meaningful response.)

<clipped>

Quoted message said:

I don't think so.

Regrettably, even the most sophisticated among us can
sometimes fall victim to what another Dr. (This one an MD)
has called "The VIP Syndrome."

Simply put, most people assume that anyone who calls
himself "Dr." is an authority on whatever subject they are
discussing. The most obvious example that readily springs
to mind is the "Dr. Greg Cycloman, Phd." (not sure of the
spelling) who hawks weight loss pills on US cable TV. I
bet a lot of folks fall for his spiel, simply because he
calls himself a "Dr.", and don't take the time to discover
in what discipline his Phd was awarded. (My money is on
something esoteric, like Early Medieval Turkish Cuisine.)
They don't notice the infantile, but instead focus on the
credentials, thinking somewhere along the lines of "...
Well, he's a Doctor. I guess he should know what he's
talking about...."

To prevent the gullible and the newbies from being
initially totally overwhelmed by this kind of huckster,
you need someone like Jeff to constantly battle the beast,
otherwise....

<clipped>

perhaps it is better to let the loud hang themselves with
their own words. And I would agree sometimes someone has to
point out the noose so, as you say, newbies and the less
familiar do not take him as an authority. He waves around a
diploma printed years before anybody ever thought about
riding a Schwinn down Mt. Tam so someone could mistake his
opinions as fact. Fortunately, he is so predictable it is
rather easy to make him dizzy chasing his tail with the same
rhetoric. duh.

Johnny Two Pedals said:

Okay...okay....I give up. I can no longer lurk here in the
weeds listening to this drivel. I am finally compelled to
speak out.

Long ago, my Mother told me a few "Truths" about life.
With the

Quoted message said:

masturbation, most of them have tuned out to be
fairly wise.

You've obviously never had a redhead, otherwise you'd know
your mum was telling the truth. :-)

Mike's just a troll, nothing more. Probably the most
determined and creative n.g. troll I've ever seen, and
there's a few out there. Mike's not a complete dummy,
either. He's smart enough to evolve his posts each and every
time to elicit the maximum response from those too weak to
resist. Every time you guys reply to his posts, and then
make new posts like this one just fuel his desire to write
more. If no one ever responded to his posts, or made
comments on them, he would go away and/or find another group
to bother. But, people insist time and time again arguing
with him, so he continues. I firmly believe Mike is some
kind of shut-in or possibly even handicapped to the point he
can't go outside, which would explain his prolific posting
(he's certainly unemployed, and maybe not by choice either)
and it would explain his desire to inflame a group primarily
interested in going outside and riding in and around the
great outdoors, which is something he's probably incapable
of doing himself.

The solution to the Mike problem is to just put him in your
killfile, and then every time someone responds to him, put
them in your killfile, too. You'll be amazed at how well all
the .bicycle ng's work when you do this. The end result is
that we'll have a ng where we can discuss cycling, as
opposed to discussing a troll.

Embrace the killfile, it'll be usenet's salvation.

And, you should try a couple of redheads sometime. It's
worth the effort, IMHO. :-)

Regards,
H.