Andrew Banned: An Example of Needless Intimidation and Random Hate

“If you want people to alter their perception of you, don’t make false statements about them and then prevent them from defending themselves.”

Just one of the many comments that should rightfully come back to bite Andrew (aka Poptech) in the arse. This is largely due to his moving from complaining over my censoring of his comments (moving his comments to an age/sanity appropriate page so that they do not infringe on more stimulating and interesting conversations about all things non-Andrew related) to complaining that I don’t censor the comments of another that he has taken offence to elsewhere.

I’ve tried to be accommodating; every one of Andrew’s complaints, I read and responded to – either by retraction (where it could have been interoperated as a personal attack) or stipulating otherwise (generally reminding him that I’ve made it clear that it is my personal view and I leave it up to my readers to agree or disagree on their own). I’ve tried to be reasonable; including being thoughtful as previously discussed, I’ve also tried to defuse his rage by asking him to take a step back and calmly reflect. Up until our very last interactions he proved that (arguably to maintain his mindless anger) he was holding onto previously retracted statements (he should’ve just let my passing comment to another that I thought he was a loon – when he suddenly made his appearance on this blog – than go to such lengths to demonstrate it) and other comments kept elsewhere to which I now have no control. As I had stated to him on a number of occasions, it seems that he was angry for anger’s sake and was determined to remain angry.

Much of this followed the appearance of another commenter, Ipka. Ipka has made it clear that he disagrees with Andrew and is focused on debating the point with him. Andrew’s reply largely focused around the belief that Ipka was unreasonable, preferring personal attacks and therefore not worth conversing with (coming from the individual who attempted to bait me with terms, such as “deranged”, “childish”, “intellectually dishonest”  etc – go figure). He also claimed Ipka was stalker whom I should put in the same league as Pete Ridley (coming from the person who stated, “It is not a good idea to censor me, Rebuttal to the Deranged Mothincarnate. Any time your list shows up so with my post.” assuming that it was meant to read, ‘so will my post’, I can argue that he planned to stick to my work like a bad smell).

I tried to remind him that until such time Ipka intentionally exposes personal information on another commenter, became abusive in language or threatened another commenter, I had no reason to censor him (indeed until his appearance Andrew seemed to demand free speech). Andrew followed with this comment;

“…Oh yes and if I ever met anyone that stalked me I would personally knock them the fuck out. Lets really man up and have him give me his name and address but he will not because he is a scared little bitch who thinks I am bluffing as he continues to post from his parents basement.

Oh and you can quote me on all of this.”

Smelling the hypocrisy yet? I had asked him to ‘man up’, but clarified; [t]his is far from what I would suggest by “man up” – more the adolescent thuggery behaviour most of us civilised individuals left in the playground – so again, grow up. And such behaviour is exactly what I was referring to in Intimidation: The Fail Safe Reply to Climate Science.

Indeed it is exactly the problem I addressed in that post. Being a geek my whole life, I had been at the receiving end of such thuggery for much of my childhood and have come to expect better in my adult years. That grown men think that it’s okay to physically threaten others with whom they disagree with is frightening and has nothing to do with scientific understanding – so much so it’s by far one of the worst pre-enlightenment behaviours which should be openly discouraged as deplorable. Again, as I stated in that post, in retrospect I’m a little concerned that I was so open about my true identity when there are obviously such sick individuals as Pete and Andrew (and as warped as Elsa) among the blogosphere. I care greatly about innovation, development, sustainability and equality, but do I really want to risk having one of these individuals sneak up on me when I’m out shopping with my fiancée? It makes me feel sick just thinking about any one of them knowing who she is.

That was strike two (and apparently I’m unreasonable), which Andrew followed with,

“Since I am obviously not getting through to you, I will now be contacting Peter Ridley as he has not done anything to me and whatever your problem with him is not of my concern.

Updates coming soon…”

So now it’s not just a few unrelated individuals whom have made it clear that they dislike me and go to great lengths to avoid reality to maintain such hatred, Andrew plans for them to gang-up (he’s also “threatened” to give Adam room to vent hatred about me). Clearly in such an angry echo chamber, nothing but heightened and purely needless anger regarding myself will fester. No longer would I have such sick and isolated individuals to occasionally annoy but now committed hate – and one that has the potential to inspire the same in readers whom have otherwise had absolutely nothing to do with me.

Of course, that was strike three.

The sad this is that it has nothing to do with the science any more either. I don’t care what any of them have to say regarding the science – I’m quoting the available literature and if convincing evidence came to light that radically altered our our understanding of climate change, ocean acidification, peaking oil, biodiversity loss etc, I would be the first to step down from this point; but this hasn’t happened and none of them have been able to convince me otherwise. In the post about intimidation, I mentioned the chance find where I caught Pete writing me off to like-minded individuals.Coupling this with the enraged writings of Andrew, I can’t help but ask myself if I really need all this.

I have tried to be reasonable and addressed Andrew’s concerns from the beginning, but clearly there was nothing I could do, but for laying down my reasoning and accepting whatever he states to be true. Seeing as I refuse to do a such, he’s planning to assemble a party of hate. As much as he would like me to believe, “This is not a personal problem with you” it’s hard not to see such behaviour as escalating intimidation; one that I’m basically powerless to avoid.

Such people obviously have no concern for reason or civilised debate – only insults and threats. They are sure of themselves, their contrarian backgrounds and personal research and what I stand for (whatever it is – for I’m sure they see what they would like to see) is something they detest (potentially placing a mask over whatever faceless frustration they house). All I can hope for is that a drove don’t follow them down that rabbit hole of hate.