On Trolls

The main problem with Americans, especially as I have come to know them in their guise as trolls, is that they work from basically narcissistic premises. These can be really destabilizing, unless you understand their fallacious nature. So, you might assert something like, "Oh, I've had such-and-such an experience!" and the troll will come back at you with, "You couldn't have had that experience -- you're just trying to big note yourself." So, the assumption is that one only speaks in order to self-aggrandize, or else communication is contentless. Well, you basically have to realize that they are working with a false epistemology -- the assumptions that they can know somebody else's experiences or motivations. The assumption that one can and does know these is fundamentally American (and to a lesser extent, more broadly Western).