Is Macunaima a Serial Antagonist?

[Jan 156]

Honestly! I find the style of many American posters a tad offensive but it is not meant to be and so I do not take offence. Macunaima makes well informed posts. If you do not like them just ignore them as you would on any other forum where a poster annoyed you.

[Panman]

I voted he should be banned. I believe he was given all the space he needed to make his point. However, when you bring the same bs over and over again for the past 6 months almost as if looking for a reaction you are seriously ruining the forum. Placing him in a separate section would be a waste of resourses considering he enjoys the negative attention he gets elsewhere.

Most of the people that benefit from this website are casual posters that only come here to read or share facts and pointers concerning p4p action. Therefore, I fail to understand how beneficial it is for anyone to know how unethical it is to get a BBBJ or have a relationship with a terma girl.

[Gatorman]

I agree that the tone of many of Mac's posts are superior and annoying, but he does present facts occasionally that could only come from a local, and therefore gives a unique perspective.

I don't like the long winded philosophical debates in the 2005 trip reports, where people are otherwise looking for solid information. But if he would post more in a general info section it would be more appropriate. Even if he is stating that the world is flat every day--who cares? If what he says isn't true or worth reading then scroll on or debate up a storm. It doesn't hurt to make sure our fantasies can pass the reality test.

Peace

[Euro100]

i started posting more or less regularly about 6 months ago was for ethical reasons. in anthropology, you're supposed to return your interpretations to the people you're getting info from. if you don't you're just using them. so that's been my main motivation here: nothing more, nothing less.

originally i voted to only keep mac away for 30 days from the board in order to let him cool off and in order to give the rio reports thread actually back to mongers exchanging reports. but after this, i would like to change my vote to ban him permanently.

what arrogance, and what stupidity! this guy thinks he is so much smarter than the average monger, studying us for his research. but then he makes these shit-for-brains pseudoscience statements that show that he is just cluelessly and aimlessly wasting everybody's time.

here is how research really works: you try to leave your research subject as much undisturbed as you possibly can, trying to find out everything you can without contaminating your sources. after all of your research is done and after you have published in peer-reviewed journals, then you can think about returning your findings to the subjects of your research. mac, if you tell this crap to your professor that you told us in the quote above, you will never graduate. he or she will just fire your ass for incompetence.

don't shit where you eat, mac!

[Rio Bob]

"I started posting more or less regularly about 6 months ago was for ethical reasons."


Ethical reasons ?

lol

Macunaima started posting more or less regularly here about six monthes ago, JUST when the brazzil.com forum, where he's one of the most active 'participant', became very slow and when the 'audience' turned too limited to boost his enormous ego.

So El Austriaco, if you're fascinated by his style, I strongly recommand you to consult brazzil.com : Macu has MORE than 6000 POSTS on this site (!!!), and surely still continues to spread there daily his boring and condescending diatribes.

ISG is not the right place for this kind of poster. And as it's also not a free support for all the pedantics fucks who hang around on the net, there's IMO absolutly NO reasons to give him his own section here.

Yeah, years ago I saw him on LonelyPlanets.com and it was the same thing in the Brazil section. A couple of guys mentioned how they loved Brazilian women compared to American women and that was it this guy Mac was writing pages and pages of nonsense beating these young innocent guys up. It was so boring after awhile I just stopped visiting the site.

I don't understand how his condescending diatribes have anything to do with anthropology, this escapes me, can someone please educate me on this, Mac?

Sure as an anthropoligist he can explain if he is an expert on the habits and motivations of the Brasilian GDP and how at times we can be taken in by their charms. But the way he goes about it and how he has to put people down as if they are complete fools and he is the only one that knows everything just speaks volumes about the type of person who he is that just ruins the mood of this board repeatedly.

As we all know on the web we can say anything about what we are, true or not but his behavior does not remind me of an anthropoligist it reminds me of a Serial Antagonist.

[RonnyRon]

I side with Le Dragueur, El Austriaco & Bimbo Boy. At this current moment major forces in the U.S. are attempting to do all of us, exactly what some are suggesting Jackson do to Macunaima. I believe there are times when Macunaima takes himself or his job far to serious. An example "your attitude seems to be a cry for help? For christsakes..." Hey MAC, Royalflush was actually siding with you. Chill out. This forum is a classroom of sorts, but certainly not a formal one.

As Bimbo Boy stated "I think that it is good to have some perception of the people that hate us and that want to destroy our hobby, and that's what Macunaima brings to us." I agree. I believe the problem is not so much what Macunaima says, but rather how, which offends others. Macunaima appears to see life in black & white and in truth, life is really various shades of gray.

RonnyRon

[Bimbo Boy]

I vote for Macunaima. His posts were interesting. I know Brazil much better than the average mongerer (I speak fluent Portuguese), and I did learn a few things from his posts.

His posts were annoying sometimes, but rarely offensive.

I think many of you guys do not like him just because he thinks different.

I think that it is good to have some perception of the people that hate us and that want to destroy our hobby, and that's what Macunaima brings to us.

Regards. BB.

[Perkele]

As he himself has proclaimed to not having any EXPERIENCE in mongering and being an oberver his opinion has very little value. Thus his isolation to entirely own area would be the only humane solution.

my 2 cents.

P

[Exec Talent]

6000 posts!!! This is how it starts. Ban him, ban his children, hell, ban his children's children!

[Prosal]

"I started posting more or less regularly about 6 months ago was for ethical reasons."


Ethical reasons ?

lol

Macunaima started posting more or less regularly here about six monthes ago, JUST when the brazzil.com forum, where he's one of the most active 'participant', became very slow and when the 'audience' turned too limited to boost his enormous ego.

So El Austriaco, if you're fascinated by his style, I strongly recommand you to consult brazzil.com : Macu has MORE than 6000 POSTS on this site (!!!), and surely still continues to spread there daily his boring and condescending diatribes.

ISG is not the right place for this kind of poster. And as it's also not a free support for all the pedantics fucks who hang around on the net, there's IMO absolutly NO reasons to give him his own section here.

[Tsati]

I for one am in favor letting Mac continue to burst bubbles. The cold water he throws on the fantasies of some of our dreamy-eyed mongers should be fair warning to the rest of us of the perils of thinking with our small head and totally ignoring realty. He does speak in generalities and because of this there may be the exceptional Copa GP that really does have the milk of human kindness running through her veins. I would venture to guess that in plus 95% of the time he is correct in his evaluation of the situation even though he is not immediately privy to "relationship"? of the dreamer and the GP involved.

I agree his style is caustic and the person reporting his experience could easily have his tender ego bruised by his "in your face" approach. If I am reading him correctly, part of his mission in writing in this forum is as a "guardian angel" for those of us who still believe in fairy tales. Entao, por favor continua suas opiniaos o senhor.

[Exec Talent]

Doc Bill, I think you got it exactly right. It is not what Macunaima writes or how he writes it but who he is. He has absolutely no credibility. He is an academic. If someone who actually has been to a termas says to me, "hey dude, you are crazy for falling in love with a termas girl, she is only after your money," then at least I am hearing from someone I know has an opinion based on personal experience. If a girl who used to work in a termas says the same thing, again, she has a personal experience at least worth listening to.

However, I am not interested in being lectured REPEATEDLY by someone who has never been in the game. What makes these forums valuable is that they are shared experiences, not speculation. The problem I have with Macunaima is that he has nothing of value to share with me. Academics enjoy sitting around postulating about what might or might not be because their lives are so void of anything meaningful. They are fascinated with people who are actually in the game.

I want to hear about Euro's real experience with a termas girl, not some academic going on ad nauseam about how she is only after his money. Gee Wally, I never thought of that! You mean she may not actually love him?

Macunaima should be relegated to watching SILENTLY from the sidelines. He is not in the game and does nothing to advance the ball.

[Macunaima]

I started posting more or less regularly about 6 months ago was for ethical reasons. In anthropology, you're supposed to return your interpretations to the people you're getting info from. If you don't you're just using them. So that's been my main motivation here: nothing more, nothing less.

I've extracted a lot of info from this site over the past three years, as have several other Brazilian and American researchers. Of all these people, with the exception of the gang from Cadernos Pagú, I'm the only one who DOESN'T want to see prostitution banned and sexual tourists harassed in Brazil. Most people who use this site for info the way I do see prostitutes as "poor little victimized girls who need to be saved from the evil foreign scumbags" and they use strategic cuts 'n pastes from the posts here, taken wildly out of context, to "prove" their point. Over the last six months I've gone to conference after conference here as this issue has heated up (thanks to USAID's new anti-prostitution orientation and a $400,000 grant from the UN and Portugal to the Brazilian Federal Police) and everywhere I go, this site is on some yahoo's power-point as "evidence" of the "booming sexual tourism problem in Brazil".

I thought that the polite and ethical thing to do would be to post my take on the info I'm extracting from this site as well as stuff from the fieldwork my wife and I have been involved in over the last 4 years with Copa pros. These posts were not meant to "belittle" anyone and given the number of positive e-mails I've received regarding them, at least some folks find them useful.

Apparently, however, there's a small but hard-core minority of mongers on this site who seem to feel that any realistic appraisal of why women are selling sex in Copa "kills their buzz". It seems that in order to get their rocks off, these guys have to believe that the women are doing what they're doing because they are either uncontrolable sex kittens who just can't get enough or because they are sincerely falling in love with "superior" foreign men who "know how to treat their women better". Now, for every rule there is an exception or two, but in general, these ideas have about as much basis in reality as the idea that men and dinosaurs walked the Earth together 13 thousand years ago or that the moon is made of green cheese. Copa prostitutes do not fall in love with guys who barely speak their language (but who just happen to make what's considered a small fortune in Brazil) because they just can't control their hearts or twats: they do so because it's GOOD BUSINESS, for reasons that I've gone into in my posts on the 2005 board.

Now, this is the only thing I've been repeating and if it is "serial antagonism" it is so because saying ANYTHING that goes against certain peoples' views on life and prostitution will inevitably cause a stir. With all due respect to Jackson, his definition of "serial antagonism" is so broad as to be almost useless, a fact he well recognizes whe he says that it's "subjective". By the guidelines posted below, a guy who honestly, sincerely thinks that the Cubs are superior to the Brewers could be called a serial antagonist if there were a half dozen Brewer enthusiasts on the board looking to pick a fight.

But what the fuck, man. I really don't need the aggravation, you know? I've done my part for ethics in the social sciences and really, it's far more interesting for me to watch the show than to comment on it.

So I think I'll just head back to submarine mode for awhile and just keep enjoying the parade.

[Doc Bill]

El Austriaco, your thoughts are insightful and helpful. I myself are among many others who have engaged in heated discussion. But, as in "real life," there is a big difference between doing it respectfully and informatively and doing it just to boost one's own ego, which I believe Mac does. Engaging in discussion does not make one a Serial Antagonist. What makes one a Serial Antagonist is one who meets Jackson's criteria. And he definitely DOES. If you don't like the criteria then that's another issue that you should take up with Jackson.

I also appreciate Cachorro's reference to Mac's "incendiary style." It's not only about the message but the tone of the message and the messenger. The very same discussions that we have engaged with him could have gone a whole lot smoother if he wasn't so full of himself and needed to be right all the time. Tigers don't change their stripes and neither would he.

You also state that we have differing mongering styles, preferences, etc. Well we, us MONGERERS, indeed do. I have no value for input from those who aren't mongerers, at least to some degree. This a forum for us MONGERERS to share our experiences and help each other out. It is like the difference between an actor helping another actor with his technique vs. a film critic helping an actor with his technique. In short, it takes one to help one. This "film critic," I say again, shoud be OUT!

With Respect,

Doc

[Cachorro]

This particular poster is not a monger, he quite clearly states he has never mongered and never intends to. He posts only to make comments on other mongers reports. Generally his posts annoy a number of people and the board basically gets way off topic responding to his criticisms. Generally, but not always, no real info gets posted in the report section for several days after one of his bouts and everything calms down. Hence, he causes major disruptions to the report section, which in my opinion he has no business posting in because he doesn't monger and hence does not have a report to write. If he must post, he should at least do it in an appropriate section. I believe his own section could be a solution. It would stop the disruption he causes to the main report section and give the people that still want to read is postings the opportunity to do so. A win win for everybody.

Word.

I agree with the previous posts that Macunaima meets Jackson's definition of a serial antagonist. I voted for exclusion into his own section.

His posts are not without value, but his style is usually incendiary. I don't think he is capable of the bonhomie and cordiality with other mongers that Jackson demands of participants on the forum.

Giving him his own section would at least stop the other Brazil threads from turning into the Macunaima show.