GulMadred posted:

That's slightly incorrect. He's basically a contrarian who is always willing to espouse whichever position goes against the consensus - especially if it's a Very Serious Person position (e.g. smash the unions, eat the poor) which offends the delicate sensibilities of his interlocutors. I assume that he does this to disrupt groupthink and thereby encourage forum posters to do their homework, think for themselves, examine countervailing evidence, etc...

In theory, this could be a valuable public service. In practice, he tends to latch onto minor points (e.g. sticking with the Econ101 idea that "austerity measures can be used to balance the budget," in the context of a Eurozone discussion, even after admitting that it's inapplicable to a sovereign debt crisis and that fiscal multipliers would make the debt spiral out of control). And he tends to champion a very narrow portion of the "opposing" viewpoint - he'll argue the merits of austerity, but he's not actually an Austerian and he doesn't believe that it's an appropriate response to the current crisis. Because people are lazy, they tend to read his (narrow) arguments, assign him into a category (e.g. Chicago school neoliberal marketeer) and then start an argument full of misunderstandings which goes nowhere.

This wouldn't be a problem if Asdf32 would actually take pains to correct the misunderstandings and explain his contrarian position. But instead he just reiterates his premises (e.g. "austerity means decreasing the deficit"), sits astride his I'm-technically-correct-which-is-the-best-kind-of-correct high horse, and watches the thread get derailed.