Yes, but you don’t try to learn true things from the points they make, or even to gently coax them out of innocent mistakes. You try to hand them their asses in front of an audience. And the audience already knows that mysterianism is silly. Insulting someone doesn’t teach them not to write incoherent posts, and doesn’t teach outsiders that incoherent posts are bad. It does teach us that you are badass, but we’ve sort of gotten the point by now.
Except the part about being “badass”, which is probably the least like I feel, and is probably the least likely I ‘teach’ to anyone. “Weak-willed enough that I got counterproductively angry, and depressed” is closer to how I feel after I get more involved in a thread than I should have.
I should probably wait a couple hours before I reply to a post that annoys me—by then I’ll probably be able to better evaluate if a reply is actually worthwhile, and in what manner I should respond.
I should probably wait a couple hours before I reply to a post that annoys me—by then I’ll probably be able to better evaluate if a reply is actually worthwhile, and in what manner I should respond.
I find that more often the most useful approach turns out to be downvote then ignore. It is far too easy to get baited into conversations that are a lost cause from the moment they begin.
Yes, but you don’t try to learn true things from the points they make, or even to gently coax them out of innocent mistakes. You try to hand them their asses in front of an audience. And the audience already knows that mysterianism is silly. Insulting someone doesn’t teach them not to write incoherent posts, and doesn’t teach outsiders that incoherent posts are bad. It does teach us that you are badass, but we’ve sort of gotten the point by now.
Good points.
Except the part about being “badass”, which is probably the least like I feel, and is probably the least likely I ‘teach’ to anyone. “Weak-willed enough that I got counterproductively angry, and depressed” is closer to how I feel after I get more involved in a thread than I should have.
I should probably wait a couple hours before I reply to a post that annoys me—by then I’ll probably be able to better evaluate if a reply is actually worthwhile, and in what manner I should respond.
I find that more often the most useful approach turns out to be downvote then ignore. It is far too easy to get baited into conversations that are a lost cause from the moment they begin.