Wife got in an online argument, and very effectively and correctly pummeled her interlocutor with a longish chain of crisp, clean coolheaded logic.
“Wow,” I said, “Where’d you learn to logic-punch like that?”
Her response: “From getting into fights with you.”
when has crisp cool logic ever helped anyone in an online argument
D’aaaaaw.
I’ve seen people persuaded by it right here at the SDMB. But in any case, I don’t think actual persuasion is the only goal of an online argument. (Perhaps “virtual persuasion” is always a goal though–by this I mean the attempt to be the person who the other guy should have been persuaded by.)