If you’re still reading this, Dio, please follow your own advice:
B: Here is a cite that actually shows that X improves society
A: X is bad and that cite is just horseshit.
B: Here’s another cite that shows that X is legal and accepted in many societies
A: Who cares? Anyone who thinks X is any good is a fucking idiot
B: I’m not an idiot and you’re starting to piss me off.
A: X is bad.
A: X is bad.
B: I provided cites to back my position, can you?
A: I have personal experience to the contrary.
B: Your anecdote is not a factual cite.
A: Yes it is.
B: You don’t understand how fighting ignorance works.
A. X is bad.
Yeah, see… one would expect the more reasonable of the two (if there is one) to walk away LONG before it gets to this level.
They are both trying to convert the other rather than just state their opinions and move on. I find both parties in the above examples to be childish.
And what are you attempting to do, with this post? Serious question.
And yet you continue to post in this thread.
Stating my opinion.
I enjoy talking with people. I enjoy talking with people whose opinions vary from my own. (That’s ultimately the path to growth, don’t you think?)
What I’m not doing, is trying to convince anyone I’m right.
I guess I didn’t realize that we were arguing.
Are we arguing?
I do find the discussion interesting.
There used to be a poster on this board who did exactly the same thing, in thread after thread, for nearly a fucking decade. Ten years in Internet time is like a century in regular time, and you know what? The whole community let him do it again and again and again. The problem isn’t that DtC is a jerk. It’s not even that he has strong opinions. It’s that this community, in general, will not let anything go. Oh, Diogenes has a strongly worded opinion about something? Then we better jump on it and argue and argue and argue and argue and never ever let it die because then we might lose and he might win.
Eventually, he’ll lose interest in the place or get banned or something. Then another poster hovering on the edges of tolerability will fill his shoes, either by choice or because everybody around here needs to take on certain roles in response to certain expectations.
In other words, DtC is the monster the Dope creates itself. If people stopped engaging him, stopped jumping on every post, stopped posting specifically to respond to him instead of the OP, then he wouldn’t be so vexsome.
Also, people need to stop taking things so fucking personally. So what if DtC thinks (pick your favorite obnoxious opinion). He’s not the boss of you. He’s not setting this country’s policy. If you respond to him to “correct” him, he won’t change his mind and, more importantly, your life won’t be changed one way or the other. The result is the same if you engage him or if you ignore him, so why not just chill the fuck out? Nobody here is so precious that you can’t survive some random dude’s random opinion posted on some message board, and if you give the situation with more weight than that, that’s your problem, not his.
The people in the above hypothetical conversation, which you deemed to be childish, are also stating their opinions. What makes their opinions childish attempts to convince the other person of something (and for that matter, what makes attempting to convince someone of something “childish”?) whereas your opinions are mature and non-childish?
I would posit that most discussions, on the Internet or elsewhere, consist of attempts to convince the other person of something. Not always to convince them that your opinion is the right one; sometimes just to convince them that your opinion is a valid one, worthy of respect even when disagreed with. But rarely will you find a conversation that looks like:
A: Here is my opinion.
B: That’s interesting. Here is my opinion.
A: We have exchanged information.
B: Yes. That was rewarding. Let’s do it again sometime.
edit: This was all in reply to Doxy’s post, in case it wasn’t obvious. You guys are quick with the replies. 
Bravo. Well said.
I think you like to play ‘last word’ in internet arguments more than you like to admit. Come and join the childish masses. It’s fun! Being grown-up is a bore.
You continually restate the opinion that it is everyone else’s responsibility to walk away when he starts his thread-shitting:
“Yeah, see… one would expect the more reasonable of the two (if there is one) to walk away LONG before it gets to this level.”
Yes we are arguing that point.
B: Here is a cite that actually shows that X improves society
A: X is bad and that cite is just horseshit.
B: Here’s another cite that shows that X is legal and accepted in many societies
A: Who cares? Anyone who thinks X is any good is a fucking idiot
B: I’m not an idiot and you’re starting to piss me off.
A: X is bad.
B: I provided cites to back my position, can you?
A: I have personal experience to the contrary.
B: Your anecdote is not a factual cite.
A: Yes it is.
B: You don’t understand how fighting ignorance works.
A. X is bad.
THAT ^^^ is the point at which they both become childish. When they resort to name-calling and emotional responses rather than civilized discourse. (And let’s not resort to the “Well, Poster A started it!” line, shall we?)
Why does my not being bothered by this, appear to bother YOU so much? :dubious:
I never made a claim to maturity or non-childish behavior. I’m quite capable of being stubborn and childish. (For an example of how petty and childish I can be, by all means check out the thread I started about the bible. :rolleyes:)
I do, however, make a reasonable attempt at open-mindedness the majority of the time. And on those occasions when I have been foolish/childish/pig-headed, I try to calm down and walk away before returning and admitting my error.
Redundancy is boring.
What point would that be?
I don’t expect the person arguing with Dio (let’s just say it instead of pussy-footing around with the “Poster A” and “Poster B” masks, eh?) to walk away. I expect the more reasonable of the two to walk away.
One way to stop his “threadshitting” is to not engage him. Respond to the OP as Pepperlandgirl suggested.
Fair enough. And dude, I’m not bothered. We’re just sharing opinions here, yes?
Absolutely. Now I know where you stand, and you know where I stand so there’s really no more point in our discussing it further, wouldn’t you say?
I’m going to have to agree with Nzinga on this one, my friend.
Nice try. If all I wanted was one opinion I would be on Wiki. We come here because we enjoy the back and forth.
I don’t think people are trying to convert Dio to their point of view so much as they are trying to get him to acknowledge that there are other valid points-of-view in the world other than his own. I’d have to agree, though, that at this point it seems kind of futile - if it hasn’t happened yet, it doesn’t seem likely to.