I endorse this. You cannot change hearts and minds on social media. It’s a waste of time. For example, just this morning, I thought long and hard about responding to this post with cites and all but after about 10-second reflection, I decided against it. Why waste time? What would be the fucking point? It is my belief that people post on social media sites (like SDMB) not to debate* ideas but as a place to seek gratification and to get validation* of their ideas. This need for extrinsic validation has the tendency to turn what would be “great debates” into psychotherapy sessions or a priest’s confessional. I think it all comes from a place of loneliness and/or helplessness. The former type of loneliness where one would rather engage with strangers than the people they don’t know. It’s sad.