# Why do you voice your thoughts/opinions? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 12, 2016, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946 "2016-01-12T18:45:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/21 "2016-01-13T01:46:59Z")
Some new cyberwords are [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uazFpEOWqE0). ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/22 "2016-01-13T01:55:16Z")
I’m often torn by conflicting points of view: \*“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” \* - John Stuart Mill, February 1, 1867 and _“But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.”_ - Edmund Burke , ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ vol iii pg 183 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/23 "2016-01-13T02:11:53Z")
To crush my enemies, to see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of their women! (Or what everyone else said about sharpening my own ideas and making sure they’re not completely stupid; swaying the on-the-fence lurkers, and maybe even some of my fellow posters, if only slowly and partially; “Someone on the Internet is wrong!” syndrome; and general intellectual enjoyment, however fundamentally masturbatory it may be.) ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/24 "2016-01-13T02:20:43Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > “Someone on the Internet is wrong!” syndrome; and general intellectual enjoyment, however fundamentally masturbatory it may be. How do you define that term? I heard it applied to Internet conversations many times, but what does it stand for? ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/25 "2016-01-13T02:24:01Z")
If you have to ask… Seriously, I guess I just mean “fun in a sort of time-wasting and ultimately unproductive sort of way”. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/26 "2016-01-13T02:37:04Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > If you have to ask… > > Seriously, I guess I just mean “fun in a sort of time-wasting and ultimately unproductive sort of way”. OK cybermasturbation – unproductive repetitive online conversation resulting in substantial waste of time. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/27 "2016-01-13T02:38:18Z")
I don’t want to change anyone’s opinion or views but I do want them to know (sometimes) that theirs is not the only one out there that someone can be passionate about. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/28 "2016-01-13T02:54:09Z")
This is a lot of it, at least online. We often get folks show up here who it seems have literally never spoken or messaged with anyone not in their own opinion echo chamber. They seem totally befuddled when folks call them on imaginary facts and BS logic. “But everyone has always agreed with me so I must be right” seems to be their mantra. We’re working over one such benighted newbie in Elections right now. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/29 "2016-01-13T05:03:48Z")
Sometimes it is to witness an unpopular or at least uncommon opinion or point of view, especially where it opposes an unjustified consensus. Otherwise, as many others have said, I may try to persuade and test my arguments against others. Often I start doing this, find mine lacking, and stop without submitting. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/30 "2016-01-13T05:05:59Z")
I have no hopes of changing someone’s views since I’ve lived long enough to give up on that. I don’t care to find common ground or create an open dialog, and don’t have any expectations that my thought process will be validated. That leaves my actual motivation for voicing an opinion, namely, to degrade someone else. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2016, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946/31 "2016-01-13T07:56:48Z")
Why do I voice my thoughts and opinions? My momma always taught me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say about someone I should say nothing at all. I choose to apply this rule with respect to whether I will say something about myself :o [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-voice-your-thoughts-opinions/742946.md?page=1)