When I was much younger I often initiated and participated regularly in spirited discussion, frank exchanges of views, pissing matches, and occasionally an actual well-reasoned debate. These were all often fueled by ego, testosterone, and alcohol in even measures. I’ve mostly left the ego, alcohol, and probably a good amount of the testosterone behind. What’s left is a realization that people with significant expertise in my field of interest are doing me a favor by engaging with me, and I should respect their time. Moreover, I personally feel the hand of time on my shoulder and have much more respect for how precious that commodity is. Although I’ve only engaged personally with you on a few occasions , I notice you set good boundaries for the obvious trolls, and are pretty patient (gracious even) with the merely ignorant (me included). As someone who has struggled with patience in various training and teaching tasks over the years, I admire that. What I’m trying to say is, it’s pretty obvious that the time you “take back” from the jerks, you likely pour back into your students and friends.
Hahaha! Yes, I was very prone to, let's say, unproductive pissing matches back in my teens and twenties. Took a while to grow out of that, and I'm happy that eventually I did!
I've been considering this kind of thing lately, but in a different, more personal context, unrelated to Internet jerks. I've had trouble with a family member who is consistently disrespectful and chaotic and I'm sometimes not sure how to reconcile Christ's injuction of unconditional forgiveness and charity with this person's intransigence, disrespect, and _insatiable_ demand on my (and my wife's) time. It seems the only way to placate this person is to do as she says, but then I'm complicit in her counter-productive chaos, at the expense of my dignity and self-respect. And, as her approach seems destructive, I don't think it's charitable to indulge and support. So, maintaining appropriate boundaries in light of the radical demands of Christianity has been a bit confusing for me over the past year. I've actually never dealt with such interpersonal difficulty in my life, and I'm nearing 40.
I honestly question whether this comment format even makes deep conversations possible at all. With my 1-2 friends whom I tend to "debate" in topics like religion or philosophy, we use the e-mail-essay format. Where we can address given points formally and specifically. And an e-mail could be worked on for days or weeks, there is no time or length restrictions.
"Arguing with stupid people is like trying to kill the mosquito on your cheek; you may or may not kill it but you'll end up slapping yourself"-buddha
Probably a fake quote there
When I was much younger I often initiated and participated regularly in spirited discussion, frank exchanges of views, pissing matches, and occasionally an actual well-reasoned debate. These were all often fueled by ego, testosterone, and alcohol in even measures. I’ve mostly left the ego, alcohol, and probably a good amount of the testosterone behind. What’s left is a realization that people with significant expertise in my field of interest are doing me a favor by engaging with me, and I should respect their time. Moreover, I personally feel the hand of time on my shoulder and have much more respect for how precious that commodity is. Although I’ve only engaged personally with you on a few occasions , I notice you set good boundaries for the obvious trolls, and are pretty patient (gracious even) with the merely ignorant (me included). As someone who has struggled with patience in various training and teaching tasks over the years, I admire that. What I’m trying to say is, it’s pretty obvious that the time you “take back” from the jerks, you likely pour back into your students and friends.
Hahaha! Yes, I was very prone to, let's say, unproductive pissing matches back in my teens and twenties. Took a while to grow out of that, and I'm happy that eventually I did!
I've been considering this kind of thing lately, but in a different, more personal context, unrelated to Internet jerks. I've had trouble with a family member who is consistently disrespectful and chaotic and I'm sometimes not sure how to reconcile Christ's injuction of unconditional forgiveness and charity with this person's intransigence, disrespect, and _insatiable_ demand on my (and my wife's) time. It seems the only way to placate this person is to do as she says, but then I'm complicit in her counter-productive chaos, at the expense of my dignity and self-respect. And, as her approach seems destructive, I don't think it's charitable to indulge and support. So, maintaining appropriate boundaries in light of the radical demands of Christianity has been a bit confusing for me over the past year. I've actually never dealt with such interpersonal difficulty in my life, and I'm nearing 40.
I honestly question whether this comment format even makes deep conversations possible at all. With my 1-2 friends whom I tend to "debate" in topics like religion or philosophy, we use the e-mail-essay format. Where we can address given points formally and specifically. And an e-mail could be worked on for days or weeks, there is no time or length restrictions.
I have plenty of great conversations with people in comments. I generally leave debates for the contentious or show-offs myself