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> “Never debate stupid. Bystanders will not distinguish between your salient words and your own. They’ll just see two seemingly educated people arguing and ass
by guerrilla 4y ago
> “Never debate stupid. Bystanders will not distinguish between your salient words and your own. They’ll just see two seemingly educated people arguing and assume their points are equally valid.“
This is foolish because if you just let things stand, then they see only one seemingly educated person making an equally valid point, rather than two, which is worse. Like in this example right now, I could have let your point stand and not corrected it, then a lot of people would have taken it to heart rather than reconsidering like some are as they read this.
- jason-phillips 4y agoI think you actually just illustrated and proved his point for him, in fact. However, now I've just made myself a hypocrite and broken my own self-similar rule to never respond to or debate with stupid.
- guerrilla 4y agoThey made two points. One is incorrect and the other is irrelevant, which is my point.
- roncesvalles 4y agoThis is incorrect.
- ianai 4y agoIt’s foolish if taken too far, I think, but useful often. The trouble is even if outright false claims are responded to with a Wikipedia or news article (and possibly nothing further), with a large enough audience, the proponents of the falsehood will eventually try to subvert that Wikipedia or news article.