> You are, of course, correct. It can be difficult to tell when somebody is stupid, or an asshole, or merely pretending to be a stupid asshole. It could be the

> You are, of course, correct. It can be difficult to tell when somebody is stupid, or an asshole, or merely pretending to be a stupid asshole. It could be the case that somebody is stupid or an asshole. But you've left out one of the most important possibilities: maybe the other person is dead right about something that you're dead wrong about. > It's all the same to the person on the receiving end. It's not worth engaging with people who don't listen. Whether they are deliberately trying to aggravate, or are merely too stupid to know that their arguments are tedious. Using a phrase like "people who don't listen" seems a little problematic to me. That's not the kind of phrase that somebody who is a genuine knowledge seeker who is willing to consider the full diversity of human ideas would ever consider.