bullies, especially the adult variety, is they’re often non-thinking and inevitably hoist themselves by their own petard Wow, absolutely the opposite

bullies, especially the adult variety, is they’re often non-thinking and inevitably hoist themselves by their own petard Wow, absolutely the opposite experience here. Adult bullies are in my experience typically waging some kind of information warfare -- spreading rumors and allegations. Either personal or work related. And/or they are exploiting some power asymmetry. These are people who play political games at work or in other organizations, and/or spread rumors online. They know how to build social/political currency and then "spend" it by making allegations that are either difficult or impossible to disprove. Essentially, unless massively incompetent, they hold all of the power. And most of them have been practicing this since their school days. It takes easily 10x the effort for you to disprove something as it does for them to make the allegation in the first place. Sometimes it's 100x, sometimes it's just impossible. And God forbid you're facing more than one of them. You really can't win, unless they lose interest in you. As far as "non-thinking" goes? I dunno. Some are totally non-thinking, and some are sociopathically doing it "for the lulz," but a lot of them have thought deeply about what they're doing and are absolutely convinced that they are right.