Right well imagine you’ve just walked into a bar in real life and everyone is having a conversation about crime in the city and a stranger sat in the corner say

Right well imagine you’ve just walked into a bar in real life and everyone is having a conversation about crime in the city and a stranger sat in the corner says that their friend was murdered in the 90s. Would you really respond with: > Wow. They were almost the last person murdered in NYC! Stats say murder in NYC ended later that year. Probably not unless you wanted everyone in the bar to look at you with disgust. In fact, the entire tone and topic of the conversation would probably change to accommodate this new information. If you wanted to say something, you’d probably say something along the lines of: “Jesus, I’m sorry to hear that. Do you want to talk about it? What happened?” If someone is sharing something sensitive like this and you don’t think it’s relevant, just don’t say anything. Add something constructive on another comment. What have you gained from that comment other than potentially upsetting another person? I don’t think anyone is thinking “oh I’m really glad he stepped in there otherwise that one thread on the online debate would have got really off track”. And I don’t think mgarfias is going away from this thinking, “well he really opened my eyes to the fact that my anecdotal experience is not the totality of existence, my entire stance on New York City is changed now.” Honestly dude, there are unlimited threads on every post. Every thread does not have to be a direct argument or counter argument of whatever is stated in the original content. We can just all talk and be humans going through life together.