> You could have applied this to your original comment IMO You made a point about anecdotal evidence and introduced a new thought in your original comment. I r

> You could have applied this to your original comment IMO You made a point about anecdotal evidence and introduced a new thought in your original comment. I responded with two lines of thought. 1. Questioning the value of anecdotal evidence doesn't work well when there is actual data on the subject of said evidence. And the statistics display a rise during the last years. 2. Questioning the value of anecdotal evidence by using worse anecdotal evidence is not a good strategy. Thar was nothing against you (I don't know you, I just enjoy discussing truthfully). This was a disagreement on the topic of homelessness and your apparent questioning of it. So as a truthful response you could've either clarified your position and told me how I am wrong or admitted you got it wrong yourself. But you did neither of those things. As you correctly recognized, my second comment ignored the child-like sentiment on display as well as I could and instead adressed that you didn't talk about either of the ideas at hand — the debate equivalent of sticking your fingers into your ears and going "La-La-La". What you failed to recognize is that this second comment wasn't really written for you, but for the bystanders. The waste of time aspect is entirely on you, as you could have told me how I am wrong and give us your take on US homelessness statistics or explained how you not knowing a single homeless person is actually better evidence than the other person observing more over the past years, or whatnot. Or you could have simply said: "My bad, I took a wrong turn there, but I still believe homelessness didn't rise because [SOURCE]". Instead you decided to make this meta and I explained why that kind of meta doesn't add value here, nothing more. You took us here. Also: If I were you, I would probably not have seen this as a waste of time, every debate exchange that puts you into a bad spot is a valuable lesson. But that would require to admit to yourself why you went meta.