Let me explicitly say I don't mean this as something to draw out much farther than the example I give. I don't mean to punch people who merely disagree with you politically, or beating them excessively, or any other bizarre extrapolation you may want to accuse me of. It doesn't even particularly apply online since there's no physical interaction component. I'm just thinking, you know, you get what you reward, and when you permit endless, endless trolling but punish the natural human reactions to it, you're going to get a culture of trolls and churlishness. We're paradoxically both too nice and too churlish as a culture right now.
https://centerforinquiry.org/news/buzz_aldrin_punches_moon-l... (& note the punch wasn't for the conspiracy or denial, it was for flat-out insult.)
(There is moderation in the process, in that generally the people around you are going to need to mostly agree that was justified. This prevents total chaos. One must aggressively, persistently, and willfully step over the cultural lines for this, it is not something that would be deployed for every minor disagreement.)
It's also how it works in lawless societies where everyone has to protect their honor using violence otherwise they'll be seen as an easy target and get abused by everyone else. That includes, school, prison, and countries with poor rule of law. It seems like a default way for humans to behave in the absence of civilization.
It's also an almost uniquely male behavior, so women wouldn't really function in this system very well. They may make alliances with and become dependent on men to protect their honor on their behalf.
Disengaging from those conversations is easier though. Don't answer, walk away, just stop playing their game. Although there is a part of me that wants to shout them down and ridicule them, that plays right into their bs as well.
Sigh. Hell is other people.
If someone is polite to me while "tricking" me into wasting my time providing sources, I do have to wonder who, if anyone, was actually tricked.
On the other hand, life is too short to waste talking to people who start sentences with "you do realize...," no matter how earnest.
Obviously you can't do this every time. It's not at all wrong to blow off those that are simply trying to get a rise out of you. However, in the rare cases that you do engage them, you can rest knowing that you didn't entirely waste your time.
Assuming you've accurately identified one.
> Don't answer, walk away, just stop playing their game. Although there is a part of me that wants to shout them down and ridicule them, that plays right into their bs as well.
Assuming that you have not misunderstood their intended message, or made a mistake in the formation of your belief on the matter.
My comment right here could easily be considered (evaluated as) an example of "BS". However, here it is useful to realize that there are many ways to evaluate many things, that can produce extremely different conclusions. Sometimes conclusions can even be completely contradictory, while simultaneously being objectively correct.
> "There are people who pretend to know every thing better than others, contradict every one, frequently against their own conviction, merely for the sake of disputing. There are others who are fond of speaking in parodoxes, and accustomed to maintain assertions which no sensible man can take seriously in the sense in which they utter them, from no other motive than to provoke contradiction; there are finally others whom the French call querelleurs (wranglers,) that studiously seek opportunities to engage in personal disputes..."
After saying "Don't Feed The Trolls", a phrase on page 59 shows that eighteenth century mores did differ from twenty-first: "...it is extremely wrong to use against a wrangler any other weapon than contempt, or at most a cane, if he carry his impudence too far..."
https://books.google.ch/books?id=PtQGAAAAcAAJ&printsec=front...
original available at https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/knigge/umgang/chap005.html §8
> "Es gibt Menschen, die alles besser wissen wollen, allem widersprechen, was man vorbringt, oft gegen eigne Überzeugung widersprechen, um nur das Vergnügen zu haben, disputieren zu können; andre setzen eine Ehre darin, Paradoxa zu sprechen, Dinge zu behaupten, die kein Vernünftiger irgend ernstlich also meinen kann, bloß damit man mit ihnen streiten solle; endlich noch andre, die man Querelleurs, Stänker nennt, suchen vorsätzlich Gelegenheit zu persönlichem Zanke"
> "...und der hat doppelt unrecht, der gegen einen sogenannten Stänker mit andern Waffen als mit Verachtung, oder, wenn es ihm gar zu nahe gelegt wird, anders als mit einem geschmeidigen spanischen Rohre kämpft..."