The older I get[footnote]And I'm quite old indeed; I literally have shoes older than the OP.[/footnote], the more likely I am not to engage in debate unless it's something I'm really, really, really passionate about[footnote]Try me on Shakespeare some time.[/footnote]. In my younger days, I used to be in full-on "someone is wrong on the Internet" [http://xkcd.com/386/] mode, flinging paragraph after paragraph of argumentation and fact at my opponents until one of us either left or got bored. These days, though, I don't usually even go near the reply window unless someone is just really egregiously wrong. At my age, I've pretty much seen a thousand iterations of whatever rhetorical strategy a given poster cares to use, and I can more or less extrapolate how an argument's going to go, so I don't generally bother. I trust that age and experience will deal with the proponents of the more wrong-headed arguments, and if they don't change their minds...meh. That's on them.
Short version: You know those fantasy novels where you have an ancient creature that's withdrawn from the world of men, and if you disturb it, things are deeply unpleasant for everyone involved? Basically that.
Short version: You know those fantasy novels where you have an ancient creature that's withdrawn from the world of men, and if you disturb it, things are deeply unpleasant for everyone involved? Basically that.
