What phrases or topics immediately shut down your interest in a conversation?

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VoidWanderer

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When you point out a small point of contention in someone's arguement, and the person who was talking, doesn't even acknowledge you said anything.
 

Jenvas1306

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Ieyke said:
krazykidd said:
I hope you friend ends up where black males "stereotipically" end up . Shot or in jail . I'm not racist but...
Well, I guess that IS where the stereotyping actually does stop with him. He's a super studious engineering student. His personality reminds me of Cee-Lo Green.

Poor krazykidd, gettin' all pissy about people making observations about reality. That makes just as much sense as getting mad at someone for saying "I'm no meteorologist, but the weather sure feels humid today.", or "I'm no librarian, but that encyclopedia sure has an awful lot of pages."


*shrug*

Gods forbid people be allowed to make observational statements without some sort of judgement attached to those statements...

Getting mad about that makes as much sense someone saying to me that white people can't dance, or gamers love Halo.
I can't dance. I hate Halo. Should I be offended by one of those? No. A lot of white people can't dance, and a lot of gamers like Halo...
I'm not sure how either of these statements or any analogous statement is supposed to offended me.

Maybe if it was something more extreme than liking chicken or not being able to dance. Something that sounds like an accusation..."I'm not racist, but Germans sure seem to hate Jews." (FTR, I'm half German, and that's a bunch of nonsense.)
THAT I could understand being upset by.
That's almost like character assassination by association, and is provocative enough to make people overlook that it doesn't say "All Germans" or even "Most Germans", because it's tied to a huge historical event where Germans and Jews...uh....yea. Bad stuff.

So far as I know, there wasn't ever an epidemic of black people descending on the world's fried chicken like a plague of locusts to set the precedent that a love of chicken should be assumed as a universal trait, and so I can't see people assuming an entire race would all automatically love the same thing...because that's not how people work....
Likewise, I think it's pretty absurd to believe that anyone believes "white people can't dance" or "gamers love Halo" would be universally true traits, because there hasn't been any sort of overwhelming, seemingly exceptionless indicator that something that outlandish might be true.

.
People get offended by the silliest stuff...
Funny thing is, I am german, and live in germany. you dont have many chances to feel anything towards jews here, for a reason you dont find them here often. my russian boyfriend has a rather low opinion of them, but i cant argue about that, cause of lack of experiance...
 

Jenvas1306

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Im actually interessted in sort of everything going on on this world, but cars or sports are sure topics that dont interesst me. same goes for stupid gossip, drama and which celebrity marries/divorces/eats/etc another celebrity
 

dvd_72

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Am I the only one who thinks that "am I the only one..." doesn't litterally mean "am I the only one...?" and is actually a way to put an idea out there in an effort to find people who feel as you do?

Because really guys, not everything people say is to be taken literally.
 

Vegosiux

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dvd_72 said:
Am I the only one who thinks that "am I the only one..." doesn't litterally mean "am I the only one...?" and is actually a way to put an idea out there in an effort to find people who feel as you do?

Because really guys, not everything people say is to be taken literally.
Am I the only one who thinks that "You're not the only one..." doesn't literally mean "You're not the only one..." and is actually a way to say that just because nobody is the only one, I still don't have to agree with the idea?

Also, yes, that old phrase "want to have your cake and eat it", that just irritates me. I mean, eating is what a cake is for!
 

dumbseizure

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the one that makes my brain go into auto-pilot is when someone just looks at me and goes "you know what?"

No, I don't know what, I am not a fucking mind reader. If I knew what you were going to say when you said "you know what?" I probably would have punched you in the face already because 99% of what people say after "you know what?" Is something stupid and arbitrarily pointless.
 

MetalMagpie

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TizzytheTormentor said:
I also agree on the whole "As a *insert profession here*" Thing...
I allow this one if the profession is relevant to the point being made.

E.g. "As a doctor, I'd advise you not to drink your volume in whiskey."
Or "As a lawyer, I can say that argument probably wouldn't stand up in court."
 

MetalMagpie

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dvd_72 said:
Am I the only one who thinks that "am I the only one..." doesn't litterally mean "am I the only one...?" and is actually a way to put an idea out there in an effort to find people who feel as you do?

Because really guys, not everything people say is to be taken literally.
Exactly. It's like the use of the word "literally" for emphasis rather than to mean something should be taken exactly at face value. It's not "destroying English" or any other twaddle people come up with. Languages evolve. Word meanings drift. This is all OK!

My favourite example: Before the arrival of the Normans in Britain, the word "apple" referred to any fruit. It was only once the French word "fruit" arrived that "apple" was restricted to a particular type of fruit.

Similarly, common phrases develop to express ideas that may be different to the literal meaning of the words. If I say "there wasn't enough space in my hotel room to swing a cat", you wouldn't take that as a literal indication of the space. (How much space does it take to swing a cat, anyway?) It's a phrase to mean "not as much space as would be expected or that I wanted".

 

Stasisesque

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dvd_72 said:
Am I the only one who thinks that "am I the only one..." doesn't litterally mean "am I the only one...?" and is actually a way to put an idea out there in an effort to find people who feel as you do?

Because really guys, not everything people say is to be taken literally.
I agree. I've never understood why people get so worked up about questions starting with, "Am I the only one...," and it saddens me that so many then take that to shouting the person down with , "You're not a special snowflake!" I dunno, maybe being a teenager is different now than it was ten years ago, but it's sort of upsetting.
 

Snotnarok

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Any comment that tries to absolve guilt or something that they think makes them more knowledgeable about something, as people have said before "I'm not racist but" or "As a mother"

Recently I had a client for a website who insisted on having music on the site, which is one of the top 10 sins of webdesign. Despite saying how no one likes it, it's one of the worst choices her response was
"As someone who makes cakes I feel like I know my customers better and I know they like the attention to detail!"

As a professional W3 certified webmaster, your decision is ill advised and not in the customers best interest. But what do I know about websites?
 

dvd_72

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Vegosiux said:
dvd_72 said:
Am I the only one who thinks that "am I the only one..." doesn't litterally mean "am I the only one...?" and is actually a way to put an idea out there in an effort to find people who feel as you do?

Because really guys, not everything people say is to be taken literally.
Am I the only one who thinks that "You're not the only one..." doesn't literally mean "You're not the only one..." and is actually a way to say that just because nobody is the only one, I still don't have to agree with the idea?

Also, yes, that old phrase "want to have your cake and eat it", that just irritates me. I mean, eating is what a cake is for!
You make a good point, until you realise that more often than not the responses of "You're not the only one..." are usually followed by a generally angry post about the person "not being a unique snowflake" or "You're NEVER THE ONLY ONE" while calling them self-entitle pretentious or whatever else hasn't come to mind. It's less the wording of the response I'm fed up with, and more the hate those responses are infused with.
 

AzrealMaximillion

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"Why did this happen? This is America...." Sorry, but every time I hear that in the news I cringe. "This is America" doesn't mean that bad things happen everywhere else but.
 

Vegosiux

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dvd_72 said:
Vegosiux said:
dvd_72 said:
Am I the only one who thinks that "am I the only one..." doesn't litterally mean "am I the only one...?" and is actually a way to put an idea out there in an effort to find people who feel as you do?

Because really guys, not everything people say is to be taken literally.
Am I the only one who thinks that "You're not the only one..." doesn't literally mean "You're not the only one..." and is actually a way to say that just because nobody is the only one, I still don't have to agree with the idea?

Also, yes, that old phrase "want to have your cake and eat it", that just irritates me. I mean, eating is what a cake is for!
You make a good point, until you realise that more often than not the responses of "You're not the only one..." are usually followed by a generally angry post about the person "not being a unique snowflake" or "You're NEVER THE ONLY ONE" while calling them self-entitle pretentious or whatever else hasn't come to mind. It's less the wording of the response I'm fed up with, and more the hate those responses are infused with.
Oh, agreed there completely, it's not usually the words themselves that put me off a discussion but the attitude behind them, some people are simply difficult to discuss things with, no doubt. Hell, I'm sometimes difficult to discuss things with ^^
 

xdiesp

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Casual xenophobia, dropped by US speakers as part of their normal culture. US-centrism is that trite.
 

vasiD

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Sports... Dear god I hate when people talk about sports.

I don't care how well millionaire team X did against millionaire team Y, even if they are your 'rivals'. Sports can be fun to play, and some of them can be fun to watch (Mostly just Hockey and Basketball), but I've never had one interesting conversation about them.
 

Thedutchjelle

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People talking about the bedroom-parts of their relationship (some of my friends tend to do this) and talking about females in general.

Conspiracies that are unbelievably stupid

People who start talking about science, especially biology/medicine, without knowing a damn thing about it. Often they're just repeating bullshit they heard before without ever factchecking it.

These three are high in my list of 'I rather just ignore you now and come back in 5 minutes'

Captcha: forget this. Uh.. okay?
 

Uhura

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Aug 30, 2012
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"Feminazi"
"Biodrone"
"Pretentious"
"Whore"
"Fugly" (when used to refer to a person)
Those terms just kill any interest/hope I might have had for the discussion.
 

Shilefin

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Aug 18, 2011
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There's certainly a plenty of those, although I do hide a particular hatered for something that pops up in chats, comment sections and even forums like this one. I believe that discussion, exchanging thoughts, debates, hell, in some cases even just name-calling are good things. They broaden the mind, spark up new ideas, simulate your mental abilities, expose you to other opinions therefore making you more aware and able to reinforce your own views having heard the opposite ones instead of locking yourself out of any other thought than the 'right' one.

With that in mind, the amount of irritation I get out of seeing a phrase like 'Stop arguing, guys, you should just blindly say yes to what you're reading or never comment on anything that even slightly goes out of your minds bounds as to what is right and wrong' is colossal. So often do I see this aggresively-apathic, close-minded behaviour show up. Aside from asking to stop using a medium for its intended purpose and threats of being aggresively told how the person really doesn't care about the discussion going on, this kind of thing also really serves to close minds, which is a thing I really despise.

Granted, it can be appropriate in some cases where the argument is really out of place, but outside that, even if the 'discussion' turns out to be just two jerks are going at it in a Call of Duty match, I say let them have it. Let them shout their minds, say what they want to say, however stupid it may be.