stevestory
Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005
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No, not really. It was years ago, but several years after I decided that arguing with crazies was pointless, and that my time was more valuable. Occasionally you'll see me briefly break that rule, but for the most part, I'm pretty selective about my discussions. The time and energy spend discussing something might seem free, but if nothing else, it comes with 'opportunity cost', as the economists would say. So I try to only put in the investment of discussing something, when I expect to get some kind of return. With crazies like moon-landing deniers/ evolution deniers / global warming deniers, you're usually not dealing with people who have the mental habits which makes it productive to talk to them. Except, as others have pointed out, when you consider the return to be the enlightening of the ambivalent lurkers.
It's made a big difference in my life. I don't waste my time nearly as much now. If you came up to me, in 1996, and said, "God never gives you anything you can't handle" you'd be in for a 3 hour discussion of how unfalsifiable that is, that people die all the time, and dying certainly isn't 'handling things', &c. If you came up to me in 2006 and said that, you'd be in for the question, "Man, did you see that last Heat/Mavs game? I mean, shiiiiit. Is D-Wade for real?"
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