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Shog9
Shog9
3:20 AM
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But I will still argue, not because I enjoy it but because it is my duty. Frequent, vigorous, respectful debate is good for a community, an industry, and an art form. Debate is the Darwinian crucible in which bad ideas are burned away and good ideas emerge, purified in fire.
2
@JonEricson I tend to agree with this ^
I've never particularly enjoyed arguing. It's exhausting. You spend all day filling your body with coffee & carbs to expend them in a few hours of mental effort, the chore of composing rhetoric draining you of energy and leaving you sick and melancholy
But without it...
You tend to find yourself agreeing with absolute bullshit just to avoid the conflict
Nodding and signing off on the weakest of justifications, the thinnest tissue-paper rationales for whatever the popular action of the day happens to be...
And at the end, when it all goes to hell...
You don't even get to say, "I told you so"
The sour grapes still taste sour.
Even when your argument is wrong, paranoid, cynical after too much failure, too many mistakes...
By failing to encourage anyone to argue against it, by failing to defend either the status quo or illustrate why the situation has changed...
...you leave your opponent poorer and ill-equipped to enjoy his own success.
Your cowardice and laziness have robbed him of an otherwise sweet victory, of the sustenance that would otherwise be his reward after an effort that has no doubt left him drained and exhausted.
The supportive "well done" and smiling nod are as much vinegar in his mouth as the taste of failure would have been to you.
 

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