Jay Springett has a nice piece over on his site called “Just Like Stuff“, and I appreciated the comment about not arguing with people about anything on the internet:
I’ve had a hard rule for almost twenty years, related to, but separate from, not posting negative things on the internet: I don’t argue with people about anything on the internet.
I grew up in the late 90’s and early 00’s on phpBB forums. At university I was immersed in the blast furnace of 4chan for days at a time. Maybe it’s the Gen-X hangover I carry as a Gen-Y geriatric millennial, but I realised in my early 20’s that I just don’t care enough. I spent whole days, whole summers even when I was younger, lost to endless back-and-forth about whether a band sold out, what sci-fi books were overrated, or particular egregiously on my side, what choice of operating system or KDE vs GNOME proved you were secretly a poser. My mind boggles at it all now, the thought of spending my youth in a permanent trial by forum post. I saw the pattern in my self, how it was making me feel and how permanently warfare online was effecting other people so I opted out.
The times I have argued about something on the internet as an adult, have all resulted from a lapse in judgement, and without exception left me feeling guilty and full of shame. Not because of what others might have thought about the argument, but because I had wasted my energy and got emotionally involved in something that just… didn’t matter.
Jay Springett, “Just Like Stuff“
Sounds about right to me. I spent enough time in my teens and early twenties getting into arguments on forums and IRC channels and whatnot, and yeah. I just don’t care enough. To borrow a line from War Games, “The only winning move is not to play.”