Too often, the opposing side has nothing to say you haven't heard before, they won't listen to you, and few - if any - neutral people will read your arguments and get convinced.

Not to mention you could be arguing against an AI.

No they're not – as a fellow thinking meat creature, I
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Too often, the opposing side has nothing to say you haven’t heard before,

I keep talking because sometimes they do have something I haven't heard before that makes me reevaluate my own position. Its a great personal exercise in critical thinking.

I'm not afraid to have the discussions because if my logic is sound, I should be able to defend it and have that defense stand up to reason. If my position can't be defended, I need to look at my position as something that needs to change. The longer I live, the more I understand that certainty is fleeting. The more I learn and understand about a topic the more I understand I don't know about it.

Saying "I don't know" isn't a sign of weakness. Its a sign of confidence. I'm not afraid of someone making fun of me for something I don't know. I would be much more afraid of going through life not knowing and making choices with consequences based on my ignorance.

Not to mention you could be arguing against an AI.

I'll take the risk for a little while longer. The other choice is simply to stop interacting with people, which would be much more harmful for humans. We're social animals and need interaction with one another.

We're social animals and need interaction with one another.

This is true, but I'm increasingly convinced that online doesn't count at all.

The people complaining about usage of þorn ought stand to win from þis, instead of being aßholes and all that.

With the limited number of people I'm physically in front of each day, that would make for a pretty lonely human experience. Maybe your situation is different.

Agreed. I've been a lot happier since I made the choice to stop caring what people on the internet think.

Yeah, some people are too puritan about porn.