Considering leaving the forum (attention whoring)

[memphis]

Oh please. He's not going to leave. He just wants, after his defeat, for everybody to tell him what a smart, good person he is so he can feel better about himself because all of his fragile ego is based off of the acceptance of an internet forum. Suck it up! So what if your viewpoint isn't popular? Life isn't a popularity contest. People are not always going to agree with you and tell you how smart you are. Take it as a life lesson and learn from the experience rather than throwing yourself an online pity party.

First of all, I haven't been 'defeated', because I'm not actually wrong.

I'm not going to react to the rest of this.

I'm wrong and I should probably just shut up.

[J-Mann]

I like you and enjoy your posts, but I tend to agree with memphis and Joe Republic (who probably won't get angry responses for his bluntness like memphis did!). Dust yourself off and move on. This "venue" can be a great way to hone beliefs and refine how you espouse them, or challenge them. Either way, it's not worth a dramatic walk-out. A few poorly-defended posts out of 13,000+ probably isn't anything to worry about.

[Alcon]

You're a nice person, and I don't want you to leave.

This is a little silly, though.  You have an argument that you feel strongly but are having trouble defending.  Maybe it's wrong, and your emotions are misleading you.  Maybe it's right, and you haven't been able to take it from intuition to logical explanation.  Either way, not discussing it isn't going to help you get there.

But, to be 100% blunt:

1. It's silly that you think you're not "worthy" of discussing something just because you can't immediately explain your feelings in logical terms.

2. It's silly that you're claiming you're not adequate enough to try, and yet you're convinced that there must be logical terms.  It really can't be both .

I think you're taking every part of this too seriously -- although I also include the sanctity of your own intuitions here.  Stay, chill out, have a beer, open yourself up to the exciting reality that we're all wrong frequently no matter how smart or good we are, and that's not shameful -- but you also shouldn't ignore that reality.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Oh please. He's not going to leave. He just wants, after his defeat, for everybody to tell him what a smart, good person he is so he can feel better about himself because all of his fragile ego is based off of the acceptance of an internet forum. Suck it up! So what if your viewpoint isn't popular? Life isn't a popularity contest. People are not always going to agree with you and tell you how smart you are. Take it as a life lesson and learn from the experience rather than throwing yourself an online pity party.

First of all, I haven't been 'defeated', because I'm not actually wrong.

I'm not going to react to the rest of this.

I'm wrong and I should probably just shut up.

You know, you're right that I find myself retracting or dissembling away from statements that I've made kind of a lot, and doing it again in this instance is probably just going to give you more ammunition, but I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to officially retract having said that I was wrong and go back into that thread and defend the position in question, just to spite you.

[angus]

I'm going to ... defend the position in question, just to spite you.

the important thing is that you're doing it for the right reasons.

[Simfan34]

I like the sound of that!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm going to ... defend the position in question, just to spite you.

the important thing is that you're doing it for the right reasons.

Oh, it is a genuinely held position too and one that I shouldn't have (melodramatically, insincerely) said was wrong in the first place. The possibility of spiting memphis just makes it even better.

[Joe Republic]

So you're confirming that this thread is a self-serving waste of time?  That was fast.

[patrick1]

So we are getting graded on our posts now? I hope there is a curve and attendance isnt taken.

I think Al has touched around this before, but some people post here like they are running for office or arguing before the Supreme court. It is an internet forum and should be a nice exchange of ideas. Atlas seems to be filled with a lot of smartest kids in the class who desperately need to win or always be right. At its worst it sometimes mirrors unproductive groups or units.  

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So you're confirming that this thread is a self-serving waste of time?

Was that ever in any doubt?

In all seriousness, the original post in this thread was sincere when I made it but, well, I think a lot of us knew from the get-go how long these sorts of moods tend to last.

In the interest of preventing the self-serving waste of time from perpetuating itself I'm locking the thread.