Kip was wrong. Until now, I was the last person in the blogosphere who hadn’t posted this comic from Xkcd:
This is quite true for me. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve told Danielle to hang on, I just need to finish a comment. But, while the accuracy of the comic is spot-on, the tone is missing completely. The reader must insert a contextual judgment. For that, I refer you to John Scalzi’s Whatever:
Krissy used to worry that I got too wrapped up in absolutley [sic] pointless Internet slugfests until the day she realized that the reason I did it was because I was having fun, not because I was massively emotionally invested. I might stay up to thump on someone online, but once I step away from the monitor, it’s done. Letting people you don’t even know get you all wound up is no way to go through life.
The slugfests I get involved in concern exactly what you think they concern. Still, Mr. Scalzi is correct. On my chosen subject, I know I’m right. I do not engage in an attempt to fix someone’s thinking. I seek to refine my thinking and debate skills against common irrationality and misunderstanding. It’s self-improvement, not fighting.