Better yet, don’t argue on the internet. You will never change anyone else’s mind about anything important.

There are copious studies on the neurochemistry of an argument that show an inability to edit certain sections of memory that came about as an evolutionary tool: killing a bear barehanded once obviously shouldn’t change the classification of a bear as fucking dangerous. The portions of our brain that we hold ideas about religion and politics (the most common sources of argument) happen to fall into these protected regions. This is made doubly worse by the loss of inflection and nuance from text compared to speech.

I try to limit myself to a single response for exactly this reason unless I find I’ve actually learned something and the conversation is non-combative, and the more the comment opposes mine the less likely I am to respond. In theory, I’m not perfect.