Re^2: What is "aggressive" argument?

[BrowserUk]

Your problem isn't new.

Hm. (Inevitably:) You're wrong. Or, you might be right, but not in the way you think.

You see, I know why people find me a disagreeable man. There are flavours of course, but mostly, it's because I am.

My only "problem" here is why other people think I should change. More importantly, why do they think that I should want to change.

This place isn't a part of my social life. Just a place where I pass time by attempting to solve interesting problems. As I said somewhere else in this thread, I find programming problems infinitely more interesting and challenging than crosswords or sudoku. Every now and again something I post seems to help the OP and that's nice. And when it doesn't, that okay too, because I probably had fun doing it anyway.

I wish it were possible to have in-depth, technical discussions here, without people taking disagreement with their ideas, code or logic, as attacks on their person; or them resorting to attacks on my person when their technical arguments are exhausted or disproved. It used to be possible.

Just as a person does not have to be beautiful, to do something beautiful; they do not have to be stupid, to do or say something stupid. To say: "That is stupid" is not to say: "You are stupid"; but that distinction seems lost here these days.

I remember when I first came here, I was admonished: "Stop being so damn polite!". Well, this place has knocked it out of me. So, if those with whom I have disagreements, see me as "disagreeable" all I can do is own that.

Nice poem by the way.

[Anonymous Monk]

To say: "That is stupid" is not to say: "You are stupid"; but that distinction seems lost here these days.

In my experience that distinction has always been lost

[BrowserUk]

Do you mean here at PM? Or that the distinction doesn't (or isn't seen to) exist?

[Anonymous Monk]

I mean in real life with humans. The humans will always assume you're caling them stupid. If they're relatives they might forgive you, or if they're really really smart they might compose themselves and reason it out after getting angry, but humans will always get angry first.