Do not, my friends, become addicted to arguing with redditors

to a /r/politics user

All the way back in 2017 I legitimately thought every user on that sub was actual bots

It just felt so different from the rest of reddit (whose users should also be wiped off the planet)

It's heavily modded and censored and was one of the first targeted by their former CIA community misinformation manager
- I guess it could be really dumb paid shills instead of bots. idk
It's even worse now, if you'd believe it
- I really don't actually believe those are real people on that subreddit. That's why I never cared about it. You can't convince me it's anything other than bots talking to each other.
  
  The rest of reddit though,

I stopped doing that a while ago and my life drastically improved

I spent several years and waaaay too many hours of my life typing out responses to bad faith redditors who didn't deserve the effort.

same, but for me it used to be defending dark souls 2. i think i've really traded down in that regard
- I mean, that's good and important work! DS2 is unfairly maligned, and actually quite good in many respects! Is it jankier than any other FromSoft game? Yes, absolutely. Did they make some strange and inexplicable choices that I disagree with? Also yes. But the vibes of that game, the level design, the fashion! Incredible, absolutely S tier. Majula is easily the best "hub" of any of the FromSoft games I've played, and Heide's Tower of Flame might be my favorite area ever, beating out both Leyndell and Fountainhead Palace in terms of shear beauty.
  
  I also like that DS2 doesn't expect or want you to have a comprehensive knowledge of the plot. You can just wander a melancholy, dying world and you're not trying to save it or something, it's been made pretty clear from the very beginning that you're not on some grand quest, really. You're not following the instructions of a weird immortal giant snake or trying desperately to stand before the elden ring or being handheld through the plot by an immortal child. (I do really like Kuro, I don't mean to make it sound like his involvement with the plot is a negative, it isn't.) You're just wandering through a beautiful, sad world, and eventually you'll end up finding the souls you need, because it's impossible not to.
  
  Oh, and the gender changing coffin rules. So weird, but I love it!
- Hell yeah! Fellow DS2 simp! Seriously, the atmosphere alone makes it better than DS3 to me. The music, the weapons, the sheer variety of armor sets. Even the kinda ugly textures fed into the dream-like atmosphere.

I have whatever the opposite of this is.

I remember when I used to be addicted to arguing in youtube comments. This was the youtube comments before they added threads so you would have to scroll through the entire comments to find a reply.

If you think reddit is bad, I've seen horrific shit being said in insta posts what-the-hell

I feel like Instagram is definitely one of the worst comment sections on the internet at this point.

I typically give it 1-2 responses. I never make that 3rd.

A great rule for arguing on the internet, along with remembering that you're really making your point for lurkers reading along instead of the person responding to you.
Good rule of thumb. If one writes more than 5 sentences each time, it shouldn't take more than 2 attempts to see whether the other guy is deficient. Anything after that should boil down to a no-effort "get bent"

why arbitrary age limits are a poor heurisitc for experience

Okay, I know this isn't what you meant, but please explain what this was about because all I can think of is how this sounds like

CW: pedo

how pedophiles argue for lowering the age of consent

oof did not even think about that

it was about how you have to be 35 at minimum to be president of the US because the founding fathers said so

I like to link long dense theory. No one ever responds and it makes it look like you won.

just make sure you copy paste something, don't waste more time than your opponent. if it's relevant copypasta that's bonus points but not a requirement

i have wasted so much of my life arguing with people on the internet

it's not worth it. just make fun of them and move on.

This may be a bit of a hot take but I don't think age limits are that bad. I can see the argument that on average, a 25yo doesn't have the experience with people, with changing political landscapes, foreign policy etc that would be necessary for the job.

I know that a 25 yo child of poor parents from a poor community will have more life experience than a legion of failsons put together, but that'd be a little idealistic as a response. Any <40 that gets a shot at being the usian president will be some silver spoon shithead who made all the right friends.

All that said I'll freely admit the criterion is useless as shit. Usians will have a second election between someone with a rotting corpse syndrome and whatever donald's got. If they hold debates, it'll be a contest of whichever side prepares the better coctail of uppers. Clearly, usians have extremely low standards and a youth president would be the least of their problems.

My argument is that using an age requirement as a stand in for "experience" is arbitrary and inaccurate. You could have multiple terms as a congressional representative under your belt crafting and voting on legislation, representing your constituents, working on committees, etc. and still be barred from the presidency on the basis that you're not experienced enough. Meanwhile, someone aged 35 and a day who doesn't know what a congress is apparently has the experience needed.

And I don't even really care about the age minimum in a vacuum, I just think it's silly that people call out a maximum age limit as discriminatory but don't bat an eyelash at the literal age discrimination already enshrined in the constitution. Civil religion and founding father worship is a hell of a drug
- I'm not defending any liberal democracy here. Any system where the people in charge of advancement are the ones with a shot at that advancement, there'll be conflicts of interest like this. If a constitutional amendment barring old people from something went in front of a room full of old people who happen to be potentials, that thing's getting shot down faster than a bolt of lightning.
  
  I will only argue in the hypothetical, that there's no test for youthful inexperience, but cognitive decline can be tested. Although that fact is also quite meaningless in a system where the doctor applying the test can be bought off.
  
  My point is actually capitalism bad, a socialist country will figure this stuff out one way or another.

Arguing is reactionary

but no i want to berate liberals for being wrong

if you can get them to understand it, more power to you
- i eat liberal bones for breakfast

Go on Bad Hexbear? No thanks.

that means this site is Good Reddit
- No reddit, only hexbear

The hangover is always worse than the high

Got a nasty taste of this recently, not with a redditor but essentially the same beast

Thank God I have creative outlets and people around me who foster them, without that I can imagine a much more mentally unwell version of myself emerging. There really is something weirdly addictive about that hot-blooded feeling it gives you, even worse if you've ever actually won one of these inane "debates"

Honestly the best response to redditors and other delusional assholes is absurdity and sarcasm. They are a bunch of liars, assholes and hypocrites and don't deserve any sincerity

Can’t argue with ‘em because I keep getting banned, and reddit even has even banned my IP address from certain subreddits now.

I want to dunk on the loser landlords in my state’s subreddit so badly. I want to go to r/millennials, r/nursing, r/teachers, r/antiwork, r/everything and say: “IT’S THE BOURGEOISIE, NOT NECESSARILY THE BOOMERS!”—over and over again because it seems like people are increasingly miserable there and looking for answers. But they can’t find any because if you talk about the bourgeoisie or question the Ukraine War or say that Biden is a Nazi or imply that mental health might have some sort of connection to the material world, it’s a ban for you. If I breathe a word about any of this shit using my last remaining reddit profile, which I use to advertise my books, that’s also going to get banned. Sometimes redditors will get so pissed off that they’ll cyberstalk me and leave shitty reviews of my books, too.

I wanna so a lot of stuff offline that I can't do as well. Cyberpunk Dystopia etc

See I always kind of wanted to dedicate the rest of my life to tormenting them at least as much as they torment me.

Done a pretty good job of making sure I have fuck all else going for me

I like typing up my response, hate their response where they misunderstand/ignore everything I say.

I find that the best thing you can do is not even engage with Reddit or its users. The only time I use Reddit is for niche technology issues I’m troubleshooting, even then I don’t comment or anything, I just find the 7 year old thread and fix my issue.

You won't regret it's absence. If you choose to, just remember you're significantly smarter than them and also don't owe them a second of your time or thought. But you can just also not go.