The “Three Gates”, and Internet Arguments

BREATHE!!

I’ve found that the Three Gates are very useful in screening out trolls and such. I’d not specifically considered “discourtesy” as unkindness, but of course it is. It is also an evidence that someone has either lost emotional control, or is deliberately attempting to provoke YOUR emotions to place you at a disadvantage.

So when on two occasions yesterday I found someone coming at me in attack mode, in one case I simply pointed out what they had done, and that it was inappropriate. To their credit, they seemed to respond to this.

On the second occasion a person accused me of sexism, and I pointed out that by the same logic, they could be accused of racism. They weren’t happy about this, and began protesting that their great-great grandfather had been a slave, so implicitly they couldn’t be racist. That’s nice, I said. And my mother was a woman, so by THAT logic I couldn’t be sexist. This did not seem happy-making at all, and they got more abusive and confrontational. Instead of joining that monkey-dance (would it have been useful?), I simply said they were being impolite, that I didn’t tolerate it, and they could either apologize or leave the thread.

Heard nothing more.

I submit that once someone has become impolite, and will not or cannot apologize, the likelihood that something useful will come out of that discussion are miniscule. WHY ARE YOU PROCEEDING?