"Fun Fact: 1000% More of Something is 11 x Something"
A short dive into absurdity
I strive to live by a few rules in my adulthood.
One of the most important ones:
“Never argue on the internet.”
I’m not always perfect at it — surprise, surprise, I’m only human — but 99% of the time, it serves me well.
The title above was innocuous enough. Someone posted a clickbait article striking fear into our hearts about whatever topic du jour the mass media wanted us to panic about to get more clicks and ad revenue.
Then a user on this particular social media leveraged that panic and added their own title to gain useless internet likes to feel more important.
The headline screamed something like:
“Sloths on average get laid 1000% more often than you! That’s 10 times more!”
Only slightly miffed, I wrote:
“Fun fact: 1000% more of something is 11 x something”
What followed was tens of thousands of strangers from all around the world taking precious time out of their day to craft some of the most creative insults imaginable.
“So cute, it thinks it can do math.”
“You’re the reason teachers need summer off.”
“This guy’s a human version of a typo.”
And, of course, I broke my rule. I explained the logic (AKA truth) over and over again.
Poorly, apparently.
The ridicule piled on and on and on.
The interesting part? About 1/3 of the audience was backing my claims, but nary said a word of support.
Cowards, the lot of them!
There went an hour I’ll never get back.
But that wasted hour just reinforced my rule.
I axed the thread, ditched the app for the non-logged-in browser version, and saved myself endless future arguments (and hours).
When debating on the internet, one must remember two things:
No one ever wins.
George Carlin.
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
In the end, I did manage to get through to one person after an extended back and forth of received ad hominems and projected source-backed explanations.
“Fine. Against my better judgment, I’ll be the better man and admit you’re right.”
Sigh.
Written by a currently non-argumentative J.J. Pryor.
Never argue with stupid people. They'll pull you down on their level and beat you there with experience... 😎
So not worth it. Opinions rarely change on the internet mstly thanks to echo chambers.