"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:

1. No one ever wins.

2. 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.

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Written by a currently non-argumentative J.J. Pryor.