[narrator]

Back when Peak Oil was a big meme (2008) I got in a long debate with environmental doomers who believed the world was going to spiral into complete and total collapse and depopulation within a couple of years. I was probably the lone voice of optimism on this particular board and I carefully debated them over a long period of time and learned a lot about research, persuasion, arguing and rhetoric even when I was getting flamed like crazy on every other response.

When you say "they are wasting your time", it's that you just don't enjoy debating. You want everyone to tell you quickly you're right and move on to whatever you're actually interested in, like art appreciation or shopping for home decor at antique stores.

Debating with someone who actually wants to get to the truth of a matter is a real pleasure for me. It's also occasionally fun to deal with fallacious arguers by using their own fallacy against them. There are debates I don't have time for, but I don't get angry at people who even propose a debate. What can be annoying is when the mainstream has weighed in on something and they're wrong and armies of people come in to a debate half-way through and completely ignore all the argument so far and just try and push through with their version of the truth through a denial of service attack on the debate by them all repeating the same thing they heard on mass media.