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by notacoward 3988 days ago
I haven't downvoted, but I could see how others might have. The CSL quote is a good one. It's important to maintain a certain child-like wonder in the face of encroaching adult jadedness. Unfortunately, non-quote part of the comment is pure spite. Nobody here is "going on" about how being more adult makes them better, but just in case someone did our commenter stands ready to psychoanalyze them as being stuck in high school and thus dismiss them in the exact same say s/he apparently resents superhero-comic fans being dismissed. "I'm rubber, you're glue" is just childish, which is not the same as child-like, and only drags the conversation downward.
1 comments

The OP said "perhaps" they need to look at themselves - if that's pure spite a lot of NH readers are living in cloud cuckoo land.
"Perhaps" can be used to indicate true uncertainty, but often it's just a kind of weasel-wording used to avoid accountability for one's own words. How do you tell the difference? One way is to look at whether succeeding statements which build on the "perhaps" continue the uncertainty. Are phrases like "in that case" or "would be" present, or are such follow-ons stated with certainty? Perhaps the commenter was making a truly conditional statement. Perhaps s/he is just a cowardly asshole. Oh look, I said "perhaps" so we're all OK, right? Sorry, doesn't work that way. Sometimes deniability isn't so plausible after all. When you consider that same person's next comment, I think the reality of that "perhaps" is pretty apparent.