I used to have an addiction to arguing on the internet, especially about politics. I wasted thousands of hours of my life on this, ruined friendships, and put myself into a constant state of negativity.
I could write an entire book, based on personal experience, on why arguing on the internet about politics is a terrible idea. (And that’s one of those projects I have on my list of “things I may do if I ever have enough time, but right now I have other priorities.”) But for now, I’ll just tell you about two incidents that were major factors in me realizing I had a problem and needed to stop.
When the 2005 London Metro bombings happened, I saw someone point to that as evidence that her “side” was correct. I wrote up an angry post saying, “How dare she exploit this tragedy to score cheap political points.… Read more