Having an argument is a great way to ruin an otherwise perfectly lovely day. The argument could be over anything. It could be over whether or not you think the latest changes that Facebook have made to their site are good or not. It could be whether or not you think raspberry ripple is the best flavour of ice-cream. It could be over whether or not you think the Pope is a massive douchebag. And, if it’s on the Internet, it’s probably over something utterly irrelevant and useless.
So here’s a few steps on how to do it better.
Step 1: State your hypothesis
“PS3 sucks!”
Step 2: Offer convincing evidence for your hypothesis
“Because Xbox 360 rulez!”
Step 3: Offer a source for your evidence
“My mate Joe said so, too.”
Step 4: Await response
“PS3 doesn’t suck!”
Step 5: Respond to response
“Yes it does!” (Return to Step 4 until both sides have been made abundantly clear. This should take approximately 30 minutes, or five pages of forum posts.)
Step 6: Make up a statistic and quote it
“80% of people who tried both consoles said that PS3 sucks!”
Step 7: Await response
“Well I think Xbox 360 sucks!”
Step 8: Quote Nietzsche
“Admiration for a quality, art or rival games console can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.”
Step 9: Await response
“You’re a douche, do you know that?”
Step 10: Respond to response
“Your face is a douche.”
Step 11: Await response to response
“Your mom is a douche.”
Step 12: Respond with nonsensical, illogical response
“That’s not what she said last night.”
Step 13: Await confusion
“What?”
Step 14: Take advantage of confusion
“So it’s settled then!”
Step 15: Gloat
“I win. Douche.”
And so it goes. One of the strange things about this always-connected, everyone-has-a-voice society is that everyone feels the need to have a contentious opinion on something. This happens (albeit not always to the degree described above) on all manner of topics, from the most irrelevant of fanboy conflicts to far-reaching opinions on matters such as racism. And no-one will ever back down, because there’s always another website that “proves” their point, always another statistic from some made-up society somewhere.
It baffles me sometimes, because all this time that gets wasted arguing could be far better used enjoying both things that are being argued over. Of course, part of the issue in some cases revolves around people defending the camp they placed their flag in first. In many cases, people can’t afford to buy both, say, a PS3 and a 360. So they stake their claim to one or the other and then justify their choice to anyone who will listen, and a bunch of people who won’t also. That way, by branding the thing they haven’t got “crap”, they feel better about not owning it, even if they’re secretly bitter that they can’t make use of its exclusive features, software or delicious strawberry flavour.
Of course, some people are just asses and feel the need to disagree with everyone and everything. And those people are called assholes.
(If you’re wondering about the inexplicable German in the cartoon above, you can blame both me and RothDog. Drawing nonsensical cartoons involving German stickmen arguing was always an excellent way to pass the time in tedious German lessons back at school. This strip is a recreation of the first ever one we drew.)