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The End of Plan B?
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 9:49 pm
by Gob
AN ARGUMENT on the internet has been resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.
The conclusion of the dispute, which began in October 1998 on a message board abandoned by everyone else in 2002, has given hope to the rest of the internet.
Bill McKay said: “We’re pretty sure the argument began over The X-Files, though we actually disagreed even on that for most of 2009.
“Since then it’s ranged across Richard Dawkins, Keynesian economics, dream Justice League line-ups, the standardisation of European shoe sizes and smartphone operating systems, Godwinising a record 43,378 times.
“It’s been a full-time job, so I’m lucky that I have the kind of full-time job where they assume if I’m typing I’m working.”
Bill, also known as Flying Boy, and his interlocutor Electr0m0nk have spent 16 years locked in argument, a full year of which was spent shouting “STRAW MAN!” at each other.
The pair, who estimate they cut-and-pasted sections from every page on Wikipedia in attempts to back up their prejudices with evidence, now count themselves friends.
Bill said: “I dunno, after the thousandth time you accuse someone of an ad hominem you get friendly, you know?
“We finally settled our differences, agreed that we’d both learned a lot from each other, closed the message board and moved on.
“I hope it can teach others that arguing on the internet is completely worthwhile, as long as you never give up. Never.”
Re: The End of Plan B?
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 10:05 pm
by Joe Guy
We should prepare a Plan C just in case...
Re: The End of Plan B?
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 12:58 pm
by Reality Bytes
That actually resonates a little bit with me, going back at least 10 years or more now I posted on a forum where I actually ran the debating area, I had a heck of a fight with one particular forumite who was known to be "difficult" we REALLY got into it he's very right wing Republican and he thinks I'm as left as left can be lol , and it spilled over into the online chatroom both of us not giving an inch and it got pretty heated at times. And then one day after we'd been arguing over a particular news article I was either going to blow a gasket I was so bloody angry at something he posted or I was going to have to walk away and never debate him again before I had a heart attack, so I sent him a really sarcastic snarky message taking the piss out of him and he replied in a similar vein - far from pushing each others buttons we'd actually both found each others messages totally hilarious, more messages in the same vein followed, and we got chatting, as I said that was over 10 years ago, neither one of us frequent that forum any more, but we have been in touch pretty much daily one way or another ever since and we "love" each other to bits - I consider him to be one of my closest "online" friends and whilst we've not met face to face we speak on the phone a couple of times a year. It is a friendship a bit like a brother/sister thing he still thinks I'm a lefty liberal (and seem to think thats an insult LOL) and I still think that he's a Fox News Republican who needs to get out more but we know when to stop with the button pushing and cherish our differences.
Re: The End of Plan B?
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 5:38 pm
by Rick
No problem here some posters will never make up LOL