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Reef3's comments
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Reef3  ·  3407 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How to be polite

    People silently struggle from all kinds of terrible things. They suffer from depression, ambition, substance abuse, and pretension. They suffer from family tragedy, Ivy-League educations, and self-loathing. They suffer from failing marriages, physical pain, and publishing. The good thing about politeness is that you can treat these people exactly the same. And then wait to see what happens. You don’t have to have an opinion. You don’t need to make a judgment. I know that doesn’t sound like liberation, because we live and work in an opinion-based economy. But it is. Not having an opinion means not having an obligation. And not being obligated is one of the sweetest of life’s riches.

I really enjoyed this part. Everybody has a story to tell that you can learn from. In conversation I avoid asking people what their job is or, if in school, what their major is. It's much more interesting to ask how they enjoy spending their time. If those two overlap, that's fine but I want to hear people gush about their passions, it's far more interesting.

Reef3  ·  3455 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: My egg had two yolks.

Not to one up you, but one time I had two eggs in a row with double yolks! The improbability of that happening still makes me smile.

Unfortunately one of the yolks broke so the picture isn't as nice as it could have been.

Reef3  ·  3733 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Horrible people are just a vocal minority: Prove it

Regarding your question, trolling on the internet is easy and, I suppose, gratifying for those who do it, while defending people from them and conversing with them is exhausting at best, infuriating at worst.

I tend to just not converse online in general, whether it be Reddit, Twitter, or Hubski. I'm very much a lurker. Why participate in the conversation when it often falls to the notoriously low standards of Youtube comments? "Don't feed the trolls" can be seen as giving up, and maybe this is a selfish stance to take, but I'd rather not spend my energy and time arguing with people looking to incite conflict or hurl insults.