Responding to people's rants with "Cool" or "cool beans" really does seem to encourage them to delete it, I'm not really sure why. Maybe because it's a bit of a dismissal. I had a friend who was getting self-righteous on Facebook - I had posted about something I think about a lot; kids who are raised by parents who grew up in a digital world and the parents' history on digital media and the potential of kids to get into it and maybe raise some very awkward questions - and my friend basically said "Well I'm not like that and I will never have that problem because I will just be an awesome parent" - and I just said "Cool" because, like, she was missing the point of my post. I was glad she thought she was going to be a perfect parent, but even if she was the gold-plated sparkling exception who was just better than everyone else at life, it didn't negate my thoughts or wonder on the topic. And yeah, she deleted it. Her post was also at 2 am and I think she may have realized that it came across as really "I'm better than everyone else on Facebook so I just won't have this problem!" (she was like 'I don't post personal stuff on my statuses' - completely disregarding the pictures she uploads all the time). Some fights aren't worth fighting. I'm working on learning that.
In real life I like to address this by calling that person, "Sport" or "Champ", for example the other day I was at work and this guy insisted that to read you simply have to internally sound things out. Now, subvocalizing while reading is a major impediment to speed and also to comprehension, which I have found to be true personally and which is backed up by the teaching methodologies I'm trained in for EFL. Now, dude just would not let it go and I was getting heated so I said, "I'm sure you know best, champ." From a conflict perspective, this is unproductive. Punches to the face are generally also unproductive. But, as has been noted by others during my formative years, if there is a button, I have to struggle mightily not to push it. And it felt good. Anyway, later the dude came up to me with an amended argument and a peace offering, "we're both right" which is bullshit. I am right and he was wrong. Your lips should not move when you read.Responding to people's rants with "Cool" or "cool beans" really does seem to encourage them to delete it, I'm not really sure why. Maybe because it's a bit of a dismissal.
After so long I've learned to pick my fights, yeah. There are too many assholes out there that think their easy cynicism and solipsistic mindsets have got the world figured out. Everyone else is just too stupid to see that everything sucks, man, so who gives a shit. But that's cowardice under the guise of callousness. I don't take people like that seriously. It's people who can remain positive and hopeful and keep doing what they do who are the real heroes. Those are the people worth talking to. Guys whose lifestyles likely consist of band shirts and edgy comic books (see: the Internet at large) are not usually part of this group.