ID: MUNROE @MunroeBergdorf posted: “Please don’t be surprised if I block you instead of engaging in ‘a debate’ about issues that don’t affect you, but impact on my life greatly. I do not need to, nor want to converse with people who prioritize their desire to prove a point, over my humanity and rights.”
Amanda Jette Knox @MunroeBergdorf replies: “THIS. You owe no one a debate on who you are, ever. Not online. Not in person. Not in the media.”
The whole premise of a debate usually comes with the connotation that you will never get convinced, and that if the other person was more convincing than you, then you “lost” and just need to be more persuasive next time.
So yes, just telling someone their opinions are bad usually doesn’t work and is a waste of effort, no matter how well written and supported you are.
From what I can tell a lot of this is just Twitter culture. It is totally possible to have a debate where the point is exploring the ways your ideas do and don’t make sense rather than purely trying to “win” by addressing a crowd with propaganda and rhetoric, it’s just that the internet has trended strongly towards the latter over the years.
I agree with OP in that I wouldn’t try to debate people on Twitter either. That doesn’t mean debate has no value though, you just need to figure out where your line is for when it isn’t going to be worth responding, and then do the hard part of actually committing to that.