Pandemic Notes 7.5 On Dealing with…

( I really don’t know what to call them!)

Oh, lordy, look what tumbled out of my inbox Monday morning. I have taken a few days to reply because I am not a brainiac blogger who turns out four or five screeds a week. I choose my topics and develop my pieces in a leisurely way.

I also do not make a practice of leaving comments to other blogger’s posts. Sometimes I do short ones to opportunistically draw some attention to my own blog. It usually has some modest effects on my own readership.

This is one of the problems with internet discussion; the big draws are mostly maniacs. Yet they grab attention and build followings because the followers have really short attention spans and tend to be true believers, immune to any alternatives. Quiet reason does not get much traction. Most normal people are put off by the whole thing, anyway.

Sometimes I will drop a couple of paragraphs of comment just to gauge the reaction. I often get some whopping ones. What I never to is get into lengthy debates with fanatics, ideological warriors, and propagandists; life is too short, I will not convince them of anything, so why bother?

What I can sometimes do is point out to a few people who might be getting taken in by some electronic demagogue, where he or she is really coming from, motivating them to…