internet debate

So here we are.

There is no such thing as a slam dunk on the Internet. There is no such thing as an uncontroversial opinion, no matter how innocuous it may seem to be. You can’t win. Let me repeat that: you can’t win.

For example, let’s make an innocent little point:

Point: I like cookies.

And now, the rebuttals:

Counterpoint: You shouldn’t eat too many cookies.

Counter-counterpoint: You shouldn’t eat too many cookies if you are too fat, but if you are thin, you can eat as many cookies as you want.

Counter-counter-counterpoint: You shouldn’t make thin people eat cookies because cookies are not healthy.

Counter-counter-counter-counterpoint: You can make cookies healthier if you take out all the things that make them delicious and only use ingredients that are healthy.

Counter-counter-counter-counter-counterpoint: These healthy cookies taste like crap. No one should eat them at all. 

Let’s try again:

Point: Cookies are delicious.

New counterpoint: Cookies are poison.

Counter-new-counterpoint: Cookies are not poison. Poison is poison, and poison is everywhere, in the water we drink and the air we breathe and the plastic that cookies are often wrapped in. If you don’t eat cookies because you think they are poison, you might as well not breathe or drink or sit on your flame retardant-laden sofa, either.

Counter-counter-new-counterpoint: Cookies are full of sugar and are horrible to give to your children and you are a horrible parent if you give cookies to your children because you are essentially killing them.

Counter-counter-counter-new-counterpoint: Cookies are childhood captured in pastry form. They are simple, elegant treats that celebrate the sweetness of life in a cold, hard world. Watch a child eating a cookie and tell me that their eyes don’t light up with joy. Sharing cookies with your children is one of the happiest things you can do together.

Counter-counter-counter-counter-new-counterpoint: Cookies make kids want more cookies, and that makes them bounce off the walls and have no attention span and use too many electronics and spell words wrong and fail math and eventually drop out and live in my basement and eat cookies all day long. Cookies ruin children. Cookies ruin lives.

Counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-new counterpoint: Cookies do not ruin lives. Cookies are good business. Cookies are a thriving commodity in our capitalistic society. Cookies are vital to the economy. Cookies create jobs for people who bake and sell and market them. Cookies are what makes America great. 

Counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-new-counterpoint: Cookies give people diabetes and make their legs fall off and put a strain on health care, draining the economy. Cookies are what’s wrong with America.

Hmm… one more time:

Point: Cookies are good.

Brand-new counterpoint: You are horrible for thinking that cookies are good.

Counter-brand-new-counterpoint: You are horrible for thinking that cookies are bad.

Counter-counter-brand-new-counterpoint: Your opinion is ruining everything.

Counter-counter-counter-brand-new-counterpoint: Your existence is ruining everything.

I’ll say it again: you can’t win. And if we all can’t even agree on cookies, what chance do you think we have with everything else in the world? 

Yes indeed. Welcome to me.