One of my "up later than I planed" activities is to watch old TV shows I haven't seen in many years. Early in the year I watched the Burning Man episode of Malcolm in the Middle. That sparked, a few months later, a desire to rewatch the entire series.
I am currently on Season 6 and a show opened with the three brothers wrestling on the floor shouting, in turn "monkey!", "squid!", and 'kangaroo!". Malcolm pulls the camera aside, as he's prone to do, and says "I don't know if a monkey could take a squid or a kangaroo in a knife fight, but if I tell them that, we wouldn't have anything to do all day"
Which made me ponder the seemingly rampant online political discussions I've been reading during the latter part of his year. I try to stay out, arguing politics online is exhausting because everyone's always got good intentions and well meanings and so terribly few idea actually turn into something worth reading. In the end everyone has "a good point". If every people in the discussion didn't have "a good point" then the discussion wouldn't be worth having. We all try to never come out and say "you have a good point" because too much flexibility could damage our position so all concessions come at great pain to the concessionary.
But what I think is that it isn't ego, it isn't pride, and it isn't radicalism. It's just if either party conceded the point what in the hell would they have to do all day?
