obXKCD already linked, so I don’t need to do that, good. I like that you’re coming to the same conclusion from a different direction: you don’t want to improve their models or “fix” the wrongness on behalf of someone else, you just want to learn and improve your own model (ok, probably all of the above, but focusing on internal knowledge).
> my arguing is a limited resource.
This generalizes. Your thinking is a limited resource. Some discussions on the internet (or in person, for that matter) are more valuable than the next-best thing you could do. Many are not.
Of course, there’s a search cost, too—the debate in front of you may “waste” more time than reading a good book or finding a better forum/topic to join, or building a new toy on your rPi or whatever else you could be doing. But it doesn’t “waste” time in figuring out what to do, or where/what the better topics are. I don’t have a good solution for that problem, other than to notice when your current activity is not satisfying and consider the alternatives.
obXKCD already linked, so I don’t need to do that, good. I like that you’re coming to the same conclusion from a different direction: you don’t want to improve their models or “fix” the wrongness on behalf of someone else, you just want to learn and improve your own model (ok, probably all of the above, but focusing on internal knowledge).
> my arguing is a limited resource.
This generalizes. Your thinking is a limited resource. Some discussions on the internet (or in person, for that matter) are more valuable than the next-best thing you could do. Many are not.
Of course, there’s a search cost, too—the debate in front of you may “waste” more time than reading a good book or finding a better forum/topic to join, or building a new toy on your rPi or whatever else you could be doing. But it doesn’t “waste” time in figuring out what to do, or where/what the better topics are. I don’t have a good solution for that problem, other than to notice when your current activity is not satisfying and consider the alternatives.