I am involved on Reddit's political forum in a typical manner: argumentative comments on /r/politics. Posting large quantities of comments that have seemingly no purpose other than to irritate is now a regular practice. Whether it is through my phone on the way to work or in my office at home, I make sure that certain people feel miserable about the things they say.
Many would ask why it is important to me. Many ask for my intention. I will let you figure that out.
My method is simple. If I find a hole in someone's argument, I exploit it and only that. The intention is not to defend any particular argument, but to undermine someone's argument by poking intentionally through an indefensible hole in their logic, knowledge, or self-esteem.
I do not make these pokes with immature language or hate in my words. I use a bit of passive language sometimes to extend the word count to increase the "loftiness" of my appeal. I try to seem overly confident, simple, and straight forward. I use the words "fact", "reality", and "simply" a lot. I focus on as little else as possible other than the thread I intend to cut. I slice ever so extremely at my opponent in this way and I can topple their argument and throw them immediately into a weak, defenseless position. Most respondents have no problem giving away their entire offensive platform to defend themselves and thus fall apart in hopes of defending their flag without a fort.
If they wanted to defeat me, they would need to simply admit their wrong and reiterate their point without the flaw. Yet, it is hard for them to smoothly reiterate a point that is based on a hole in their logic. They want to defend everything, because they don't really understand what they're arguing about. They're just used to arguing, and as the internet goes, they only know how to argue against everything. I doubt they can even correctly pinpoint their hypothesis.
Many people who I target have such a considerable hole in their logic. I promise you, it is not hard to notice once you know the criteria. I have gotten so precise that I have even driven people to delete their posts or change them if my response makes them look stupid enough.
But, there is a purpose behind all of this. I do have an intention. And I do have a particular target audience.
I am the 99%.
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