IMHO ;-}
It’s struck me, the following dictum, over the years of desultory Usenet posting and the occasional spot of blog-comment punditry, and while I’m not prepared to go to the barricades for it (nor am I prepared to state definitively that no one else has ever made the same observation), I do think it offers a pithy, pleasingly counterintuitive insight into the finer points of starving trolls and by far the best way to maintain one’s blood pressure (to say nothing of sanity, or dignity) in the hair-trigger world of internet flamethrowing debate. If taken to heart, I could see its ruthless herd-instinct logic inspiring a decorous wave of prudent moderation throughout the blogosphere and—dare I say it?—beyond:
Whoever gets in the last word loses.
(What you have to do is take the long view for just a moment: think of coming across a heated do-or-die comments thread a week or so after everyone’s stopped their thunderous two-fisted Fiskings and brontologic perorations extempore to see the last post hanging there at the tail end of it all, alone, unanswered, a call with no response, much less a breathtaking put-down stunning all and sundry onlookers into awed silence than it is the hollowed-out rhetoric of a soapbox speechifier who winds it all up to the applause of crickets; everyone else having long since wandered off to gawk and squabble over the next new thing. Whoever gets in the last word loses.)
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While I think this is a good general rule, I wonder how it intersects with the rule that says the blog owner always gets the last word.
Why, that those who keep blogs are losers who really should get up from behind their keyboards and go out for some fresh air. --But. Seriously. I was (of course) referring to those internet discussions in which there is something to be lost; genial conversations are win-win situations.
I win!
(dancing in the endzone)
You wish, Julia! [victory dance]
hardyharharharhar.
(snoopydance)
kip's brilliant idea
having been involved with one contentious debate, i'm thinking that kip's idea that whoever gets in the last word loses is a brilliant idea....
Pppppppbbbbbbbbbtttt !!! :p
i always get in the last word. i'm a redheaded aries scorpio rising. so there.
Virgo rabbit.