"End Of Discussion"
On Giving Others The Illusion That They Determined When The Fat Lady Sings.
“Full Stop. End of Discussion!”
”I grow bored of our time together.”
Sadly, these days, most of my “discussions” regarding those well-embedded in the Covid Narrative on X come down to the above statements. And because they can’t bring themselves to just let things lie, or to say “Bye,” I either get proclamations or blocked.
They just can’t let things go.
And I won’t either. I admit it. There are times where I have thought Why am I even doing this? (Good news, there is an answer! at the end.)
I don’t need to end things because I am under no such illusion that I am in control. And to me, blocking or muting is a cop-out. I think it’s an unfair way to treat someone else, even those who insult and abuse me. How messed up is that?
That means I have probably done what others see as a “waste of time.” But if someone is going to audit my time, I could show them other grand wastes of time as well. Watching Netflix, playing video games, and sleeping until I see the credits, are all “wastes of time.”
This also explains one of the reasons why I am reluctant to talk on the phone. The reason I don’t like talking on the phone is that I like talking on the phone.
Here’s how I determine when a conversation is at an end on X…they no longer reply. So like the Beatles song, No Reply, or ELO’s Telephone Line, the end is when there is no response.
You don’t need to tell me the conversation is done. I know when I have said something in response, and there is no response. Think of it like Forrest Gump running in the jungle of Viet Nam. He knows when to stop running when he can’t hear any more explosions and he is all alone. As long as they respond, I respond.
And they can’t help themselves. I think they feel the need to have the last word.
Of course, we all want to have the last word. For me, I feel it is etiquette to speak last since most of my conversations on Twitter are in response to some erroneous ideas about Covid, like masks working, the vaccine being effective, and the whole merry-round of Testing/Isolation/Retesting protocols and sadly the new social contract of people thinking that the only way they should return to work is if they are at full health.
One way they try to end dissent or conversation is posturing. And these conversations, they lead to condescension.
Condescension.
It’s the one thing those of us who disagree with the narrative are constantly facing, and I am sure not alone. Other fracas affirm this. At some point in a discussion, they will mention that the conversation is ending. Roll the credits! Do the pullback drone shot! Fade to black!
I suppose you have to end a conversation somehow, and for them, this is their changing lanes off-ramp, the place they are comfortable in landing. Usually, there is one last jab, some “posturing” and they assert that they somehow controlled the conversation from the start. They were growing bored, they entertained a fascination with me, and they decided to stop trimming their nose hairs and thought that a conversation with me was a minor diversion.
I don’t know if it’s a bug or a feature, but my Twitter interactions could still be going on if I determined when the conversation should end. Because, as I stated, the end comes when there is no longer a response.
After all, this is online, and unlike chatting, tweeting can occur over days, even weeks, and does not necessarily have to be immediate. If it was a chat, then the term is called “ghosting.” But tweeting, now X’ing, well…you could tweet, go to bed for the night, take off the whole weekend, and come back on Monday ready to respond to the person that just told you “Good luck with your Long Covid.” (I was told this about a week ago).
The healthy thing to do is to create boundaries.
I can put a pause on them, to do other things. Like, for instance, right now I am writing this instead of scrolling through my notifications. But other than that, I only call out logical fallacies and try to stay out of the “rules of engagement.” Because for me, any argument that begins with or involves ad hominem attacks has already been conceded. I am, in the parlance of Monty Python, arguing on my own time.
So they can “This is the end” or “I am feeling a trifle peckish” to develop an exit strategy to the conversation or “take Whoopie for the block.” But it is posturing on their end. Because when they employed insults, they metaphorically turned over the chessboard. Or again, in the parlance of Monty Python, they are dealing in abuse, not an argument.
For them, they have their reasons. If I intended to get to the end of the thread, chat, or interaction with some sort of an outcome that resulted in a changed mind/heart, I would have given up getting into these conversations to begin with. Because the end of my conversations end either this way, a “mute,” or a block…
For those playing at home. His “momentary fascination” extended over three days. If I can hold someone’s attention for ten seconds I consider it a win.
Why do they feel the need to do this? My guess is ego. A lot of arguing online is posturing, framing, or reframing issues. And a big part of that is determining when to end the conversation. I speculate that many of these people want to wind others up to a point where they are reaching an emotional boiling point, and at that point, one just jab and a block. Or they want to render them speechless.
Thus, they imagine us, in abject rage, about to throw our computer or phone out the window. When you receive this message:
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand some of the reasons I am blocked. After all, they consider dissent to be dangerous misinformation delivered by a conspiracy theorist. They imagine me, a tinfoil hat, in a basement, the room covered in soda cans and pizza boxes.
This might be their image of me, but this looks nothing like me. I don’t wear “wife beater” t-shirts.
My purpose is not to “win an argument.” What can be won? This isn’t about changing minds and hearts. Before one can change one’s mind, first one has to use one’s mind. And despite ad hominem attacks on both sides, anyone who logs into twitter or x has a mind. And I have time and calories to burn if for no other reason than to see a mind at work.
I am also paying penance for an unmade argument at the beginning of 2020. The argument I should have made was when I first read about what was going on in China. I should have said something like:
”Whatever China is doing, do the opposite. A good indicator of the right decision is to see what China does, and do the exact opposite.”
or I should have said:
”We’ve already been through this with the Bird Flu and the ‘08 Sars virus, Dude, maintain.”
“Dude Maintain” should have been the cry from us, from me, early and often. But I was confident that cooler heads would prevail. I thought there were adults in the room. I in a craptastic fashion thought to myself They got this. When the chips are down, they’ve made the right decision.
Cooler heads would prevail…
But cooler heads did not prevail, and propaganda supplanted reality, and now we have people seriously thinking that most people should upend their lives to accommodate the few.
And so no. Despite all posturing to the contrary, this conversation will not end until I get some indicator that more than 1 gig of memory is being used for background tasks.
If you want to reframe a conversation and end it, that’s fine. Just realize that despite all perceptions to the contrary, either of us at any time could have ended the conversation. There’s no need to make rhetoric-filled statements. There is no obligation to continue.
Or as they say. This isn’t an airport, you don’t have to announce your departure.
Nice essay.
Yesterday, a substack commenter accused me of being a "government paid spinner" simply because I was trying to convince him to read Dr Leonard Horowitz's 1996 book _Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola_, in which Dr Horowitz delineates (with actual documentary evidence) the history and lab-creation of the HIV bioweapon in the 1960s. I included a free PDF link to the book. The substack commenter was "convinced" of the propaganda and psyop regarding HIV/AIDS that the government is happy for us peons to believe (what he believed was actually a limited hangout).
And this commenter somehow was able to see through the Covid-19 plandemic's psyop. Oh, but I'm a "government paid spinner" because I was debating an anti-vaxxer in order to show that this Covid-19 plandemic is simply a more sophisticated depopulation mechanism than was the much earlier deployed HIV bioweapon. You'd think he'd want to understand how he was bamboozled in the past with the HIV/AIDS "narrative." But nooooooo, his ego cannot allow him to learn that most of what he was told (and believed) in the past was bullshit.
So he makes noise about dismissing me from further argument (he's so busy with his two businesses, he writes), and I reply one more time to his callow mischaracterizations of my argument, letting him know that obviously, he wants to have the last word, so I'm letting him have it (to assuage his ego).
You can lead an arrogant person to knowledge, but you can't make him think.