Serial tweets

Alan Jacobs wrote a set of serial tweets saying the following: 

Why I don't write posts on hot issues people think I ought to have opinions about. See the 2nd paragraph especially.

When I see people desperately trying to pick fights with someone as gracious as @reihansalam [on Twitter], that previous tweet is confirmed.

The interwebs seduce us into trying to solve all problems by argument, because argument is what the interwebs can do.

One of my chief goals in the coming year is to learn to have a meaningful online presence that doesn't involve debating issues...

...because the way we have defined "debating" and "issues" in our online lives is destructive of the social fabric.

The challenge is to learn to *be* in a certain way online, rather than always challenging or making a case. Blake: "Enough, or too much."

Online "debates" don't just hurt the social fabric, but also the selves who depend on the adrenaline jolt of disputation.

All addictions make people destructive and self-destructive. The junkie needs drugs; the online "debater" needs enemies.

Renton Maclachlan

Renton Maclachlan isn't someone I'd come across before, but apparently he runs what may be the only dedicated Creation radio station in the world, ‘GenesisFM’, (here in New Zealand) and has also stood for Parliament four times . However it isn't in relation to Creationism or Parliament that I came across him the other day. He's put together a fairly lengthy video about the smacking debate that's going on in New Zealand at the moment, and done it as a satire. Apart from its length it's very clever, and often quite funny. Maclachlan takes both parts in the 'interview' as both the earnest interviewer, and the pompous, know-it-all interviewee.