On line versus face to face discussions.

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I'm wondering if you frequent posters in this area, have similar talks with people face to face.

Do you have a history in debate or forensics in high school?

I was pretty quiet until college.
Studying and using humor got me out of my shell. Talking with Pastors and Rabbis is always interesting. Most of the time it has been talks outside temple or church.
I also like my small men's group at church, talking and listening that is.

Most of the conversations are with assumed NT folks. It is one of the few places I have been able to take off the mask.

You watch your tongue because it isn't worth the drama, writing things out makes it easier to organize your thoughts but sure I like to talk about subjects that interest me as well but most people would have no idea what I am talking about or find the subject too heavy to get in to. Knowing your audience and keeping in mind the appropriateness of the discussion in your setting is key, I try to mold my arguments based on what the other persons says and does.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Online has one huge difference with in person.

In person you get interrupted forty times a second.

No one interrupts while you talk on a keyboard.

I need to work on interrupting.
Anyone call talk radio?

I think the biggest difference with online is you find yourself constantly talking to people that you wouldn't IRL. That can perhaps be a good thing if you've been living in an echo chamber and you aren't having your beliefs properly challenged enough. On the other hand things can go downhill quickly when you find yourself dealing with the kinds of people you wouldn't talk to IRL for a completely different set of reasons; the best way to phrase this might be that IRL when you pick and chose who you're talking to there's an allowance for filtering your audience by intellectual capacity and integrity that's not available on a forum.

I can usually confront things a bit better offline than handling all exchanges online.
The internet suits me, but I don't always suit it.. too many upgrades and implements, so rather than resort to unpicking clues that link me to a cardboard junkie or statutory meltdown, I'd rather do all my brain training on rapid thought dialysis than self limiting onto borrowed time.

I live in podunk, so no, deep discussions are not part of the social fabric here...you're more likely to get popped in the face than have someone actually converse back. That being said, yes, when I was in college I used to have deep philosophical discussions all the time. In fact the kids in my age group at that time called me "the professor" (well before I knew I have autism or Hans Asperger's term "little professors"). Oddly enough, my professors liked me as well, I think because they knew if anything one person had read the material, lol.

Whilst some peeps may be philosophically correct, I prefer to break away from the 'status quo', shall we say, wherever possible, and let the real solutions find themselves. Whatever input is put across can be sectioned at a later date; like some admin s**t. Society is the organ grinder and anti-fascism holds the key to outer deities.
I appreciate some people who have lived out of a cardboard cutout box, but whilst some inside reflection isn't a
bad thing, it can't be bought at a low-cut price.
You can't rewrite handouts any more than distributing pamphlets of irony with wholesale propaganda.

I'm much better online, in general, than in-person.

In my youth, online was not available.
I became comfortable

1. Reading
B reading in libraries
3. Listening and reading about comedy and music
D. Performing music, comedy and puppetry
5. Talking with comfortable people
F. Talking with more people
7. Talking with people online
H. Getting misunderstood during most of the above.
9. Finding a niche both in my regular day gig and as
J. Dr. or Brother Laugh.

My butcher is a bitter leftist from NYC, so we talk politics all the time, and agree more than most might think due to our mutual cynicism.

Yeah... I actually talk to people in real life much more often these days--mostly in school and at the neighborhood bar.

The main difference is that, in real life, people are a bit more inhibited and less likely to articulate/cling to extreme positions. That isn't to say that there aren't disagreements, but they are more civil and less silly than online.

No, what they do online is ignore the forty words out of every forty-one they don't notice at a cursory glance, half-assedly reconstruct your post from these few words, not caring as much about what you intended to say as about what they want to put in your mouth, and then spend the bulk of the time they devote to the conversation replying to that

At least, they can't stop others from reading you, unlike in person.

Something I've been working in for decades.

Listening without waiting for a pause to interject my "wisdom, experience or expertise."

During the 1970s and 1980s I was a champion talk show caller in the Boston Market.

I was invited several times to be on the air (in front of a microphone) by the late David Brudnoy who was probably the smartest and most listened to talk show host at the time. Unlike Rush Limbau Brudnoy was a genuine scholar and knew what he was talking about.

Very often strangers who heard me speak out loud would come up to me and ask " Are you Bob, the guy who calls up the talk shows?"