Grow up and move on, your incessant whining is tiresome.”

Well, Lulu, one of us has the guts to attach their name to their comments. One of us doesn’t — and writes a blog with the sole purpose of attacking people.

So tell me again about courage.

Even if everyone involved understands that it’s “spectacle”, and not 100% serious, it’s still corrosive to open communication if spectacular insults are commonplace instead of the notable exceptions. For the most part I think the blogosphere is less spectacular than the notable exceptions I originally mentioned.

As a frequent target of denigration throughout my life, I can attest to the fact that it does not “work over the long term”. And if it has in any way, that’s certainly nothing for the perpetrators to be proud of.

You’re making the assumption that we should care about what the idiots think. The point is, it’s spectacle, and certain types of denigration work over the long term.

“This attitude is at the base of the disrespect on the internet, though: the idea that, if only your opponent had more information, he’d automatically come over to your point of view.”

Pff, this I seriously doubt: who cares whether your opponent comes over to your point of view?

Blogging anonymously doesn’t necessarily mean that you live in fear of being outed all of the time. There were only 2 times in my anonymous blogging career that I was afraid of people blowing my anonymity: one was when I was the target of a death threat, the other was when I was the target of a crazy blogger woman with a grudge who had come up with the crazy idea that I was some sort of threat to her. (She was a loon and a half).

Like Lulu said, people have lots of reasons for blogging anonymously. Personal protection (from physical threats) is a big one.

Grow up and move on, your incessant whining is tiresome.

This attitude is at the base of the disrespect on the internet, though: the idea that, if only your opponent had more information, he’d automatically come over to your point of view. Patently, that’s false. Intelligent people disagree all the time on every kind of subject, and assuming your debating counterpart is simply ignorant is the beginning of the spiral downwards. More information does not equate with congruence of viewpoint, and seeing it that way only legitimizes the kind of partisan sniping that all too often characterizes political debate.