Do you ever take a position in an answerbag "discussion"-just to argue, or provoke?
by 
sophiesmom
ANSWERS: 5
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Yes. When I see a moron who seems to full of themselves, I have been known to take them down a couple of notches.
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Only when I can provide a legitimate, intelligent argument to my position.
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No and I would wonder why anyone would bother to enter a conversation with that as their sole purpose of intent. That's entirely different from challenging and debating, which in my opinion makes for more interesting and relevant conversation :)
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Sometimes I'll play devil's advocate in an argument in the name of presenting a valid point of view which doesn't seem to have been brought up or thought about in the discussion already. But if I don't think I can provoke any intelligent thought by presenting a certain position, I generally just stick to stating my own opinion, or stay out of the discussion altogether.
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Yes, but there's two forms of this: 1- I'm messed up. In this form, I'm usually in a nasty mood and taking it out on others in a bad way. I try to catch these and put a cork in them as soon as possible, sometimes an apology is called for. 2- I'm trying to make a difference. There is a place for being "intrusive" with others, but it has to be done with a lot of intelligence -- if I'm just trying to "win" and dominate, it always goes sour. But if there's a genuine interest in THEM, there are times when being provocative can be useful to make something worthwhile happen. This can be quite challenging, and one of the biggest challenges is to not have #2 turn into #1 -- that's mostly a matter of being able to detect when the other person has become unreachable: that's the time to shut up. No sense in just fostering pointless conflict.
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