go for it

If you feel like responding in the comments to a post, please do! Especially if you disagree with me.

I sometimes run into people who shy away from arguing their point with me, probably for a few reasons: I'm, uh, relatively confident, and I'm really good at sounding authoritative about things. Partly it's a fun way to talk and write, but if I learn something new I'll just go sound authoritative about that instead.

Often I feel and speak strongly about things, so it's possible you think my opinions aren't going to change. I do change my mind pretty readily if I'm wrong--one problem is that I usually think my opinions through pretty well, so to start with, I don't think I'm wrong. But sometimes I am! At the very least, when faced with an actual conversation, I move almost immediately from my ranting pronouncements to something more like "Yeah, I can see why you'd see it that way."

"Offended" isn't really something I do. Usually the worst case is that I'll secretly think someone is a benighted ignoramus, and unless it's a politician or journalist, I will never say so.

Living in Northern California (usually), I often feel like I don't get to talk to a lot of reasonable people who disagree with me. Bring it on! I like learning stuff.