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Stopped trusting my gut on every online argument after a dumb experiment on Reddit
Back in March I got into a fight on r/news about some city budget thing and typed out a whole essay in 2 minutes flat based on one headline. Then I tried an experiment for 30 days where I waited 10 minutes before replying to any political post. Turned out half the stuff I was mad about got cleared up just by reading the article past the first paragraph. The other half I just didn't care about anymore once I cooled off. Anyone else try a delay before hitting post, or does that just make you never post anything?
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the_david15d ago
So what happens when the thing you're mad about is actually worth being mad about and waiting 10 minutes just kills your drive to speak up? Half the garbage laws and budget cuts in this country slide through because everyone talked themselves out of caring by the time they finished their coffee. Your gut got you into a dumb fight over a headline, sure, but the gut is also what tells you something is wrong in the first place, and you can't train that out of yourself without losing the good part too. Waiting ten minutes doesn't make you smarter, it just makes you quieter, and quiet people don't change anything. The real skill isn't cooling off, it's reading the article AND keeping the fire, then pointing it at the right target instead of some random guy in the comments. Otherwise you're just letting the headline writers and the algorithm win while you sit there feeling calm and useless, lol.
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