The reason why discussions of warmachine online are so toxic is because most of the participants aren't trying to have a discussion they are trying to "win" an argument.
It's something that we often get instinctively in person because it's kind of hard to ignore the fact at that point that you are talking to another person. That that person has an opinion and that ignoring that is a dick move. In person we try and understand where the person who disagrees with us is coming from. And then try to come to some kind of middle ground, something we at least vaguely agree on, or to come to the point where we go, yeah I understand your point but I disagree. It hit me when I was reading some posts on the MOM forums. I could see one poster in particular trying to characterise the opposing argument in the worst possible way and I was reading it and thinking - you're a moron, that's not going to accomplish anything but pissing people off. If you actually want to have a productive or useful discussion you need to try and see things from your opponents point of view, the issue is complex, they aren't 100% wrong and you 100% right. But that guy knows that, he isn't trying to have a real discussion he is just trying to "win" which means everyone loses.
If you have a discussion where everyone is looking for all the ways you are wrong, all the problems in each others positions you just get a bunch of hostility and entrenched bullshit.
If instead you have a discussion where you look for the things the people who disagree with you have right you can actually move forwards and you can actually have a real discussion. You move together and come to an agreement or at least you get to - this is where we disagree and I respect that.
I think the general format of forum discussions and online interaction promote the first kind of discussion and I think that in a lot of places the atmosphere has become so toxic as to cause people who want to have a real discussion to leave or cease joining in.
That's enough serious Tort for now. Here is Hans Moleman getting hit in the crotch with a football:
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