Another circle of Hell on the internet is the way in which people argue with what are essentially ghosts. Either repeating arguments which they weren't able to "win" in real life, or arguing with the ghosts of what they believe other people said. The latter is not even straw-manning, it is closer to hallucinating an entirely new thing that was never said, so that you may reply in a snarky way. I don't have examples saved because I don't bother getting stuck in this dynamic, because I prefer moving away from it. But it's quite scary how often it happens on the internet especially.
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2025-01-30