Bad day? Nope, good day, as is typical of me.
Phar0e, I take it you're not one of the older members in this group (nothing wrong with that, just relevant to what I'm saying)? A lot of the "old guard" here that remember me from the days long past when skinz.org, and even customize.org, know why my responses are "overkill".
You see, humans, as a species, like to think themselves intelligent, rational creatures. The truth, however, is that we're just as stupid and stubborn and panicky as any "lowly animal". One thing regarding this I learned long ago is that people like to feel they are right, regardless of whether they are or not, and will go to great lengths to keep that sense of surety in their beliefs. People simply don't like to feel wrong... they don't much care if they are wrong or not, it's whether they feel wrong that counts. Therefore, people, as a general rule, don't listen to nicely put rational thought that doesn't line up with their own thoughts. In areas and fields of likeminded people (such as the crowd here) this stubborness is exponentially worse. Witness the history of invention, which is rife with intelligent men putting forth rational thinking being told to sod off until what they said simply couldn't be ignored without great loss.
So there lies the problem: if people won't listen to something that doesn't support what they currently believe when one uses calmness and rationality, how do you get them to listen? Well, think about how people get some of these wrong notions in the first place. Either someone in a powerful postion relative to themselves told them (this is why a lot of incorrect things we learn from our parents and teachers in early childhood stick with us), or someone relayed it to them through a highly emotional claim (which is why we had the salem witch trials, and yelling "fire!" is illegal (IIRC) if there's not actually a fire). In short, emotion, especially uncomfortable emotion (fear, anger, so on), brings about the reaction necessary for the learning process to take place.
Now, I know what you're thinking. If they already learned something via this method, why, then, would they learn it again, if they're so stubborn? The key lies in not the knowledge, but the reaction. Remember how I said people will go to great lengths to feel correct? Ah! Yes, therein lies your solution! That drive for surety can be used against them. The trick is to be stubborn youself. Like animals, when confronted with what we feel to be a threat, we attempt to intimidate the offender (which is why some people call me variants of "big meanie head"). If that doesn't work, we attempt it again, but with additional people, essentially intimidation through ostrisism (which is why people that haven't been around here long enough to get to know me cry out that I'm a "big meanie head" and should be cast out). With your own perserverence, however, they'll eventually be left with no choice but to get enough info to actually prove they're right. And this is where you win. They're learning. You've effectively forced them out of their secure little world to make them adjust their views.
Again, I know what you're thinking. What if I'm wrong and they're right? Or *gasp* all are wrong? I say, good! You see, I'm an intellectual. Does that mean I'm a whizbang rocket scientist one step away from figuring out TOE? Nope (A lot of people like to think the term intellectual is an ego thing, when it's not). I just like to learn... I'm driven by it, in fact. As I told kenray long ago, I don't really care whether I win or lose things like this, I care that -someone- is learning. Whether that someone be my "opponent(s)" or myself, so long as there's learning, it's a good thing.
(BTW, believe it or not, I'm actually a very easygoing person. There's only a very few people I dislike, and even those I can get along with (witness Russ and myself talking about metalworking a few months ago). Even when I'm writing my "big meanie head" posts, I typically do it smiling, mind half on something I enjoy. So basically, yeah, what you see here is an act :> )
