Just Noticed Something

On the basis of material that I have located on the internet.

I did not attend basic training at Fort Knox.

There is no basic or one station unit training at Fort Knox according to the internet, therefore, despite what I remember it is impossible for me to have been there.

OR...

Just because the internet doesn't corroborate with my recollection doesn't mean the information on the internet is true and my recollection is false.

I am fed up with a certain type of person who pays zero attention to the world around them becoming confrontational and demanding proof that what happened did happen in the way that I watched it happen.

They don't remember it happening differently, they only have the internet to source their rebuttal.

I am not a lawyer.

I am not defending my doctoral thesis.

I will not have documentation supporting my claim on hand to be produced at their demand.

I only have "I was there and you weren't."  Because I was there I can see that the "facts" from the internet don't match what I observed.  Had I known that I'd have to prove I was there to the same level a mafia don has to verify their alibi in court, I'd have probably taken some screen shots.

The real problem isn't really that I am wrong and the internet is right.  It's that ignorant people like to fight and think that winning a debate is proof that their facts are stronger.

No, winning a moderated debate far more often means that you're better at using the rules of the format to manipulate the argument until you've won.  Moderated debates, like all sports, have rules.

Winning an unmoderated debate often means that the other side has realized that you're not having the discussion in anything resembling good faith and they give up so you shut up.

The information you can find on the internet is properly called encyclopedic.  It has a lot of information, much of it very detailed, but it's also the product of the author.

One example of the realization that the discussion is not happening in good faith is the repeated refusal to accept that many sources have an agenda.  That the authors of much of the cited links are part of a community that has a vested interest in skewing the information a certain way and putting it in certain light.  They have been caught doing it many times.  Another example of bad faith is having to remind them that we've had this discussion before and I don't feel like I have to prove it anew every time I disagree with a biased national media.

Because of this, it's extremely hard for my side to even begin to refute the bias because the bias agrees with the general buzz that penetrates the bubble of apathy.

Ultimately I think that they are afraid that the world is not the happy place they want it to be and are ashamed that their refusal to participate in even the smallest way actively.  This causes them to lash out at the people who are actually trying to make a shitty world better.  Or they are cowards who will only stand up to someone when they have strength in numbers as shown by consensus with mass media.