Also, given your stated taste for "direct social competition"

That was probably an effective move. It seems like honesty is rarely a good policy. Things can always be taken out of context and used against you. In that case of trolls who are being belligerent and silly I do not mind mocking them. I consider such status games completely distinct from discussion. In fact, they are much more like playing lazer tag, another healthy place to turn off the brain and exercise competitive instincts. It is when such status games infect what is presented as 'intelligent discussion and debate' that I despise them, usually vocally. It frustrates me furiously when competition degrades conversation to logically rude debate.

I shall continue to agree with you when you make good points, disagree when you make meta level discussions like this one I shall continue to strongly object.

Yes, I was deliberately ignoring you because you were assuming agreement on things that I had already made clear that I don't agree with.

I perhaps should have made myself more clear. One of the points should have been "You assume for the purposes of attempting an argument to absurdity and I similarly assume for the purposes of following through just what the implications are". It is the intuitive preferences over the states of the universe that I assumed would be shared by most. I also believed that they served to illustrate the bulk of your point.