Oh, I didn't realize we were talking about facebook. (I mostly started reading when you invoked my username). I was mainly talking about all internet forums, in general.

When I was younger I used to do more facebook debates, because I hadn't discovered the Internet properly, and because I had silly ideas about "discussions" and "learning" coming out of it, and because I did not fully realize that other people were actually capable of getting legitimately upset about this stuff. (Still glad I did it, at least I read some cool stuff when I was searching for citations.)

Today I only ever seriously engage with maybe 2 facebook friends, because they know what it means to engage - and even then, I'm leery about doing it in open forum, lest other people see it and take it out of context. I definitely prefer to argue anonymously so I can be more blunt and feel free get bored and trail off at any time. I'm now super pragmatic when it comes to people who don't know how to engage, to the point of blatantly just nodding and smiling. I still test people who show signs of intellligence sometimes, just to see what sort of person they are, but they only ever get one test before falling into "we can be friends, but I reserve the right to nod and smile if you start getting angry".

I worry that this makes me a bad and manipulative person, but people who formally had a problem with me have literally told me "you are much more open minded, accepting and easier to get along with now compared to before", so I've started embracing the idea of manipulation so long as it is done with good intentions, in cases where I feel maintaining an agreeable environment supersedes other people's right to know that I completely disagree with everything they say.

Could you give an example of "three reasons why [x] is good, and one broader conceptual reason why it might not be”? I’m not sure I follow.