Nick,

I agree with you and have started doing just that. To ban this type of person is not a solution to this problem.

I think that people like this irritate us because we honestly think that we can make them a reasonable person by being reasonable with them. We can't!! They use the fact that we will follow basic rules of society in our dealings with other people when they overstep the bounds of decency. This is the principle that allows bullies to operate on a playground.

If we all look back on any of the threads that these people have posted in you will see that there is a pattern to them. 1- Person makes a statement. 2- Person tells you you are stupid if you don't agree. 3-Person tells everyone they are stupid.

This is an indication of a total lack of social skills but also an indication of a "high IQ wannabe". This person would like us to believe that they are smarter than us when in reality they are not. The fact that this behavior continues is an indication of the person's insecurity and need for attention.

These people are obviously not happy with their own lives and neither have the ability nor the skills to improve themselves, so in order to make their lives less miserable they attempt to make ours even more so.

There is no way for us to help these people, only a trained mental health professional, working over many years could do that. The trouble is that these people are so deluded they think that it is the rest of society that has the problem and never seek help.

So we shouldn't try to ban or censor these people, we should pity them and praise them whenever possible, and try in a small way to better their lives.

To bring this on topic- I did not withdraw my "Challenge" because one of these persons angered me, was too intellegent for me or because of their condescending attitude toward me. I withdrew it because I realized that it was feeding his warped sense of reality. This was confirmed when I returned to the Techniques board and read his post. He was not interested in the challenge which was to find a solution to the problems of a zippered sprayskirt, but instead continued his personal attacks on my intelligence. This to me was a warning sign that this pattern would continue as long as I fed him. So I chose not to.

I hope that others will do as you suggested and ignore these posts. People who personally attack others during a debate lack the intellegence to forward their views in a clear manner. Anyone who knows anything about debating knows that if you personally attack your opponent. YOU LOSE !

Ian