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Popular belief analogizes internet arguments to pig-wrestling:
"Never wrestle with a pig because you both get dirty and the pig likes it"
But does the pig, in fact, like it?
I set out to investigate.
I think the idea is that engaging with idiots¹ using idiotic arguments promotes and reinforces idiot behavior, even if the idiots don't enjoy it. Reinforcement doesn't always come with enjoyment.
¹ Where "idiot" stands for something like "aggressively wrong/fallacious/anti-epistemic arguer".
There's also a saying of "don't try to teach a pig to sing - it wastes your time and annoys the pig". It seems like you could investigate the porcine valence correlation using similar methods.