The point I am trying to make is that Orcas can choose to prey on large land animals when they are in the water and that they are not using the gift as bait. Why do you think I am disagreeing with you?
Because he naturally assumed that you were attempting to say something relevant to his own claim rather than a complete non sequitur. Maybe in your head you intended to somehow make the point that they're not using the gift as bait but you didn't say anything of the sort so it wasn't your point as written. You also said nothing about humans and moose both being large land animals (and from the Orca's POV it's not likely that it considers humans to be land animals) and that therefore yada yada ... none of this was expressed.
(I see quite a bit of this, where someone is called out and then they say "my point was X" where nothing they had said previously expressed X.)
Perhaps but it's the norm. I try to preface what I write with "I agree" just to try and clarify my position ahead of time. Remember that there's a bunch of context missing in text such as facial expressions, body language and tone of voice that would have quickly made clear that you were in agreement ;-)
> Only on the internet will "here's a related example why you might be correct" result in strange discussions like these. Makes me sad.
It would help if the comment said any of those quoted words. The context as I see it was:
1> they could be baiting the human
2> why bait the human and not eat it?
3> They hunt moose
With no further words, it could be intended as they hunt moose, so they clearly like surf and turf and would love to eat a human. Or it could be intended as they hunt moose, they know how to hunt land animals so it's a choice to give a gift that'a not bait.
In person, someone hearing the 3rd comment would probably make a confused face and the person making the offering of a moose reference would make clarifying comments.
I pointed out that he never expressed his point and then he comes back with a quote that again is not anything he said. Sad indeed.
And yes, these sorts of discussions do occur in person, although I rarely encounter people who say things like "orcas attack moose" with ZERO elaboration--that is indeed strange. And if someone said that's irrelevant and they then said "My point was ..." I would still say "Well, you didn't say that".
I've been on the internet since the early 90:ies, and this does happen semi-regularly, especially during the last decade. But I have never in my life experienced such situations stemming from an agreeing reflection/interjection during face-to-face communication. Sometimes it feels like people are (un)intentionally looking for reasons to disagree rather than anything else.
I agree with them, your original post lacked clarity. I propose that the reason these types of conversations are less likely in person is because there is typically no log of exactly what was said and people tend to get defensive and narratives change. This makes it a pointless endeavor.
I would suggest, rather than wondering why people on the internet point things like this out, maybe wonder how many people in real life never bothered and just write you off.
It is not that surprising that this kind of misunderstanding happens more often on the internet. In real life we communicate with more than just our words. We see how our communication partners say what they say, where they are looking, what cadence and tone they use. We also see what faces they make while the other person was talking, how alert they were.
When all of that is missing it is harder to glean the tenor or direction of the message.
And then on top of that there is a thing I would call "expectation bias". We expect to see something, and when what we see does not match our expectations we sometimes become blind to that. Conversations on this site very often go "argument - counter argument - counter counter argument - counter counter counter argument". Because of that people (me included!) often read comments with the expectation that it will at least in some way disagree with what was said before. And once someone has that expectation it is easy to misread a supporting comment as a weird and under-argued disagreement.
> Makes me sad.
I do understand. And you are not wrong. Misunderstandings are sad. It seems we sometimes forget that there is an other human being on the other side of the screen too. So sadness is not unwarranted sometimes.
But on a constructive level we can recognise where the confusion slips in and we can add extra words to help lubricate the discussion. I often start my comments with stating my level of agreement. (From "Yes, you are 100% right..." via "You are mostly right, but I disagree with X" to "No, I'm afraid that is not true at all") Basically typing more characters because others can't see my gestures, and can't hear the tenor of my voice.
For example in this case you could have wrote: "I agree that an orca probably doesn't see a human diver as a significant threat, and wouldn't need to use a bait to attack it. After all they are known to attack moose too! ..." (As an example. Of course I don't know if that is what you were actually thinking.)
Could your comment been understood in an ideal world even without that? I think so. Could it have been fortified with a few choice words to better signal that what you are providing are related examples to support the already stated argument? I would think so too.
"here's a related example why you might be correct"
Again: YOU DIDN'T SAY THAT. And there's no obvious logic that connects the two--certainly the person you responded to didn't see any such logic and said so: "The fact that moose are preyed upon by Orcas is irrelevant here."
As someone else said: "Consider instead reflecting on why your point was misunderstood?"
i.e., take responsibility because--seriously--this is on you.
What is sad is how you completely ignored and blew off what I wrote and then just repeated the very same thing I critiqued, and implied that I was at fault for the "strange discussion"--when in fact there was nothing at all strange about the clear and valid points that I made.
And as others have noted, it's not "only on the internet"--the internet is simply where the vast majority of such discussions occur. But it's not the only place where someone might say "oh, you didn't make that clear, and it's still not clear to me how they are logically connected". And it's not the only place that I have encountered people who reason poorly, act in bad faith, and blame everyone but themselves.
