the purpose of engaging is to let the other person speak so you can gauge who you're dealing with ...
after that you can assess any possible benefits of the interaction such as:
1 - the person may learn something
2 - you may learn something
3 - you may score points by destroying them publicly
4 - if they are famous you may get exposure
but most likely there is ZERO benefit, and you should just mute them.
one worst case scenario ( this happened to me several times ) is when they PRETEND to be receptive to what you're saying just to get you to open up then they use everything you said against you. for example they will pretend to be receptive to the idea that age of consent is misguided then after talking for an hour suddenly they will call you a pedo and sic all their anti-pedophile friends on you.
another worst case scenario ( also happened to me several times ) is sadism by attrition so to speak - what my father would do - is to dangle the possibility that they are going to accept your point of view if you just invest more time in explaining it but secretly they don't care about the subject at all and just enjoy wasting your time out of pure sadism
another form of sadism in such debates is when they also don't care about the truth but simply want to derive pleasure by making you feel inadequate by pointing out that your arguments or evidence aren't rigorous enough. for example one shithead on Twitter was demanding that for everything i say i name the studies on which i am basing my opinion. now you have to understand that if studies revealed truth then nostr:npub1acg6thl5psv62405rljzkj8spesceyfz2c32udakc2ak0dmvfeyse9p35c would have the body and health of a teenager but of course the studies are useless ... except for one purpose - making truth seekers feel inferior to the perpetrators of scientific fraud ( like the one i was arguing with ).
so your goal when engaging is to determine as quickly as possible whether you're in a:
1 - honest debate
2 - you're using / abusing the other guy
3 - they're using / abusing you
4 - you're dealing with an NPC
in this case i believe it was number 4 ...
when dealing with an NPC you should mute them but there is no rush to do so - you can do it at any point you like when you get bored / tired. but in those other more serious cases you must detect their intent and disengage as quickly as possible.
you never want to engage a sadist on their terms. once you detect a sadist refuse to acknowledge any of their points and simply attack their character publicly. because they don't care about the subject at all - but they do care about being exposed for a sadistic sociopath.
