You point out that they're not responding to what you actually said. You do it without saying that they have mental illnesses.
You even might say "this seems like trolling; I didn't say X at all..."
And, if it's clearly trolling, you flag it.
And you leave it there.
See, the conversation isn't just you and them. The conversation is you and them and all of us reading it. And if you go more over the top, more ad hominem than they do, then the rest of us reading it see you as the unhinged one.
Don't try to win the conversation with people who are in bad faith. You can't. (Don't even try to out-insult them. You aren't going to get them to go "Oh, hey, he used a better insult than me. Maybe he's right...") Instead, try to win the readers. You can't do that by being more insulting than the one you're arguing with.
>You even might say "this seems like trolling; I didn't say X at all..." And, if it's clearly trolling, you flag it.
This clearly doesn't work when you're the minority. Flag bombing is a real thing on HN. Just look at my original comments where I gave clear arguments why that logic is flawed due to double standards and cherry picking can of worms it opens up. Plenty of other examples on HN as well.
People will flag bomb you just because they don't like what you said, even though what you said is the truth (ask a LLM if my reasoning and arguments are sound) and doesn't break the rules, people just don't like being exposed as hypocrites when they see themselves as pillars of virtue (narcissistic main character/hero syndrome).
Hating Elon Musk at every corner is the current trend amongst this crowd, and if you fight the trend in any way, even with logical devil's advocate arguments, you will get flag bombed, because people are subject to mob behavior (been documented in psychology) and only want to hear comments that reinforce their beliefs not ones that tear down their beliefs. Basically the behavior is all emotional, not logical or rational.
I continued the discussion instead of flagging those who act in bad faith (the majority of replies I got) since I don't care about upvotes, I care about debating ideas and proving a point.
You even might say "this seems like trolling; I didn't say X at all..."
And, if it's clearly trolling, you flag it.
And you leave it there.
See, the conversation isn't just you and them. The conversation is you and them and all of us reading it. And if you go more over the top, more ad hominem than they do, then the rest of us reading it see you as the unhinged one.
Don't try to win the conversation with people who are in bad faith. You can't. (Don't even try to out-insult them. You aren't going to get them to go "Oh, hey, he used a better insult than me. Maybe he's right...") Instead, try to win the readers. You can't do that by being more insulting than the one you're arguing with.