fractal wrongness

[John Greenhough]

Certainly doesn't apply to any of our regular contributors, but I came
across this amusing piece that might help on occasions!

fractal wrongness

The state of being wrong at every conceivable scale of
resolution. That is, from a distance, a fractally wrong
person's worldview is incorrect; and furthermore, if you zoom in
on any small part of that person's worldview,
that part is just as wrong as the whole worldview.

Debating with a person who is fractally wrong leads to infinite
regress, as every refutation you make of that
person's opinions will lead to a rejoinder, full of half-truths,
leaps of logic, and outright lies, that
requires just as much refutation to debunk as the first one. It
is as impossible to convince a fractally wrong
person of anything as it is to walk around the edge of the
Mandelbrot set in finite time.

If you ever get embroiled in a discussion with a fractally wrong
person on the Internet--in mailing lists,
newsgroups, or website forums--your best bet is to say your piece
once and ignore any replies, thus saving
yourself time.