idiosyncrasy of people

Well, sorry to post this topic "so" offtopic, but hell, I needed to say this.

Lately I joined a forum that I knew from before, but I never wanted to participate. Lately, checking the forum I found a couple of interesting threads, and decided to register and join the discussions.

This forum has a somewhat "strange" behaviour:
1. It has reputation, but reputation is somewhat twisted. In can only be applied by old users, meaning two or three years of registered.
2. There's no uniform criteria, a user (of course, one that is able to) can apply negative or positive reputation to whomever he wants, regardless anything. If the post is completely offtopic, but a user liked it, it is allowed to apply positive or negative reputation.
3. Moderators are completely out of control.

But, the most interesting thing, is the behaviour of people there. They seem to completely abstract from reality, generating a world of it.

For example, there is a discussion about the role of the US in the conformation and role of the eastern europe nations after the fall of the wall. One moderator, which seems to be an instructed person with a wide knowledge, said that US had no intervention until 1993. I said that deciding not to interact, is a way of intervention. He said that it is an inherent contradiction, thus If I said that there's no point in mainteining a conversation with me.

Then I replied that my point was not an invent, it was a sustained point of Pierre Bourdieu, Samir Amin, and other authors. So, he answered that he can't understand why people have a natural tendence to say what others say, and not to develope a singular point of view. And if I say that, he can quote hundreds of authors who can counterfeit Amin's and Bourdieu's point of view, and it will be useless.

So, finally, a thread gets completely offtopic from a personal confrontation in a goddamn forum which is meant to be useful and a share of different opinions, not a fight arena. I sincerely can't believe it.

I mean, is that the way every discussion is approached?

I discovered a particularity of Argentinian people (I'm from Argentina, and for me it's a shame to say this):
They tend to use cheap arguments to "win" a discussion. I remember having read Arthur Schopenhauer "38 ways to have the reason" (that's the translation from spanish, maybe the book has a different title in english). There, he mentions that a way to win a discussion is to devalorate the author, not the proposition. That is widely used by argentinians.
The other way is to concur on technicisms, instead of the main point. That is also widely used.

I'm in this forum for a year and a half, and have to say that I'm am avid reader of american and european forums, and I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS BEHAVIOUR BEFORE, anywhere.

I'm really ashamed of saying this, since this people from my country too.

But argentinian sucks. When they don't know of what they're talking about, they really make me ashamed of what they do to have reason.

Have you ever experienced something like this?

Best regards, and thanks for reading
Edge