A number of ScubaBoard heated debate threads illustrate a fact of life; trying to continue on to somebody until he admits he is wrong is going to end badly. On the forum, that'll be after a few pages of angry bickering likely changing no minds as debaters vie for mindshare amongst spectators for their views.
When you attack someone (which you did), it is human nature that his focus goes from figuring out the right thing to do to protecting his ego. I don't mean 'ego' in the puffed up narcissistic sense, but rather in the sense of self/dignity sense.
Consider these excerpts from your part of the interaction (I'll bold some parts of interest):
That was his introduction to you. I suspect at the point you'd already lost much of your chance to reach him.
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I'm gonna take a wild guess here that you did not come across friendly. You still seem heated and with some attitude as you post some time after the fact.
I'm glad this didn't break out in a fist fight.
I get the sense you believed you were doing the right thing, trying to help people. It's often hard to know just when to let well enough alone. I've thought over your post and responses to it for awhile. In real life, there are a number of people doing dangerous things we do not accost. Consider:
1.) Fat people (disclaimer: I'm chunky) at buffets.
2.) Smokers.
3.) Obviously pregnant women smoking.
4.) Parents taking chubby little kids into fast food joints.
I respect what you were trying to do. I suspect the way you went about it may have gotten in the way of what you hoped to accomplish. Sadly, sometimes we need to let endangered people be.
Richard.
