1. why you back down when you call someone (me, often) on something, and then retreat when they (i) respond assertively, as opposed to defensively.
Cause it's much more fun to go after people acting like posturing pricks than people defending themselves well over potentially valid points. I'll attack someone acting assertive if their point is something I seriously disagree with, but that takes it out of the realm of entertaining sparring match and into real debate. For real debate, I'm be much more interested in the information exchange than the petty insults, so I try to cut through the bullshit. Besides, I like assertiveness and want to encourage it.
2. why you claim to be transparent in your motives, when you're anything but (until after the event), and a lot of people with AS (sometimes including manipulative headfuckites like myself) wouldn't know your intentions unless you state them clearly, before, not afterwards.
It's situational. In this particular case of the guinea pigs, I was being transparent. That doesn't mean I'm always transparent. Most of the time I have more than one motivation for the things I do, and it would take way too much time to explain them all (not to mention I'd bore people to tears).
Besides, Dawg had a good point - if I had explained everything beforehand, I wouldn't have been able to get the debate practice.
3. why do you not actually engage people in an upfront debate, rather than guerilla tactics, and "mea cupla, that's all i was doing" tactics when your challenge is responded to.
I do, over things I care about (which has included plenty of site policy decisions in the past; haven't you seen that?) - unless it's some sensitive personal issue, where I'd get too emotional if I were direct.
Hadron - #2 applies to Lucifer too, the way she presents herself on other sites.
