Why Does Cody Block Everyone?

Cody Libolt

Published in

For the New Christian Intellectual

5 min readApr 15, 2020

On Facebook, I block hostiles.

Have the reports been exaggerated? Nope.

I will block early and often. I might even block someone for clicking like on something, if it’s outrageous.

If you’re an opinionated person looking to connect strategically, you might consider doing something similar.

Why go so far?

Not everyone needs to block early and often. But if you’re using Facebook as a place to meet other culture warriors who can help you, a quick-block strategy gives some benefits.

It saves you time.
It saves frustration.
It curates your friend-list so it will be a helpful resource for others.

Here’s a bit about my own thought-process:

All my writing and interacting online has a goal. I want to identify a small band of worthy brothers and sisters with unique skills and knowledge — and demonstrate to them that we need each other and can do great things together.

I use public discussions to sift through a large haystack and to find specific people to invest in (through other channels).

Given that goal, and also given my goal of hosting daily, constructive, enjoyable discussions online with specific kinds of people, I tend to block any who make themselves unpleasant.

Therefore…

If you ever get blocked, it likely means I found something unpleasant, hostile, unproductive, etc. in one of your comments.

Or you clicked like on something I found outrageous or unpleasant. (Here is an example of that sort of thing.)

The cost of this policy:
I sometimes turn people away without knowing a full picture of who they are. And sometimes that makes them unhappy.

The benefit:
You will find the most considerate, informed, rational group of people on the internet within my friends list.

My approach isn’t for everyone.

Perhaps you’re more tolerant. You may have good reasons for your own policy. I offer my policy not as the single right way, but as one right way.

When people challenge me about my choices and associations, I remind them that these are my choices, not theirs.

On this topic, I do what I want, Karen.

You should too.

Addendum 4/17/20:

An acquaintance Greg Smith and I had recently been doing an online written debate/discussion on Presuppositionalism. You can find the debate here.

I decided to conclude the debate earlier than Greg Smith had hoped. Greg was unhappy with the way it concluded. Here I will share some of the negative things Greg said publicly to me. I share these quotes with the intention of providing an illustration of why it may be better to have a policy of blocking early, especially once you have a small to moderate amount of notoriety online.

I am not angry about the following. It is not important enough or personal enough to be angry about. But these quotes are instructive in several ways. Namely: Learn that you do not need to be like this — and that you do not need to spend more than 20 seconds listening to those who are like this.

Here are some selections from what Greg Smith has said about me publicly as of today:

(Cody is) a young man who seems to fancy himself beyond all challenge and dispute.
If you do not put your money where your mouth is, I’m going to follow you around and link people back here where they can see what you do when not self insulated and surrounded by your yes men.
I will be forced to consider a refusal (to do a public debate) for any reason to be cowardice. When a man conducts himself as if has, and does, and then runs, bans and blocks when challenged, no other conclusion is possible.
I was told by some people who’ve spent much more time watching you than I have, some you don’t even know, that as soon as you were cornered, you would run away. You are making them right.
I wanted this somewhere other than Facebook because you have no way to erase the existence of this conversation like you do every time somebody exposes your inability to make your case.
I’m pretty sure this comment won’t survive long, if this blog is not fully insulated by moderation, but I was told before you and I started that you run from anybody who constitutes a threat to your campaign of self exalting arrogance brother. You proved them right.
You block anybody you don’t know how to answer. This pretentious, self-delusional explanation here (Greg Smith is referring to the above blog post) is simply not true.
You can run from men for a while, but you cannot run from the Holy Spirit. Take if from one who also had to learn the hard way. Our Father God has a very large and flawlessly wise paddle. Yours is coming and it will have nothing to do with me.
You are an arrogant, self-important young man who is simply not up to any meaningful challenge. If this were not the case, you wouldn’t run away like you always do. This haughty pretense you allege in the above article is cover for cowardice.

Are these the kinds of comments you want to spend your time reading every day or every week?

I do not owe any stranger one minute of my life or my attention. This should not be controversial. The unreasonable reactions above support the soundness of my decision. For that, I am thankful.