User blog comment:Mrdaimion/Rant: Why Nice Guys Finish Last/@comment-1598117-20120807180444/@comment-1874924-20120808040322

Radi, "Common sense" is seriously overrated. It's defined as "the unreflective beliefs of ordinary people", i.e. it's what people with no special knowledge of a topic believe when they haven't bothered to think about it. That's why reasoning people don't accept "common sense" as the last word.

"The fact that women like bad boys", as you put it, is both debatable and hotly debated, as you can see from this very blog, thereby proving beyond reasonable doubt that it is not an established fact. Your admission that you could be wrong likewise suggests that you don't really consider it a "fact". Bottom line, you need to use the word "fact" with more caution than you have been.

"Obvious" is another word that you should use with caution. If something is genuinely obvious, then any competent person should be able to see it, so saying that a thing is "obvious" tends to carry a subtext along the lines of, " but I don't think you're intelligent enough to see the obvious without having it spoonfed to you." For this reason, misusing the word "obvious" carries the risk of making people think that you're trying to pick a fight.