The advice is different than I would have given. Having the same idea as someone isn't copying them. If someone points out to you that they wrote something similar, you could reply "hey thanks I hadn't see that" and add a note mentioning it to your own thing if it seems relevant. Or, especially if you're being accused, you could just ignore them as an internet crank.<p>Trying to debate them, as the author suggests, seems like the worst possible idea to me. What is possibly going to come of that?