pointless arguments

 My aged relative, who everyone says is wiser than I, expounds upon some nicknames having no difference to the longer name.

Preach on, reddit (lol)

But it makes a BIG difference, to notaries. It's cute, but it's WRONG!!

I had more but it's too location-specific, or too time dependent.
To quote a person who officially knows, 
"Times have changed"

(Uh,) fill in your preconceived notion here)

It's as if (the train depot in my mind said) a person firmly believing in existentialism tried to survive free and alive in US-2025.

There are plenty of people anxious to preach the meaning of life, and what your freedoms are, and they have an AR-15 to back them up.
Plenty of cops, 

preachers,

podcasters

No, you're fucked unless you conform.
I'm severely misquoting my own train-of-thought but what it actually said
("A nihilist and an existentialist are arguing at a party") makes even less sense.
No one would convince anyone, and the argument would fall flat on its ass when the party was over)

*I* think, in a normal happy society, that you might actually FIND a person 

who thinks "Sally" and "Sarah" are the same, 

but would you want to test this in El Paso Texas or Kazakhstan?

Googled "Sally"

(Link)