11 ms·

Anatomy of an internet argument

181 points by nkurz 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jareklupinski 2y ago
i thought it was - INSULT - RETORT - COUNTER-RETORT - RIPOSTE - COUNTER-RIPOSTE - NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON - RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES - WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  I miss bash.org so much
  - Forgeties79 2y ago
    thooose were thaa daaaaays
  - 0_____0 2y ago
    irc died and was replaced with nothing
    - Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
      IRC isn't dead. Individual channels are dead, sure. 15 years ago, EFnet's #wow was quite busy and frequently had over 100 people in it. Now, it's down to just 20, with at least 7 of them being bots, the rest are idle. We went two weeks without a single message. I even unbanned the trolls just to get some excitement back, but they went silent (though didn't leave) once they realized the channel is indeed dead. But EFnet's #geekissues is still very active.
    - _shantaram 2y ago
      irc isn't dead, come join us on Libera! (and there's tons of other networks too, i just feel disingenuous inviting you to ones im not on)
      - dt3ft 2y ago
        Last time I checked it was just idle bots (or idle clients). Is it still this way nowadays?
        dewey 2y ago
        What did you check? I'm in some channels like #postgresql or the channel of a hackerspace I'm part of and it's always active.
    - NitpickLawyer 2y ago
      Isn't discord this generation's IRC?
      - 0_____0 2y ago
        Kind of. IRC had a culture of its own. Also yungins might be surprised to learn that we had a distributed, open source communication network, where basically any dipshit with a static IP and a Pentium could start an IRC server and maybe get added to the network if they were reliable enough (I was one such dipshit).
      - RunSet 2y ago
        discord is this generation's yahoo groups.
      - ta988 2y ago
        Not really, the company can unilaterally ban someone or a server. With IRC you can start a private server and you are not at the mercy of anybody else. And you are not nagged all the time to guilt your users into boosting the server so they can use more features. Your users don't have to pay if they want to have different profiles on different servers. Your users can use any interface they want to access the service... So you are right in a sense that discord replace IRC as a means of communication for the majority, but in term of freedom it is a regression. If IRC had supported offline history keeping things could have been different, but for the people I know it was a major blocker for adoption. They didn't want to have to setup a server to bounce from or keep something running all the time.
    - dewey 2y ago
      It was replaced by group chats, Discord servers, Telegram groups etc.
    - ta988 2y ago
      it is not dead, just that the masses have their shiny full of gifs and spread in 50 channels per topic alternatives now.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    Have fun: https://bash-org-archive.com/ https://bash-org-archive.com/
photochemsyn 2y ago
This approach seems to presume you're not trying to talk to a programmed bot whose job is to amplify a prepared set of talking points (an approach pioneered by I believe the Edelman PR firm in the 1990s internet era, when all the bots were human). If someone's willing to pay a PR firm to run a bot farm of any kind, this has to be taken into account. Such issues include fossil-fueled global warming, the efficacy of the latest patented FDA-approved pharmaceutical product, the role of virological gain-of-function research in the origins of the Covid pandemic, the necessity of government funding budgets for various purposes from public health to the provision of weapons to European and Middle Eastern conflicts, desirability of regulation of financial institutions (Glass-Steagall etc.), and possibly most relevant to HN, the wisdom of running Linux vs. Windows vs. Apple operating systems to meet your personal, business, and other computing needs. How would one respond in such cases? "Well, I understand that your job requires you to amplify a certain set of talking points and play down others, and I sympathize with your need to earn a living by doing so, so have a nice day?" Of course a bot will never admit to being a bot - but even if you're dealing with a good faith actor, there's also the issue of whether or not you have a shared information base, e.g. attempts to discuss evolutionary theory with someone who believes the universe was created 6000 years ago probably won't go well.
- nickpsecurity 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - crdrost 2y ago
    I'm somewhat confused; I thought there were many self-professed Christians who also believed in evolution. Also, given that the Bible is read in a very different cultural context today from the ones it was authored in, I assume one also needs faith in which interpretive lens (not quite the same as denomination, but not unrelated) to use? I see what you are saying about needing to take something as axiomatic, I just don't understand why you think the evolutionists have so many axioms and your axioms are altogether fewer? (I would also maybe take issue with your view on falsifying scientific theory but I think that's a distraction from more interesting issues maybe?)
schmidtleonard 2y ago
This is a great way to win battles and lose wars. I came to this realization after getting good at climate science arguments. I could take a denialist "did you consider" argument, go to the IPCC reports, find labs, find papers, and return with summaries and citations in relatively short order, and after delivering them with kid gloves I could move people off one denialist argument... and onto another. If I repeated the exercise, there would be a third in line. Bad arguments take 1 unit of effort to generate and 1000 to refute. If you don't have a strategy for handling that asymmetry, you're toast, and the strategies for handling it do not involve kid gloves. Gish gallopers are gonna Gish gallop, and no amount of good faith is going to stop them if they don't want to stop. At some point you have to give up on the unbounded cost of good faith and call out the bad faith arguments. If you put them on blast, you might persuade spectators and that's about the best you can hope for on a finite budget.
- justanotherjoe 2y ago
  I disagree. I think it's a tall order but it should always be the ideal. Trying to justify shitty behavior in the name of greater good is just another way to lose. Instead, I admire people who go far and beyond for the lesser good.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xscott 2y ago
  And your goal is to win the war instead of having a good faith discussion? Maybe you didn't read the article. They didn't suggest putting on kids gloves and siting your references. In fact, that was explicitly rejected as a good approach X) "Telling them their wrong" and X) "Telling them not to be rude". So here I am, telling you you're wrong and that you're rude. The irony isn't lost on me, but I really don't have any idea how I'm supposed to "signal that I'm genuinely interested" in your argument here. > There’s a misconception that good faith discussion only happens in close-knit communities like LessWrong or HackerNews. I'll have to look at LessWrong, but I think it's a misconception that good faith discussion is common on Hacker News... Many (most?) comments here seem to be about inflating ones ego by showing how smart or virtuous one is.
KTibow 2y ago
this post came at a good time for me (just lost an internet argument). same author has an interesting post about building mental models https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/geoffrey-hinton-on-developing-your https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/geoffrey-hinton-on...
alex_young 2y ago
Why does winning matter? Isn’t it emotionally more work and less gratifying than insulting? I think that’s why things are the way they are. People know this stuff, they just choose to press the insult button.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xscott 2y ago
  Your honesty is refreshing, but the result is depressing. It sure would be nice to have a place where you could discuss ideas without it being an argument, or to offer helpful suggestions to people without them treating it like you insulted their intelligence.
  - derekbreden 2y ago
    > It sure would be nice to have a place where you could discuss ideas without it being an argument 100% Arguments result in walking away, the relationship ends before hardly any information is exchanged. If either side wants an argument, it can be difficult to avoid. If both sides are seeking understanding, it becomes very easy to exchange a lot of information and for all to learn a great deal, even as they still disagree. I would very much like to find (or create) forum(s) for discussions seeking understanding instead of arguments seeking to “win” wars or battles. My own attempts have shown the potential audience is small to non existent, at least with the combinations of words I’ve tried.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      > I would very much like to find (or create) forum(s) for discussions seeking understanding instead of arguments seeking to “win” wars or battles. The users on chatgpt.com are quite good at staying cordial and come off as if they want to seek a genuine understanding. Granted, its UI is a little different from the traditional forum, only occasionally seeing additional users reply but being mostly geared to one-on-one interaction. That said, most discussions on more traditional forums like this one end up branching off into one-on-one discussions anyway, so I am not sure that is a terribly meaningful difference at the end of the day. > My own attempts have shown the potential audience is small to non existent Said discussion community has quite possibly become the most popular place for online discussion, so I am not sure about that. Understandably bootstrapping such a service is hard, though. "If you build it, they will come" only happens in the movies. "Be careful of what you wish for", though. While what you describe sounds nice in theory, it ends up feeling rather sterile when you don't have all the quirkiness of the so-called battles. That's what brings me back here, and deep down that is probably why you are here too.
noduerme 2y ago
Good faith arguments are wasted on those operating in bad faith, and bad currency drives out good.
perching_aix 2y ago
Lot of good points in there, and I really appreciate the author's aspired outlook on the world. However, I disagree with some of the core tenets involved. > There’s a misconception that good faith discussion only happens in close-knit communities like LessWrong or HackerNews. In my experience, discussions about more controversial topics here are exactly as disgusting as they are on any other forum. Which makes sense, because technologically, this place is exactly like any other forum. > The reality I’m looking at here is that ~everyone on the internet is rational AND is arguing in good faith. (...) "people suck/are bad/evil/stupid" (...) is a very difficult way to live life, it’s also just flat out false. The approach I'm going to use for debuking this is going to be semantics-play and claiming that your examples are cherry-picked. I'll paraphrase 2 X (formerly Twitter) conversations for this that I just hit recently. I'm paraphrasing because I lost the links. You'll unfortunately just have to take my word for this. Conversation #1: OP: You should drink alcohol! When are you going to drink alcohol if not now? 18-29 are your prime drinking years, your body is made to process alcohol at this age. You should never abstinate. You should take at least 12 shots every week." Apart from being blatantly terrible health advice, this is also logically unsound. The OP very clearly cannot prove or demonstrate that the body is made to process alcohol in this age range. What he could prove/demonstrate is that in this age range, the body handles it best, which is a very different thing. Commenter 1: I disagree, it's really bad for your body, blah blah blah. OP: You're a loser, and look at me I'm more fit than you (posts unsavory picture of commenter 1, and a "good" one of themselves). Commenter 1: posts picture of themselves being visibly more fit than OP. OP: <i don't remember, probably something asinine> Commenter 2: yeah but you're a loser If this article's author's takeaway from this is that Commenter 1 didn't try to argue in a good manner, that is profoundly depressing. Very clearly OP and Commenter 2 had zero intention in making a good faith argument, or recognizing themselves in the wrong. They were deliberately acting like "cool" assholes. Conversation #2: OP: post about Apple and privacy Commenter 1: whenever I talk about <things> I get recommended them in ads immediately after. How can Apple have top notch privacy if this happens? Commenter 2: argues that Commenter 1 searched for said <things> and just doesn't realize, therefore he's dumb, therefore Apple good Once again, there was no attempt at a good faith conversation. Possibly from either of them. Join in, and you'll have to fend off two immature idiots instead of one. What I'm trying to get at here is that regardless of whether these people are actual assholes or are just acting like one, it doesn't really matter. I'll go on these platforms and be hit with their misery regardless. Them being actually goody two shoes is unimportant, if all I can ever interact with is their asshole selves. Either the platform (X, formerly Twitter) gets this kind of behavior out of people, or being on the internet in general does. Regardless, these people are not worth anyone's time. Despite this, I will say that I do highly agree that this view is on its own extremely miserable as well. I've been having an extreme difficulty connecting with people due to the many years of insufferable conversations like this, and have abandoned most platforms by this point also. Inviting me to put in even more effort isn't super tantalizing either. I really don't think this is just a "language" thing people can or should just figure out. It's a bit like thinking that you can do hard drugs if you just control yourself - ignoring of course that controlling yourself is the very thing the more serious substances gradually disintegrate. Is it true that you can be super into, idk, heroin, if you just pay attention? Sure I guess. Is it what's overwhelmingly likely to happen? No. And it has very little to do with you the "person" inside. It's biochemistry.
raincole 2y ago
The first example is basically saying you have to insult yourself first to prevent the other side from insulting you further. I won't call this good faith, let alone a productive discussion. The second example is just wishful thinking. I bet even if KJ had responded with the author's way, axial would have still blocked them after several exchanges. Of course I might be wrong. Perhaps I'm just not as good at argumenting as the author.
- amadeuspagel 2y ago
  I see the first example as self-deprecating humor.
  - TZubiri 2y ago
    It felt a bit two faced, like making fun of OP for being pretentious, but playing the fool so they won't notice
- DrammBA 2y ago
  I feel the same way, replying "I'm too dumb!" to being essentially asked "Are you dumb?" is not even having a discussion anymore The second example is just a guy moving the goalpost, he went from "Where's the money?" to "Ok, that's where the money is, but are they using it?", and then gets mad when someone answered with sources. But according to the author KJ completely misunderstood the goalposts.
- layer8 2y ago
  You can’t generally de-escalate without doing some over-conceding. Giving the other side more space to change their stance than they strictly need has a way higher chance of them actually doing it. If you focus on keeping score, it’s less likely to work out.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    I don't think over-conceding achieves anything on the Internet though. You might get a polite message back from the other side, but that's it. It seems like more validation seeking than convincing or trying to figure out the truth.
left-struck 2y ago
So much negativity in the comments. I think this concept of how to have a conversation on the internet, and how to understand someone’s point, and how to maybe even convince someone successfully is extremely important. Much more important than what ever is in vogue right now as the hot topic politically issues of today. I have a minor gripe though, there’s a contradiction in the writing. “ There’s a misconception that good faith discussion only happens in close-knit…” And then just a few paragraphs later “If you’re not willing to do this, then you’re not arguing in good faith in my book.“ but this is generally the default behaviour of people on the internet and the article is trying to convince you, and teach you how not to be like that. So I think indeed, good faith arguments pretty much don’t happen on the internet with rare exceptions. It’s not a misconception unless the misconception is taken as good faith arguments literally never happen except in close knit communities, but who believes that?
- 0xEF 2y ago
  Back in my Reddit days, I learned it was also hard to have an honest discussion because people are suspicious of your motives. I would comment something like "I'd like to understand more about why you think X," and ask for clarification. These were met either with radio silence or very caged answers that just reiterated their point instead of explaining it further. IRL, people tend to become extremely guarded when someone questions their statements or beliefs (guilty, myself) because they automatically assume the person asking is trying to change their mind as opposed to make an effort to understand them. In the end, I think everyone just wants to feel heard. It's difficult to remember that sometimes online, easy to forget there is a person behind the keyboard who came to think differently because of their experiences and exposures.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    > because they automatically assume the person asking is trying to change their mind as opposed to make an effort to understand them. That's a pretty negative view of something I think is much simpler: Most people, on most topics, remember the conclusions (opinions) formed when learning about the topic, but either don't remember how they got there or only vaguely remember the details.
hugodan 2y ago
He should talk to my family who is alt-right “they are clearly a different species” to see how much he would understand the other side.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- egorfine 2y ago
  Well, some people are so much emotionally invested in a certain point of view that challenging it even a bit becomes detrimental to their core psyche. We have seen that during COVID and now we see that even more in those russians who are in favour of the war. I'd say that some techniques to argue with people on the far side do exist, but it takes time and a lot of effort.
niemandhier 2y ago
I think the approach the author is suggesting is the right one but for abdifferent reason. The most important person in an internet argument is the uninvolved passer-by, at least in those cases that make me argue publicly at length with strangers. I might never be able to convince the person I am discussing with, but I might convince the audience.
- TZubiri 2y ago
  Interesting. In that case offering a submissive message may mollify the interlocutor in exchange for a response, but at the cost of signalling to other readers that their position is sensible. My grandma used to say that arguing something is the greatest concession. Consider A: -Earth is flat - it is not, earth is round - ya it is, john doe proved it - ok sorry for not understanding could you please explain what john doe said? Or B: - earth is flat - yo momma's butt is flat Yes B, loses the battle for the one mind, but when you consider the readers, you are simply avoiding platforming an idiot and playing a dumb strawman to boot. I guess it all comes down to whether you view the internet as the greek agora or the roman circus. All of this rational debate and usage of latin phrases for fallacies brings back memories of teenage years of online debating. I get that it's election time at the homeland and some people are campaigning, but you get more votes making a strawman of your opponent and making a thread viral than going one by one changing minds. Who here thinks twitter is a platform for rational discourse? Ha!
  - niemandhier 2y ago
    I see your point, on the other hand I see that people have been ridiculing and insulting alt-right content a for years and that method did not work. In the contrary, deplattforming, doxxing and all the things people came up with are now an integral part of the rights toolkit. Point is: when I talk to people on the street I get the impression Thant what most of them desire is just boring politics by upstanding people. Maybe it’s time to change the way we discuss.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
I think the people propogating the talking points that these people are mindlessly spouting are doing a much better job in achieving their goals. The guy who says climate change is a Chinese Hoax is 50/50 for President as a result. So the answer seems to be a decades long campaign of misinformation to achieve power to get money to fund another decade of misinformation. Yes, the duped marks you recruit into this will become pitiful shells of their former selves, paranoid losers abandoned by any educated member of their family who watch in horror as their loving father descends into hateful insanity. Yes, the only people you'll be able to find to carry out this work will be sociopaths, leaving a trail of sexual and physical abuse behind them, as they help you destroy the country. But you have to admit it's effective.
houseplant 2y ago
what I've noticed is that many arguments have little to do with you, the "opponent", or the topic argued about or even which of you is right. it's more about the arguer re-enforcing their beliefs of being correct, and therefore morally righteous and powerful, to themselves. If you can argue your point successfully or at least cause your opponent to secede or give up and ragequit or block you, you won, because it isn't about correctness but power to remove or eliminate their influence from the argument, and if taken to the farthest conclusion, society at large. you begin noticing that all these conversations are about power over the opponent and if they could humiliate them enough- either with numbers by ratioing them with chatgpt bot replies or reddit downvotes or whatever- they will be silenced and you can pretend it was your power that did it. It reminds me of catcalling on the street. The guy catcalling a girl knows very well they won't turn her on, she isn't going to be receptive, she isn't going to fuck him. She might just shoot him an angry look. But it doesn't matter because that wasn't the goal, the goal was to get a temporary sexual power trip- you just made that girl think about you against her will!! you were powerful enough to occupy her mind for that moment. You win! you also see it in the sort of cultish thinking of all kinds of ideological things like wild flat earthers or MRAs or pickup artists or pizzagaters or whatever stupid shit. It's never about the thing they say they're all about, they don't really care about the earth being flat, or men's rights, or manipulating girls, or child abuse- they care about feeling like heroes to themselves and their peers- culturally righteous and powerful.
Unbefleckt 2y ago
I sort of worked this out posting on 4chan a long time ago, and could actually get a decent conversation going there believe it or not. Not everyone is worth it though, unless you're using the like a matador to impress upon the lurkers. This is the best way to argue against Christianity I've found.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
langsoul-com 2y ago
The question is whether it's worth the time. If you know someone face to face and plan to interact with them in the future. Then you must be able to continue conversing with them. So the time investment to have a decent conversation is necessary. Is online the same? It's possible to talk to someone new every time. Will this long process happen for each person? There's a reason why first impressions matter. Yes, someone who left a bad first impression could be a diamond in the rough. Except, why not just chat with the other diamonds instead?
- bubblyworld 2y ago
  I agree that it's important to filter your conversations on the internet (for that exact reason - it might be a waste of time for no gain), but I think this blog post is more about how to approach it once you've already decided to engage. Arguing in bad faith is a great way to guarantee you're going to waste your time and emotional energy, at least if you're genuinely interested in the topic.
ericyd 2y ago
I think the key point in this post is actually right at the end where the author states that their goal is always to understand the other person. If that's your goal, I agree it's usually pretty easy to avoid flame wars and get people to talk in respectful ways. For me it often isn't worth it to spend time trying to build understanding of anonymous actors online. But, I think some of these recommendations carry into IRL discussions too. The central question for me is typically not "how can I make this civil" but rather "how much effort do I want to put into this argument?"
- NickHodges0702 2y ago
  "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
motohagiography 2y ago
6 months practice, indeed. I don't argue online to change the minds of "opponents." Decades ago I saw how everything I wrote online would be used to train some future AI, and so I developed a cognitive style designed to disrupt ideological passivity. that is people iterating the logic of ideas they have accepted passively. I've found different attitudes to truth. a distant nebulous ideal to orient and navigate with and hand to mouth political survival each create cognitive species so separate we wouldn't really miss each other if we were gone. I don't really care about someone's specific opinions enough to make them "wrong," I'm usually only talking to them to find out if they have any interesting axioms of existence.
croes 2y ago
>The reality I’m looking at here is that ~everyone on the internet is rational AND is arguing in good faith Absolutely not, there are trolls and people who make a living from arguing in bad faith. In the example axial's perspective is just an assumption, could actually really be in bad faith.
croes 2y ago
The two example only show how the others win. Is there an example for the gold medal and still getting a "wow, a civil interaction, how rare!"? BTW a public discussion most of the time isn't about the people discussing but about the audience. It's rare to change someone's opinion but you can easier help create one in the undecided.

181 points by nkurz 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

i thought it was - INSULT - RETORT - COUNTER-RETORT - RIPOSTE - COUNTER-RIPOSTE - NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON - RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES - WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
I miss bash.org so much
- Forgeties79 2y ago
  thooose were thaa daaaaays
- 0_____0 2y ago
  irc died and was replaced with nothing
  - Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
    IRC isn't dead. Individual channels are dead, sure. 15 years ago, EFnet's #wow was quite busy and frequently had over 100 people in it. Now, it's down to just 20, with at least 7 of them being bots, the rest are idle. We went two weeks without a single message. I even unbanned the trolls just to get some excitement back, but they went silent (though didn't leave) once they realized the channel is indeed dead. But EFnet's #geekissues is still very active.
  - _shantaram 2y ago
    irc isn't dead, come join us on Libera! (and there's tons of other networks too, i just feel disingenuous inviting you to ones im not on)
    - dt3ft 2y ago
      Last time I checked it was just idle bots (or idle clients). Is it still this way nowadays?
      - dewey 2y ago
        What did you check? I'm in some channels like #postgresql or the channel of a hackerspace I'm part of and it's always active.
  - NitpickLawyer 2y ago
    Isn't discord this generation's IRC?
    - 0_____0 2y ago
      Kind of. IRC had a culture of its own. Also yungins might be surprised to learn that we had a distributed, open source communication network, where basically any dipshit with a static IP and a Pentium could start an IRC server and maybe get added to the network if they were reliable enough (I was one such dipshit).
    - RunSet 2y ago
      discord is this generation's yahoo groups.
    - ta988 2y ago
      Not really, the company can unilaterally ban someone or a server. With IRC you can start a private server and you are not at the mercy of anybody else. And you are not nagged all the time to guilt your users into boosting the server so they can use more features. Your users don't have to pay if they want to have different profiles on different servers. Your users can use any interface they want to access the service... So you are right in a sense that discord replace IRC as a means of communication for the majority, but in term of freedom it is a regression. If IRC had supported offline history keeping things could have been different, but for the people I know it was a major blocker for adoption. They didn't want to have to setup a server to bounce from or keep something running all the time.
  - dewey 2y ago
    It was replaced by group chats, Discord servers, Telegram groups etc.
  - ta988 2y ago
    it is not dead, just that the masses have their shiny full of gifs and spread in 50 channels per topic alternatives now.
- Izkata 2y ago
  Have fun: https://bash-org-archive.com/ https://bash-org-archive.com/

photochemsyn 2y ago

This approach seems to presume you're not trying to talk to a programmed bot whose job is to amplify a prepared set of talking points (an approach pioneered by I believe the Edelman PR firm in the 1990s internet era, when all the bots were human). If someone's willing to pay a PR firm to run a bot farm of any kind, this has to be taken into account. Such issues include fossil-fueled global warming, the efficacy of the latest patented FDA-approved pharmaceutical product, the role of virological gain-of-function research in the origins of the Covid pandemic, the necessity of government funding budgets for various purposes from public health to the provision of weapons to European and Middle Eastern conflicts, desirability of regulation of financial institutions (Glass-Steagall etc.), and possibly most relevant to HN, the wisdom of running Linux vs. Windows vs. Apple operating systems to meet your personal, business, and other computing needs. How would one respond in such cases? "Well, I understand that your job requires you to amplify a certain set of talking points and play down others, and I sympathize with your need to earn a living by doing so, so have a nice day?" Of course a bot will never admit to being a bot - but even if you're dealing with a good faith actor, there's also the issue of whether or not you have a shared information base, e.g. attempts to discuss evolutionary theory with someone who believes the universe was created 6000 years ago probably won't go well.

nickpsecurity 2y ago
[flagged]
- crdrost 2y ago
  I'm somewhat confused; I thought there were many self-professed Christians who also believed in evolution. Also, given that the Bible is read in a very different cultural context today from the ones it was authored in, I assume one also needs faith in which interpretive lens (not quite the same as denomination, but not unrelated) to use? I see what you are saying about needing to take something as axiomatic, I just don't understand why you think the evolutionists have so many axioms and your axioms are altogether fewer? (I would also maybe take issue with your view on falsifying scientific theory but I think that's a distraction from more interesting issues maybe?)

schmidtleonard 2y ago

This is a great way to win battles and lose wars. I came to this realization after getting good at climate science arguments. I could take a denialist "did you consider" argument, go to the IPCC reports, find labs, find papers, and return with summaries and citations in relatively short order, and after delivering them with kid gloves I could move people off one denialist argument... and onto another. If I repeated the exercise, there would be a third in line. Bad arguments take 1 unit of effort to generate and 1000 to refute. If you don't have a strategy for handling that asymmetry, you're toast, and the strategies for handling it do not involve kid gloves. Gish gallopers are gonna Gish gallop, and no amount of good faith is going to stop them if they don't want to stop. At some point you have to give up on the unbounded cost of good faith and call out the bad faith arguments. If you put them on blast, you might persuade spectators and that's about the best you can hope for on a finite budget.

justanotherjoe 2y ago
I disagree. I think it's a tall order but it should always be the ideal. Trying to justify shitty behavior in the name of greater good is just another way to lose. Instead, I admire people who go far and beyond for the lesser good.
deleted 2y ago
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xscott 2y ago
And your goal is to win the war instead of having a good faith discussion? Maybe you didn't read the article. They didn't suggest putting on kids gloves and siting your references. In fact, that was explicitly rejected as a good approach X) "Telling them their wrong" and X) "Telling them not to be rude". So here I am, telling you you're wrong and that you're rude. The irony isn't lost on me, but I really don't have any idea how I'm supposed to "signal that I'm genuinely interested" in your argument here. > There’s a misconception that good faith discussion only happens in close-knit communities like LessWrong or HackerNews. I'll have to look at LessWrong, but I think it's a misconception that good faith discussion is common on Hacker News... Many (most?) comments here seem to be about inflating ones ego by showing how smart or virtuous one is.

KTibow 2y ago

this post came at a good time for me (just lost an internet argument). same author has an interesting post about building mental models https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/geoffrey-hinton-on-developing-your https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/geoffrey-hinton-on...

alex_young 2y ago

Why does winning matter? Isn’t it emotionally more work and less gratifying than insulting? I think that’s why things are the way they are. People know this stuff, they just choose to press the insult button.

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xscott 2y ago
Your honesty is refreshing, but the result is depressing. It sure would be nice to have a place where you could discuss ideas without it being an argument, or to offer helpful suggestions to people without them treating it like you insulted their intelligence.
- derekbreden 2y ago
  > It sure would be nice to have a place where you could discuss ideas without it being an argument 100% Arguments result in walking away, the relationship ends before hardly any information is exchanged. If either side wants an argument, it can be difficult to avoid. If both sides are seeking understanding, it becomes very easy to exchange a lot of information and for all to learn a great deal, even as they still disagree. I would very much like to find (or create) forum(s) for discussions seeking understanding instead of arguments seeking to “win” wars or battles. My own attempts have shown the potential audience is small to non existent, at least with the combinations of words I’ve tried.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    > I would very much like to find (or create) forum(s) for discussions seeking understanding instead of arguments seeking to “win” wars or battles. The users on chatgpt.com are quite good at staying cordial and come off as if they want to seek a genuine understanding. Granted, its UI is a little different from the traditional forum, only occasionally seeing additional users reply but being mostly geared to one-on-one interaction. That said, most discussions on more traditional forums like this one end up branching off into one-on-one discussions anyway, so I am not sure that is a terribly meaningful difference at the end of the day. > My own attempts have shown the potential audience is small to non existent Said discussion community has quite possibly become the most popular place for online discussion, so I am not sure about that. Understandably bootstrapping such a service is hard, though. "If you build it, they will come" only happens in the movies. "Be careful of what you wish for", though. While what you describe sounds nice in theory, it ends up feeling rather sterile when you don't have all the quirkiness of the so-called battles. That's what brings me back here, and deep down that is probably why you are here too.

noduerme 2y ago

Good faith arguments are wasted on those operating in bad faith, and bad currency drives out good.

perching_aix 2y ago

Lot of good points in there, and I really appreciate the author's aspired outlook on the world. However, I disagree with some of the core tenets involved. > There’s a misconception that good faith discussion only happens in close-knit communities like LessWrong or HackerNews. In my experience, discussions about more controversial topics here are exactly as disgusting as they are on any other forum. Which makes sense, because technologically, this place is exactly like any other forum. > The reality I’m looking at here is that ~everyone on the internet is rational AND is arguing in good faith. (...) "people suck/are bad/evil/stupid" (...) is a very difficult way to live life, it’s also just flat out false. The approach I'm going to use for debuking this is going to be semantics-play and claiming that your examples are cherry-picked. I'll paraphrase 2 X (formerly Twitter) conversations for this that I just hit recently. I'm paraphrasing because I lost the links. You'll unfortunately just have to take my word for this. Conversation #1: OP: You should drink alcohol! When are you going to drink alcohol if not now? 18-29 are your prime drinking years, your body is made to process alcohol at this age. You should never abstinate. You should take at least 12 shots every week." Apart from being blatantly terrible health advice, this is also logically unsound. The OP very clearly cannot prove or demonstrate that the body is made to process alcohol in this age range. What he could prove/demonstrate is that in this age range, the body handles it best, which is a very different thing. Commenter 1: I disagree, it's really bad for your body, blah blah blah. OP: You're a loser, and look at me I'm more fit than you (posts unsavory picture of commenter 1, and a "good" one of themselves). Commenter 1: posts picture of themselves being visibly more fit than OP. OP: <i don't remember, probably something asinine> Commenter 2: yeah but you're a loser If this article's author's takeaway from this is that Commenter 1 didn't try to argue in a good manner, that is profoundly depressing. Very clearly OP and Commenter 2 had zero intention in making a good faith argument, or recognizing themselves in the wrong. They were deliberately acting like "cool" assholes. Conversation #2: OP: post about Apple and privacy Commenter 1: whenever I talk about <things> I get recommended them in ads immediately after. How can Apple have top notch privacy if this happens? Commenter 2: argues that Commenter 1 searched for said <things> and just doesn't realize, therefore he's dumb, therefore Apple good Once again, there was no attempt at a good faith conversation. Possibly from either of them. Join in, and you'll have to fend off two immature idiots instead of one. What I'm trying to get at here is that regardless of whether these people are actual assholes or are just acting like one, it doesn't really matter. I'll go on these platforms and be hit with their misery regardless. Them being actually goody two shoes is unimportant, if all I can ever interact with is their asshole selves. Either the platform (X, formerly Twitter) gets this kind of behavior out of people, or being on the internet in general does. Regardless, these people are not worth anyone's time. Despite this, I will say that I do highly agree that this view is on its own extremely miserable as well. I've been having an extreme difficulty connecting with people due to the many years of insufferable conversations like this, and have abandoned most platforms by this point also. Inviting me to put in even more effort isn't super tantalizing either. I really don't think this is just a "language" thing people can or should just figure out. It's a bit like thinking that you can do hard drugs if you just control yourself - ignoring of course that controlling yourself is the very thing the more serious substances gradually disintegrate. Is it true that you can be super into, idk, heroin, if you just pay attention? Sure I guess. Is it what's overwhelmingly likely to happen? No. And it has very little to do with you the "person" inside. It's biochemistry.

raincole 2y ago

The first example is basically saying you have to insult yourself first to prevent the other side from insulting you further. I won't call this good faith, let alone a productive discussion. The second example is just wishful thinking. I bet even if KJ had responded with the author's way, axial would have still blocked them after several exchanges. Of course I might be wrong. Perhaps I'm just not as good at argumenting as the author.

amadeuspagel 2y ago
I see the first example as self-deprecating humor.
- TZubiri 2y ago
  It felt a bit two faced, like making fun of OP for being pretentious, but playing the fool so they won't notice
DrammBA 2y ago
I feel the same way, replying "I'm too dumb!" to being essentially asked "Are you dumb?" is not even having a discussion anymore The second example is just a guy moving the goalpost, he went from "Where's the money?" to "Ok, that's where the money is, but are they using it?", and then gets mad when someone answered with sources. But according to the author KJ completely misunderstood the goalposts.
layer8 2y ago
You can’t generally de-escalate without doing some over-conceding. Giving the other side more space to change their stance than they strictly need has a way higher chance of them actually doing it. If you focus on keeping score, it’s less likely to work out.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  I don't think over-conceding achieves anything on the Internet though. You might get a polite message back from the other side, but that's it. It seems like more validation seeking than convincing or trying to figure out the truth.

left-struck 2y ago

So much negativity in the comments. I think this concept of how to have a conversation on the internet, and how to understand someone’s point, and how to maybe even convince someone successfully is extremely important. Much more important than what ever is in vogue right now as the hot topic politically issues of today. I have a minor gripe though, there’s a contradiction in the writing. “ There’s a misconception that good faith discussion only happens in close-knit…” And then just a few paragraphs later “If you’re not willing to do this, then you’re not arguing in good faith in my book.“ but this is generally the default behaviour of people on the internet and the article is trying to convince you, and teach you how not to be like that. So I think indeed, good faith arguments pretty much don’t happen on the internet with rare exceptions. It’s not a misconception unless the misconception is taken as good faith arguments literally never happen except in close knit communities, but who believes that?

0xEF 2y ago
Back in my Reddit days, I learned it was also hard to have an honest discussion because people are suspicious of your motives. I would comment something like "I'd like to understand more about why you think X," and ask for clarification. These were met either with radio silence or very caged answers that just reiterated their point instead of explaining it further. IRL, people tend to become extremely guarded when someone questions their statements or beliefs (guilty, myself) because they automatically assume the person asking is trying to change their mind as opposed to make an effort to understand them. In the end, I think everyone just wants to feel heard. It's difficult to remember that sometimes online, easy to forget there is a person behind the keyboard who came to think differently because of their experiences and exposures.
- Izkata 2y ago
  > because they automatically assume the person asking is trying to change their mind as opposed to make an effort to understand them. That's a pretty negative view of something I think is much simpler: Most people, on most topics, remember the conclusions (opinions) formed when learning about the topic, but either don't remember how they got there or only vaguely remember the details.

hugodan 2y ago

He should talk to my family who is alt-right “they are clearly a different species” to see how much he would understand the other side.

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egorfine 2y ago
Well, some people are so much emotionally invested in a certain point of view that challenging it even a bit becomes detrimental to their core psyche. We have seen that during COVID and now we see that even more in those russians who are in favour of the war. I'd say that some techniques to argue with people on the far side do exist, but it takes time and a lot of effort.

niemandhier 2y ago

I think the approach the author is suggesting is the right one but for abdifferent reason. The most important person in an internet argument is the uninvolved passer-by, at least in those cases that make me argue publicly at length with strangers. I might never be able to convince the person I am discussing with, but I might convince the audience.

TZubiri 2y ago
Interesting. In that case offering a submissive message may mollify the interlocutor in exchange for a response, but at the cost of signalling to other readers that their position is sensible. My grandma used to say that arguing something is the greatest concession. Consider A: -Earth is flat - it is not, earth is round - ya it is, john doe proved it - ok sorry for not understanding could you please explain what john doe said? Or B: - earth is flat - yo momma's butt is flat Yes B, loses the battle for the one mind, but when you consider the readers, you are simply avoiding platforming an idiot and playing a dumb strawman to boot. I guess it all comes down to whether you view the internet as the greek agora or the roman circus. All of this rational debate and usage of latin phrases for fallacies brings back memories of teenage years of online debating. I get that it's election time at the homeland and some people are campaigning, but you get more votes making a strawman of your opponent and making a thread viral than going one by one changing minds. Who here thinks twitter is a platform for rational discourse? Ha!
- niemandhier 2y ago
  I see your point, on the other hand I see that people have been ridiculing and insulting alt-right content a for years and that method did not work. In the contrary, deplattforming, doxxing and all the things people came up with are now an integral part of the rights toolkit. Point is: when I talk to people on the street I get the impression Thant what most of them desire is just boring politics by upstanding people. Maybe it’s time to change the way we discuss.
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ZeroGravitas 2y ago

I think the people propogating the talking points that these people are mindlessly spouting are doing a much better job in achieving their goals. The guy who says climate change is a Chinese Hoax is 50/50 for President as a result. So the answer seems to be a decades long campaign of misinformation to achieve power to get money to fund another decade of misinformation. Yes, the duped marks you recruit into this will become pitiful shells of their former selves, paranoid losers abandoned by any educated member of their family who watch in horror as their loving father descends into hateful insanity. Yes, the only people you'll be able to find to carry out this work will be sociopaths, leaving a trail of sexual and physical abuse behind them, as they help you destroy the country. But you have to admit it's effective.

houseplant 2y ago

what I've noticed is that many arguments have little to do with you, the "opponent", or the topic argued about or even which of you is right. it's more about the arguer re-enforcing their beliefs of being correct, and therefore morally righteous and powerful, to themselves. If you can argue your point successfully or at least cause your opponent to secede or give up and ragequit or block you, you won, because it isn't about correctness but power to remove or eliminate their influence from the argument, and if taken to the farthest conclusion, society at large. you begin noticing that all these conversations are about power over the opponent and if they could humiliate them enough- either with numbers by ratioing them with chatgpt bot replies or reddit downvotes or whatever- they will be silenced and you can pretend it was your power that did it. It reminds me of catcalling on the street. The guy catcalling a girl knows very well they won't turn her on, she isn't going to be receptive, she isn't going to fuck him. She might just shoot him an angry look. But it doesn't matter because that wasn't the goal, the goal was to get a temporary sexual power trip- you just made that girl think about you against her will!! you were powerful enough to occupy her mind for that moment. You win! you also see it in the sort of cultish thinking of all kinds of ideological things like wild flat earthers or MRAs or pickup artists or pizzagaters or whatever stupid shit. It's never about the thing they say they're all about, they don't really care about the earth being flat, or men's rights, or manipulating girls, or child abuse- they care about feeling like heroes to themselves and their peers- culturally righteous and powerful.

Unbefleckt 2y ago

I sort of worked this out posting on 4chan a long time ago, and could actually get a decent conversation going there believe it or not. Not everyone is worth it though, unless you're using the like a matador to impress upon the lurkers. This is the best way to argue against Christianity I've found.

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langsoul-com 2y ago

The question is whether it's worth the time. If you know someone face to face and plan to interact with them in the future. Then you must be able to continue conversing with them. So the time investment to have a decent conversation is necessary. Is online the same? It's possible to talk to someone new every time. Will this long process happen for each person? There's a reason why first impressions matter. Yes, someone who left a bad first impression could be a diamond in the rough. Except, why not just chat with the other diamonds instead?

bubblyworld 2y ago
I agree that it's important to filter your conversations on the internet (for that exact reason - it might be a waste of time for no gain), but I think this blog post is more about how to approach it once you've already decided to engage. Arguing in bad faith is a great way to guarantee you're going to waste your time and emotional energy, at least if you're genuinely interested in the topic.

ericyd 2y ago

I think the key point in this post is actually right at the end where the author states that their goal is always to understand the other person. If that's your goal, I agree it's usually pretty easy to avoid flame wars and get people to talk in respectful ways. For me it often isn't worth it to spend time trying to build understanding of anonymous actors online. But, I think some of these recommendations carry into IRL discussions too. The central question for me is typically not "how can I make this civil" but rather "how much effort do I want to put into this argument?"

NickHodges0702 2y ago
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

motohagiography 2y ago

6 months practice, indeed. I don't argue online to change the minds of "opponents." Decades ago I saw how everything I wrote online would be used to train some future AI, and so I developed a cognitive style designed to disrupt ideological passivity. that is people iterating the logic of ideas they have accepted passively. I've found different attitudes to truth. a distant nebulous ideal to orient and navigate with and hand to mouth political survival each create cognitive species so separate we wouldn't really miss each other if we were gone. I don't really care about someone's specific opinions enough to make them "wrong," I'm usually only talking to them to find out if they have any interesting axioms of existence.

croes 2y ago

>The reality I’m looking at here is that ~everyone on the internet is rational AND is arguing in good faith Absolutely not, there are trolls and people who make a living from arguing in bad faith. In the example axial's perspective is just an assumption, could actually really be in bad faith.

croes 2y ago

The two example only show how the others win. Is there an example for the gold medal and still getting a "wow, a civil interaction, how rare!"? BTW a public discussion most of the time isn't about the people discussing but about the audience. It's rare to change someone's opinion but you can easier help create one in the undecided.