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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
by 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 agoInteresting. 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 agoI 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]
- randomdata 2y ago> Maybe it’s time to change the way we discuss. My takeaway from your comment is not so much that we need to change the way we discuss, but that we more regularly need to remind ourselves that computers and people are not the same thing. As you suggest, when people have discussions it usually goes well, with all parties more or less wanting "boring" discussion that goes somewhere meaningful. It is when people have discussions with computers but confuse them as being people when it all goes off the rails.
- TZubiri 2y agoare you a computer?
- randomdata 2y agoWhat do your eyes indicate? Do I look more like a person or more like a computer?
- psd1 2y agoYou look like qualia to me
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoYo momma experiences qualia
- m-i-l 2y ago> Who here thinks twitter is a platform for rational discourse? That's the elephant in the room here. The site formerly known as Twitter is optimised to maximise engagement, and conflict typically generates much more engagement than co-operation. It'd be like trying to have a friendly discussion to work out your differences with your opponent in a boxing ring, surrounded by large crowd who have been whipped up by the venue into baying for a fight. I sometimes wonder if it is even possible to build a sustainable internet platform which somehow rewards cordial good faith discourse and penalises the mean and intolerant (and by sustainable I mean immune to the tendency for these platforms to eventually pivot to maximising profits above all else).
- cryptopian 2y agoI've noticed that certain Twitter behaviours are popping up on Bluesky. It's being fought against by the early adopters, but fundamentally, the mechanics of a platform are going to massively influence how arguments happen. It still allows replies and quote-reposts to divorce a comment from its context. It's still global and public by default so users are always in performance mode. What it doesn't have yet, that Twitter does, is sorting of comments by engagement. That always had the effect of presenting responses to an argument with the most inflammatory takes first.
- karmonhardan 2y agoReddit where upvotes are weighted by your similarity or difference to the target uploader or commenter. People who have different sentiments, identities, writing styles, etc. will boost your post faster than people who are similar. Downvotes count for less, in the same vein. Discourse approaches a mean of respectability and sentiment. A few years down the road, sell analysis of users' corpus as de facto background checks. Or Something something LinkedIn. I suppose both approaches have their own problems.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoShiri's Scissor https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Sort-By-Controversial https://www.slatestarcodexabridged.com/Sort-By-Controversial
- 2y ago
- xamde 2y ago> it all comes down to whether you view the internet as the greek agora or the roman circus. The best summary I've ever read about the internet
- Y_Y 2y agoI've often suspected internet arguers of being agoraphobic.
- red-iron-pine 2y agogiven AI bots and their increasing capacity for shaping consensus, I think something closer a church choir
- tempodox 2y agoI feel reminded of Mark Twain: “Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
- antisthenes 2y agoThe only sensible approach. Of course on the Internet, no one ever thinks themselves an idiot, no matter how ridiculous their position is.
- DrammBA 2y agoI like the variations too (no idea if the attributions are correct): > "Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it" - George Bernard Shaw > “Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.” - Shannon L. Alder
- randomdata 2y ago> Who here thinks twitter is a platform for rational discourse? When considered in its entirety? No. Not at all. Within the curated segment of Twitter I have established? Yes! It is probably the most rational place on the internet that I know of. Those within that curated circle seem to genuinely want to share information in a productive manner without the silly vitriol. That's the beauty of "the algorithm", I suppose. You can tune it to leave the garbage out.
- ChoHag 2y ago[dead]
- diggan 2y ago> I might never be able to convince the person I am discussing with, but I might convince the audience. Reading the comments around this blogpost here on in other places, I feel like I'm almost alone in not trying to convince anyone when I argue with strangers online (most of the times), neither the other person I'm discussing with, or others who might be reading. I mostly reply because there are unanswered questions that if answered, might teach me something new. Most of the times I'm just seeking understanding from both sides, not convincing the other. Do most people argue on the internet with strangers in order to convince others of something? If so, how does your success rate look like? I probably feel like aiming for that would be futile at best.
- specialist 2y agoThere are many forms (styles) of discourse, no? Rhetoric, dialectic, sophistry, trolling, slap fights, agitprop. To the OC's point, while the affordances of hot mediums like social media and message boards tend towards juicing dopamine, with some investment they can also be used for discourse. As OC Defender advocates. As moderators like u/dang facilitate. -- My meager "yes and" contributions to Defender's post are... > how to make the world a better place Since at least Socrates, humans have been arguing about what it means to be a good person, how to live a good life, what is true and beautiful. aka moral philosophy. I praise and appreciate Defender for continuing this distinctly human tradition. > This shows a genuine interest in understanding because it cannot be faked. TMI: Maybe 6-7 years ago, I heard the advice "When something (or someone) doesn't make sense to you, get curious." By fits and starts, but mostly backsliding, I've been trying to embrace this advice. Hard as it is, doing so has helped, a lot. > Yes, this is a lot of work. True. -- PS: affordances in the Donald Norman sense; hot/cold mediums in the Marshall McLuhan sense.
- patrickmay 2y ago> The most important person in an internet argument is the uninvolved passer-by Exactly. Correia’s Law: "Internet arguing is a spectator sport. You argue to convince the undecided and give ammo to those on your side. Do not expect to change your opponent’s mind as you cannot sway the willfully ignorant. Internet arguing is only worth it when there is an audience. The contestants do not get a vote, the audience decides who wins."
- s1artibartfast 2y agohowever, there are a lot of degenerate behaviors that stem from arguing for an audience opposed to the opponent. I dont think it is possible to have a debate in good faith without putting the opponent first.
- antisthenes 2y agoIt's easy to see that in this case, if your audience is also willfully ignorant, you will end up in a downward spiral where you just try to destroy your opponent's credibility and reputation in a shouting match, regardless of what the factual reality is. You may have convinced the audience, but you ended up with a solution that doesn't work and is divorced from the real world. Is it worth it in the end?
- moritzwarhier 2y ago> 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. This also applies to any _public_ offline argument, doesn't it?