3 ms·

So is there anything besides misconception? Is there One True Conception, which defeats all others in internet debate?

• mattmaroon 19y ago
  Internet debate gets a bad rep, but it's intrinsically no worse than any other written debate (which in and of itself is certainly the highest form of discourse man has ever invented). Sincere internet debate is perhaps 50% of what makes the medium useful (the other 50% being, of course, videos of kittens). Insincere internet debate is unfortunately 99% of the overall market and often clouds that fact. So if anything, there's your unified theory of sincerity. As for one true conception, I imagine it exists on many topics, though getting at it is rather tricky. I've certainly started to argue with people before only to find out, as I put it in writing, that I agreed with them, sometimes even for reasons they'd missed. So if the truth is so convoluted that you can never really know it, perhaps it functionally does not exist. I now feel my counter argument to the sincerity thing is overhyped though. I don't have enough time to make it live up. Please don't read, you'll only be let down.