The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit • Hacker News Board

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#31

Post by rciorba » Sun, May 12, 2019, 3:51 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

Here's my take on when people do this:

Unless someone prefaces their statements with a disclaimer (like "just for the sake of the argument"), I will assume in good faith they believe their own statements. Any later claim to the contrary leaves me with the following choice to make: were they lying then, or are they lying now.

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#32

Post by nvrspyx » Sun, May 12, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

sideaccount wrote: post #20

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

This could also be considered gaslighting, or just plain old attention seeking behavior.

There’s certainly a fine line between playing devil’s advocate to measure the strength of an argument and “trolling”, much like, as an example, there is a fine line between hunting an animal for sustenance and hunting an animal for sport.

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#33

Post by labgrown » Sun, May 12, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

damnyou wrote: post #21

labgrown wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for a definition to be useful it needs to be as narrow as possible, otherwise declaring any form of argument you don't like as trolling would be...

That is just not true. Broader definitions are actually very useful when you're trying to describe general principles (like in law) — using a word that's too narrowly defined can limit the scope of what you're saying.

That's the difference between a principle and a definition, law has both - criminal offenses for example are more defined than the principle of tort, the more you want something to be useful as an accusation the more narrowly defined it needs to be or you just end up with a moral panic.

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#34

Post by asveikau » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

rciorba wrote: post #31

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

Here's my take on when people do this: Unless someone prefaces their statements with a disclaimer (like "just for the sake of the argument"), I will assume in good faith they believe their own statements. Any later claim to the contrary leaves me with the following choice to make: were they lying then, or are they lying now.

This seems a little extreme. A lot of discussions are too abstract to bother prefacing with "this is not my actual view". I don't think it should be called lying if my own opinion is not very relevant, or the thing being discussed.

A lot of the time this can take the shape of "have you considered...?" or "what if...?", so there is a built in hypothetical.

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#35

Post by asveikau » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

marstomorrow wrote: post #23

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

I have come across this in some friends. It's super interesting but also dangerous. It has taken me sometimes years or a decade to fully come to terms with some past debates. My friends would seemingly hold opinions and cling to them dearly, opinions I felt were so unconscionable I could not imagine holding them. Friendships were strained and maybe some lost. They tell me now that they were doing as you do, and that…

I totally agree that, when adopting a hypothetical opinion, it's a good idea to vet it, and prevent wasting everybody's time in hypotheticals. Though part of that process may be to temporarily adopt an absurd view and work out how it fails.

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#36

Post by thomascgalvin » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

rciorba wrote: post #31

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

Here's my take on when people do this: Unless someone prefaces their statements with a disclaimer (like "just for the sake of the argument"), I will assume in good faith they believe their own statements. Any later claim to the contrary leaves me with the following choice to make: were they lying then, or are they lying now.

It seems to me that even when a statement is prefaced with something like "just for the sake of the argument", this is just a cover, allowing the writer to state an unpopular (or hateful, or patently wrong) opinion, while hopefully shielding themselves from some of the blowback.

It's the whole "I'm just asking the question" phenomena, and I see it a lot with people who claim to be centrists but are more accurately described as right wing reactionaries. It allows them to seed the discussion with bullshit, without having to defend any of it.

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#37

Post by tomrod » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

This is called Sandboxing, for what it's worth, and it is absolutely essential for understanding an idea.

Shane Parrish of Farnam Street and Sam Harris recently sat down and chatted,in part, about this need. Highly recommend giving a listen.[0]

[0] https://samharris.org/podcasts/155-mental-models/

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#38

Post by trevyn » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

rciorba wrote: post #31

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

Here's my take on when people do this: Unless someone prefaces their statements with a disclaimer (like "just for the sake of the argument"), I will assume in good faith they believe their own statements. Any later claim to the contrary leaves me with the following choice to make: were they lying then, or are they lying now.

>Unless someone prefaces their statements with a disclaimer (like "just for the sake of the argument"), I will assume in good faith they believe their own statements.

That is perhaps an unusually... mechanical... way of conversing.

Human conversation can be a playful dance when contextual grey areas of shared and individual intent and information are explored. Most people do this implicitly, without need for explicit disclaimers — indeed, explicitness extinguishes much of the pleasure of the dance.

In other words, many people talk with others for the sheer pleasure of conversation, as opposed to a simple exchange of facts. This conversation-as-pleasure naturally leaks even into specific conversations that are indeed largely about the exchange of facts, because many people are accustomed to, familiar with, and enjoy the dance.

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#39

Post by d0100 » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

marstomorrow wrote: post #23

asveikau wrote: post #12

I frequently argue points I do not personally hold. This sometimes gets misinterpreted as me holding the opinion, or an attack on the person, or some such. But really I am testing the idea and recognizing that someone else could hold this opinion but not be in the room to advocate for it.

I have come across this in some friends. It's super interesting but also dangerous. It has taken me sometimes years or a decade to fully come to terms with some past debates. My friends would seemingly hold opinions and cling to them dearly, opinions I felt were so unconscionable I could not imagine holding them. Friendships were strained and maybe some lost. They tell me now that they were doing as you do, and that…

> I find often that the other side is based on logical fallacies and is not, at its base, a valid argument.

Does this mean you are "often" right?

Re: The Notion of “Trolling” in Ancient Sanskrit

#40

Post by coldtea » Sun, May 12, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

marstomorrow wrote: post #2

This is very neat, and the last paragraph is indeed very heavy-hitting. It's always hard to read that some of our societies greatest present-day problems are so many thousands of years old. However, I think this definition is narrow and only encapsulates part of the modern definition of 'trolling'. Today, 'trolling' is used as a weapon of war, not only in debate with other individual people. Trolling is as much a mec…

>Trolling is as much a mechanism of creating emotional trauma among a large population as it is a mechanism for 'debating' in bad faith.

Perhaps this was not present in older societies (and other countries today) because people were not as touchy feely as the current generations...

And I'm not trolling. I seriously think modern western societies are too snow-flakey and touchy feely for their own good. It's like going out in life expecting padded roads, walls, and everything, lest you ever get hurt...

And that's despite older societies having it much harder, and having much more difficult problems to be "traumatized" with...