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How to have better arguments online

theguardian.com

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Re: How to have better arguments online

#51

Post by SunlightEdge »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #27
SunlightEdge wrote: post #22

I think learning to ignore posts that are or will become toxic is a helpful skill to learn. I have similar feelings about certain newspapers & articles too. As for discussion, no one ever wins an argument in my opinion. So whenever a discussion looks like it's heading that way the best thing to do is to drop it. Discussion is at its best when it's two open minded people politely exploring ideas

People have this instict that "silence is consent". Which makes sense in some circumstances . Like, when the whole group is paying attention to the same speaker, the speaker says something, there is an opportunity to object, and no one objects... you could conclude that either everyone agrees, or perhaps the speaker has so much social power that no one dares to object. -- So the idea is backed by either consent or po…

Yeah. I like your way of putting it. It's true that online and how people interact can be quite misleading. It's a really good point on how we can build better systems to match our instincts

Re: How to have better arguments online

#52

Post by disabled »

This sort of stuff is why I refuse to participate in "traditional" social media, which is clearly unhealthy. I refuse to take my mind to bad places, where it could become unhappy. I simply cannot afford to be unhappy.

If I want to want to watch YouTube videos, I search for such videos on a traditional search engine via video search and get the YouTube link. Then I do a sentiment analysis on the comments of the video. If the video has greater than or equal to 10% of the comments containing negative sentiment (whether it be mildly or strongly negative), then I don't watch the video. If I decide to watch a video, I use youtube-dl.

Likewise, I use an Nvidia Jetson with a webcam to monitor my emotions when surfing the internet. I simply do not go to pages that take my emotions for a spin. I have found that social media always makes me unhappy, ultimately.

Re: How to have better arguments online

#53

Post by FriedrichN »

Sure you can try to have a proper discussion online, but too many people want to DESTROY people with FACTS and LOGIC. Or in practice ad hominems, false equivalencies, and just about every other fallacy in the book. If a topic is remotely controversial it's just about impossible to have a discussion that would make any sense at all.

HN is really the only place I even bother to write a comment, on the whole people seem to be at least have a somewhat charitable interpretation of other people's comments.

Re: How to have better arguments online

#54

Post by thazework »

_qulr wrote: post #26
Barrin92 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to a degree being able to associate with like-minded peers is good for peace of mind, but the author is right that conflict is also productive. This also applies in the real world. The actual Greek meaning of the word idiot is 'private person'. Someone who had withdrawn from the life in the polis , the political community. Over the last few decades we've seen a trend of this privatisation and segmentation or what Mic…

> the author is right that conflict is also productive Could you explain why? > The actual Greek meaning of the word idiot is 'private person'. Someone who had withdrawn from the life in the polis, the political community. The Greeks put Socrates to death, so call me skeptical.

This is a common misconception, idiote was often used interchangeably with citizen and should be understood as a citizen operating in his capacity as a citizen (and not say in a formal poltical or emissary function) but by no means one who wishes to disengage from the polis. As for Socrates, as he is at pains to emphasize in the Apology, he was no 'idiote'.

Re: How to have better arguments online

#55

Post by notapenny »

FriedrichN wrote: post #53

Sure you can try to have a proper discussion online, but too many people want to DESTROY people with FACTS and LOGIC. Or in practice ad hominems, false equivalencies, and just about every other fallacy in the book. If a topic is remotely controversial it's just about impossible to have a discussion that would make any sense at all. HN is really the only place I even bother to write a comment, on the whole people seem…

That last sentence is what's critical to having decent conversation with people in general. You may think their opinion/point is wrong or they might just completely misunderstand a topic, but give them the benefit of the doubt. If you're just stating your opinion versus giving your point of view and asking other to give/clarify theirs, you're probably doing it wrong. Anytime I'm in an argument I just treat it as a way to get a different point of view, even if I don't subscribe to it. HN is great for this.

Re: How to have better arguments online

#56

Post by notapenny »

baybal2 wrote: post #39

Don't have arguments online. Trying to persuade anybody over the internet is next to impossible.

Don't try to persuade people. Most people don't want to be persuaded. Get people to think and think about your own views. You may find either of you are wrong, or both, or neither, but you may learn something.

Re: How to have better arguments online

#57

Post by leetcrew »

_qulr wrote: post #40
darkerside wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do they ever get resolved? Not in my experience. I've found this to be less true than perhaps it used to be, particularly in places like HN. I don't think you'll change anyone's minds overnight on a big issue like climate change or racism, but I regularly see people share insights and perspectives in a reasonable way. Over time, these add up into real change, even if you don't see it happening in the course of a si…

> Over time, these add up into real change, even if you don't see it happening in the course of a single thread. Without evidence, this is a difficult claim to accept.

I have certainly changed my own positions as a result of civil discussions. it never happens after a single exchange, but over time people can be convinced.

Re: How to have better arguments online

#59

Post by _qulr »

hooande wrote: post #48
_qulr wrote: post #20

If you state your opinion in a room with 3 other people, the chance that at least 1 of those people vehemently disagrees with your opinion are probably low. Especially since people self-select who to congregate with in rooms. If you state your opinion in a virtual "room" with 300 million other people, the chance that at least 1 of those people vehemently disagrees with your opinion is a certainty. Conflict is almost…

Nothing gets resolved in offline arguments either. That isn't the point. The idea of a non-factual disagreement is that both sides get to make a case and state their perspective, and everyone learns from it. You self-selected to be here on hn, just like the rest of us did. In a sense, this is a bubble of a certain kind of thought and perspective. But it's a really big bubble that has some diversity. I think the key i…

> and everyone learns from it

Do they?

> where both sides end up arguing the same philosophical issues over and over again

Funny, I would describe HN as the same.

I'm on HN because the topics interest me as a computer programmer. But I don't share the common HN conceit that commenters on HN are better than elsewhere. IMO there's no evidence of that. Some of those within the HN bubble think very highly of themselves, but they may not be aware of the utter contempt that many outside the HN bubble have for "the orange site". (By the way, I could share a little CSS to add dark mode support and a few other tweaks to HN, if anyone is interested.)

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