How to have better arguments online

Your argument against people becoming hostage negotiators relies, as far as I can tell, on this being an extreme state for humans, and therefore totally unsustainable, but like... why? It's like arguing that bridges can't stand up because they are subject to extreme forces from all sides.

The sanity to which you speak is actually just passivity, In the hostage negotiator analogy, it is what happens when the hostage negotiator hangs up before the negoatiation is over. In the bridge analogy, it is what happens when one of the forces acting on the bridge stops acting on the bridge.

Sustained human existence is work, your proposed sanity preserving option is just nihilism, and it is unsustainable, or at least mutually unsustainable with existence.

This seems like a rarity. The vast majority of HN discussions don't have this situation, and it seems odd if the only purpose of HN voting is to upvote "celebrity" comments. There are much better places to follow the comments of celebrities than on HN.

> the alternative of randomly selecting people to govern also has its problems.

I strongly believe this is actually the least bad form of government, and vastly superior to elections, which are glorified high school prom royalty pageants.

> Do you know any platforms which have successfully done the randomisation thing?

No, though I have no idea what "algorithm" Twitter uses to determine the order of replies in a thread. (Probably not totally random.)

Where's your argument here?

> Your argument against people becoming hostage negotiators relies, as far as I can tell, on this being an extreme state for humans, and therefore totally unsustainable, but like... why?

No, my argument against people becoming hostage negotiators is that it sounds very stressful, unpleasant, and dangerous. I simply don't want to do it. Kudos to professional hostage negotiators, to be sure, but it's not a job most people want. At least professional negotiators get paid, I assume.

> It's like arguing that bridges can't stand up because they are subject to extreme forces from all sides.

Why are you comparing people to inanimate objects? I'd rather not be walked on, thank you.

> Sustained human existence is work, your proposed sanity preserving option is just nihilism, and it is unsustainable

This is a weird attitude. Humans have existed for thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of years. All without online social networks. We could ditch them all and be fine. Arguably better than now.

Consider that it might be to the benefit of the reader to hear all the different possible ways of expressing the different arguments and counter-arguments, even when the participants themselves don't budge.

Also, I often find that while I don't usually change my opinion in the middle of an argument, it still helps me to have the weakest areas of my opinions highlighted so that I know not to invest too strongly in those aspects as time goes on. After reading a compelling counter-argument online and then seeing first-hand evidence of the strength of that counter-argument later on, I think I'm much more likely to change my opinion.

During an argument I think it actually benefits all participants to stick to a consistent viewpoint and defend it as strongly as possible to make sure that its strengths and weaknesses are fairly represented.

That is the point: clearly it is a very arbitrary limit. I do that on purpose. If I want to expose myself to negative feelings and emotions, I do that in real life with real, actual people.

This is the definition of sentiment from Merriam-Webster:

a : an attitude, thought, or judgment prompted by feeling : predilection

b : a specific view or notion : opinion

Videos prompt feelings. Comments give serious sentiment clues.

> A specific video's commenter base is nothing like a representative sample, that could be used to make predictions.

I am not using this to make predictions.

> Why? Youtube comments aren't put in your face. It's very easy to watch a video without watching the comments.

Social media platforms, in general, in the most basic sense, play in to your hopes and fears, to keep you on there as long as possible. It is a form of abuse, and for children, it is literally a form of child abuse. Even the sidebar that is displayed on YouTube videos (whatever it is called), that "suggests videos", does this.

These platforms know what your hopes and fears are, based on your data, and especially things like your likes. This "psychographic research" via Cambridge University and obtained from social media data from 2013 resulted in the technology that was Cambridge Analytica, for example. Things like your IQ and sexual orientation could be determined by your Facebook likes alone.: https://www.wired.com/2013/03/facebook-like-research/

>As for me, I think being sad and even angry is part of the human experience, part of being in touch with reality, and I wouldn't sign up for a "keep you happy 100% of the time" machine.

As I said, that is why I talk to actual human beings, for exposure to negative thoughts/feelings/emotions. I just refuse to have social media play into my emotions. Instead, if I want exposure, besides actual real life direct human exposure, I read the newspaper or an actual book.