Anatomy of an internet argument
defenderofthebasic.substack.com
Anatomy of an internet argument
1–10 of 125 posts
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#2[deleted]
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#3i thought it was
- INSULT
- RETORT
- COUNTER-RETORT
- RIPOSTE
- COUNTER-RIPOSTE
- NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON
- RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES
- WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMSRe: Anatomy of an internet argument
#4i thought it was - INSULT - RETORT - COUNTER-RETORT - RIPOSTE - COUNTER-RIPOSTE - NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON - RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES - WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS
I miss bash.org so much
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#5i thought it was - INSULT - RETORT - COUNTER-RETORT - RIPOSTE - COUNTER-RIPOSTE - NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON - RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES - WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS
I miss bash.org so much
thooose were thaa daaaaays
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#6i thought it was - INSULT - RETORT - COUNTER-RETORT - RIPOSTE - COUNTER-RIPOSTE - NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON - RESPONSE TO RANDOM STATEMENT AND THREAT TO BAN OPPOSING SIDES - WORDS OF PRAISE FOR FISHFOOD - ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTENCE OF TERMS
I miss bash.org so much
irc died and was replaced with nothing
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#7This approach seems to presume you're not trying to talk to a programmed bot whose job is to amplify a prepared set of talking points (an approach pioneered by I believe the Edelman PR firm in the 1990s internet era, when all the bots were human).
If someone's willing to pay a PR firm to run a bot farm of any kind, this has to be taken into account. Such issues include fossil-fueled global warming, the efficacy of the latest patented FDA-approved pharmaceutical product, the role of virological gain-of-function research in the origins of the Covid pandemic, the necessity of government funding budgets for various purposes from public health to the provision of weapons to European and Middle Eastern conflicts, desirability of regulation of financial institutions (Glass-Steagall etc.), and possibly most relevant to HN, the wisdom of running Linux vs. Windows vs. Apple operating systems to meet your personal, business, and other computing needs.
How would one respond in such cases? "Well, I understand that your job requires you to amplify a certain set of talking points and play down others, and I sympathize with your need to earn a living by doing so, so have a nice day?"
Of course a bot will never admit to being a bot - but even if you're dealing with a good faith actor, there's also the issue of whether or not you have a shared information base, e.g. attempts to discuss evolutionary theory with someone who believes the universe was created 6000 years ago probably won't go well.
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#8This is a great way to win battles and lose wars.
I came to this realization after getting good at climate science arguments. I could take a denialist "did you consider" argument, go to the IPCC reports, find labs, find papers, and return with summaries and citations in relatively short order, and after delivering them with kid gloves I could move people off one denialist argument... and onto another. If I repeated the exercise, there would be a third in line.
Bad arguments take 1 unit of effort to generate and 1000 to refute. If you don't have a strategy for handling that asymmetry, you're toast, and the strategies for handling it do not involve kid gloves. Gish gallopers are gonna Gish gallop, and no amount of good faith is going to stop them if they don't want to stop. At some point you have to give up on the unbounded cost of good faith and call out the bad faith arguments. If you put them on blast, you might persuade spectators and that's about the best you can hope for on a finite budget.
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#9this post came at a good time for me (just lost an internet argument). same author has an interesting post about building mental models https://defenderofthebasic.substack.com/p/geoffrey-hinton-on...
Re: Anatomy of an internet argument
#10This approach seems to presume you're not trying to talk to a programmed bot whose job is to amplify a prepared set of talking points (an approach pioneered by I believe the Edelman PR firm in the 1990s internet era, when all the bots were human). If someone's willing to pay a PR firm to run a bot farm of any kind, this has to be taken into account. Such issues include fossil-fueled global warming, the efficacy of th…
[flagged]