71–80 of 599 posts
1) many disagreements are not ultimately about facts but about intentionally different tradeoffs/prioritization.
2) if in fact one argues on facts/logic then losing the argument means you had your own logic or facts corrected, which should be a good thing, not a bad one.
One of the most cancerous developments of our generation is a bunch of people isolating themselves from everyone else, and having their perfect unchallenged audience captured views spread far and wide. On a more personal level, the reason people are frustrated about arguing is because they can’t fully articulate their reasons. They don’t realize it themselves. The older you get and the more practiced you get at argui…
1. Infinite supply of people.
2. 90%+ of times before you get anywhere, you find out the person doesn't have "what it takes".
At minimum you have to filter out 90%+ of people that simply don't have the mental faculties to evaluate what is and isn't a valid argument, before you even get started. All this just takes energy and there's just no benifit.
Its like imagine you're trying to playing chess, but
1. Most of the people don't even know rules.
2. Even if they know (some of the) rules. Some people are fundamentally incapable of recognizing and telling a difference between valid or invalid chess move. Some moves - like castling - are fundamentally too challenging for them to grasp. They simply don't have what it takes to participate.
3. And then you find out whole bunch of people aren't there to play chess to begin with, but rather discuss how the moves they use in their house is all different.
It's just such a waste of energy.
> It's not just the foo, it's the bar. Short sentence. Every sentence attempting to be profound, but isn't. I quietly put adverbs in strategic locations, quietly, deftly, and always lists of threes. Your advantage is the ability to foo, not just bar.
=====
re: the content
You're missing the point of "arguing" in the workplace if you're arguing with individuals and you see it as your objective to destroy them with facts and logic.
> So I’ve drawn a line. I only discuss pros and cons with smart people; I don’t argue right and wrong with ego-driven ones. With the first kind, a disagreement is a joint search for the better answer, and both of us walk away sharper.
This one points out the biggest miss and why this person finds their strategies impotent. The goal of "arguing" in the workplace, or more pr-friendly, "debating the merits" should never be to convince that guy to take your position. That's both ineffective and way harder. You should focus your energy instead on constructing the arguments towards the audience and bleeding support. Nothing of importance gets resolved in a singular meeting with a singular debate.
Watch some Oxford style debate prep to understand this point more deeply, but some number of peers are going to agree with your position ahead of time and some are going to disagree with your position. Instead of trying to obliterate all the points one-by-one from the person on the other side of the issue, try to make just a few succinct points that will pluck off a few onlookers. That's all you need at the moment. Take the tiniest win, move the overton window a little further in your direction, and retain all the goodwill and camaraderie on the team or in the org.
Do this in *SMALL* and *INFREQUENT* ways and over time you end up becoming the person who tends to be right on the issues and onlookers become more sympathetic to your positions by default. This lets you make bigger pushes, or allows conversations to start off as already "in your camp" to begin with. This builds up social credit (reputation) which you can then spend on taking more risky bets/positions within the org.
----
The other thing it lets you do is open the door for others to debate merits of their ideas. By keeping the focus on just a singular point or two, keeping it low stakes, and then being willing to walk away amicably at the first sign of any emotions you implicitly grant permission to others (who may agree with you, or who might just need to practice their own abilities) to voice a dissenting opinion on something orthodox. Maybe you agree with them, maybe you don't - but never shoot down a first timer's / shy guy's idea on it's first float.
I’d just call direct confrontational argument an ineffective tactic. If I disagree with somebody in any real sense, we have a shared enemy: the disagreement. It’s easier to destroy it if we’re both working against it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been reading the writings of stoic philosophers each morning and journaling about what I read and I think this fits in well with that philosophy. We're all here on Earth to enrich ourselves (and I don't mean materially) and those around us. Arguing with strangers online is antithetical to that premise. You don't better yourself by engaging in pointless squabbling, and you don't enrich the other person or those a…
> What is the goal when you start arguing with someone online? Is that goal achievable? For me the goal is twofold. I'm arguing for the people reading the comment chain, not necessarily the commenter's sake. I know it's nearly impossible to convince someone you are arguing with. But also I do try and have an open mind. It's not common that I change my position, but it does happen. For example, I was once a climate ch…
I'm not sure people are reading comment chains deeply enough to be swayed by two strangers arguing online. All too often these days, folks are just engaging in point scoring type arguments and readers just agree with their tribe.
Not saying it doesn't happen, nor that it's a good goal taken with care. But me personally the ROI just isn't there (your calculus is different, and that's okay!)
A lot of times when I engage in arguments online, I think of it more as showing nuance to a person. I'm not trying to persuade them, I'm not trying to win, I'm just trying to show them that the problem space is a bit more complicated than their view is showing them. At least that's how I justify it to myself when I do engage. And of course, I'm no where close to perfect, I engage in petty point scoring arguments because it feels good at the time but isn't fruitful or healthy in the long run.
You don't know what events they had experienced that caused them to shape those views.
Just smile, nod and agree :)
Worth knowing which hills to die on and having a strategically chosen intention that is not rooted in ego. Ego is the enemy.
[flagged]
One of the most tiring and depressing developments of 2026 is that nowadays, every single discussion relating to every single blog post out there degenerates into a "This is AI slop" accusation fest. I would be a huge friend of introducing a new rule on the Hacker News that whoever accuses others of using AI and cannot support his accusation by something substantial, gets permabanned.