— Lao Tzu said this too, 2,500 years ago. In chapter 81 of the Tao Te Ching:
True words are not fine-sounding; Fine-sounding words are not true.
The good man does not prove by argument; The he who proves by argument is not good.
Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
141–150 of 599 posts
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point being made is to pick your battles. The author’s point is that, even if you are correct 100% of the time, fighting every battle is toxic to yourself and everyone around you. They are saying to look past the fact that you might be right and consider that it’s not worth the effort anyway. Now, I will attempt to put down my phone and not respond to any replies I get to the contrary. Sweating intensifies…
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…
Check out the sceptic Sextus Empiricus. Hackett has a collection of his writings. Admittedly he was strongly opposed to the stoics as he considered them dogmatists, but at its heart scepticism is the idea that we should hold all arguments about non-evident things in suspension of judgement, because against any argument put forward we can balance an equally plausible argument. Instead, we should "turn our back upon the whole dispute and go back to talking and acting like a civilised, common-sensical man instead of a pedantic dogmatist".
I personally wasn't too convinced by scepticism but it was an interesting read nevertheless and I did take some bits away from it.
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#143This ASCII character '|' is a bar.
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#144There are two tools I usually employ in "technical arguments":
* The socratic method. I ask questions. Why did you do it this way? What are the tradeoffs? Get them to explain their reasoning. And not in an accusative way, I'm genuinely interested in how they arrived at the decision. Sometimes I just need more context; sometimes they rethink; sometimes we figure out something new together. It is a voyage of discovery, no egos involved.
* Be tolerant. Sometimes design issues are bikesheddy, and my rule is to err on the side of "let the person doing the work decide". Even if it isn't the way I would do it. I will usually phrase it something along the lines of "this is how I would do it, but if you strongly prefer this other way, it's fine". Pick battles that are important; help engineers develop "good taste"; but try to empower, not disempower, them.
I have some hard lines but they're easy and everyone knows them. Immutable data structures, use the typechecker, constructor injection, don't use null, etc etc. I wrote up a doc that all new employees read and it's distilled into a CLAUDE.md file. AI review usually takes care of these.
The only place I find that I still have to push a little is applying the YAGNI rule. Folks aren't particularly resistant, they often don't realize when they're violating it. Over-engineering is habitual. But people eventually get it.
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#145Reeks of AI prose past the first paragraph or two. I don't need to know a bot's opinion on how to convince others.
Yeah I enjoyed the first bit, then “the one exception” made me go “hey, Claude does this to me all the time” and then it ruined the article for me.
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#146This is some high level hard earned wisdom.
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#147Mythical place to argue with people:
1. Your anonymous or whatever you say can't be used by another party against you.
2. There is a code of conduct that is strictly held (no interrupting, no ad hominem etc)
3. You can ask for time-outs and think before answering.
4. There is a bank of known knowledge that is considered true, very strict standards, as unbiased as possible, including confidence scales.
5. You are face to face.
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#148Reeks of AI prose past the first paragraph or two. I don't need to know a bot's opinion on how to convince others.
Yeah, I also got suspicious and checked it with Pangram. Sadly 100% AI. Perhaps it still has good points, but my heart drops whenever I sniff the AI prose. I can just query Claude or ChatGPT myself, you know?
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#149They never mention they could’ve been wrong. The author assumes they’re always right, but that trying to convince others and argue them to their right side is not valuable. How about: maybe I’m wrong and I didn’t let their ideas influence me. How about: even when I think I’m right, it will be better to calmly kindly discuss, listening as much as talking, not debating or arguing or speaking over them, but attempting t…
I "argue" constantly with my coworkers: they are savage in PR reviews identifying mistakes/improvements, and I give it back the same. It's collegial, not hostile or insulting. Yet it's arguing nonetheless. We are exchanging ideas to create better software. Using steelmans and devil's advocate to evaluate new ideas / approaches. Ego-less arguing is easier with engineering work because people are not emotionally invest…
When you say you "give it back the same," are you saying you also are savage in reviewing their PRs, or that you are savage when replying negatively to their feedback?
If just the former, I strongly disagree that the two of you are arguing.
Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas
#150"We like to believe humans are rational animals who occasionally feel emotions. It’s the reverse. We are emotional animals who occasionally think."
Well said.