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Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

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Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#381

Post by jdw64 »

maiti_ma wrote: post #352
jdw64 wrote: post #101

孟子曰：「人之患在好爲人師。」 Mencius said: "The trouble with people is that they are too fond of being teachers to others." 仁者如射，射者正己而後發。發而不中，不怨勝己者，反求諸己而已矣。 The benevolent person is like an archer. The archer corrects their own posture before releasing the arrow. If they shoot and miss, they do not blame the one who surpasses them, but simply turn around and seek the cause within themselves. 孟子曰：「愛人不親，反其仁；治人不治，反其智；禮人不答，反其敬。行有不得者，…

`Mencius said: "The trouble with people is that they are too fond of being teachers to others."` I never thought about this but I really believe it to be true and would love to know why is that. For example, whenever I want to get an interaction going with very small kids, I would pretend to not know something and they'd be super happy to teach me - works every time.

People feel competent and important when they teach others. This desire is so primal, as you said, that it can even be seen in young children. That's why people unconsciously try to teach others, and it often creates problems in relationships.

The reason arguments are dangerous is that while they look like an attempt to correct someone's knowledge, in reality they easily mix with the desire to place yourself in the 'teacher's seat.'

However, Confucianism places great value on teaching, and at first glance this might seem contradictory to Mencius's words. But it explains that the purpose of teaching is different. Good teaching aims to bring out the best in others and nurture them, and it should come after self-cultivation. On top of that, it requires the other person's consent, such as when they are in need. Bad teaching, on the other hand, is about self-display, the desire to feel superior, and interfering without being asked.

In reality, it's hard to draw a perfect line between the two, but I think the effort is to keep trying.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#382

Post by coldtea »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #4

They 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…

>They never mention they could’ve been wrong. The author assumes they’re always right

Everybody assumes they're right when they argue, else they wouldn't be arguing their points.

So for the point this post makes whether they're right or wrong during those times, doesn't matter. Even if they 100% were (by some freak natural phenomenon) always right, the points they make about not arguing would still be valid.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#383

Post by satvikpendem »

Sol- wrote: post #148
StilesCrisis wrote: post #129

Reeks 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?

AI detectors are notoriously bad at actually detecting AI. I would not take those things at face value at all.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#384

Post by throw4847285 »

p-e-w wrote: post #355
throw4847285 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Despite ending on a note of self-improvement, I wasn't really convinced that the author has any self-awareness to speak of. For example: > When you argue with someone, you think you’re debating an idea. Often you’re not. You’re challenging their sense of self. Oh, they're going to acknowledge that there are emotional reasons for their addiction to arguing. > So I’ve drawn a line. I only discuss pros and cons…

Debating is always primarily a game of power and only secondarily about truth or correctness. If it were about truth alone, the person who is right could be content with being right and not caring what others believe, just like they don’t care about 99.9999% of beliefs held by others either. But it’s not about truth, it’s about imposing your beliefs on others. And while rational arguments are a socially blessed metho…

Ok, I definitely don't agree with this. It's so reductive as to be absurd. It almost reads as rooted in personal resentment.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#385

Post by titanomachy »

> Once you accept this, arguing with logic starts to look absurd. You’re bringing a proof to a feeling. The proof is airtight. The feeling doesn’t read.

> There’s a clean exception to all of this, and it flips the entire logic.

Humans don't write like this. "The feeling doesn't read" is nonsense.

I've met quite a few people who see themselves as rare rational individuals in a world full of irrational, emotion-driven people. In each case, when I've gotten to know them better, I realize they actually have pretty low awareness of their own emotions and are as prone to irrational outbursts as anyone.

Saying something like this signals to me not that you've achieved mastery of your emotions, but rather that you haven't even learned to notice when you're having them.

Or, perhaps you're just an AI operating autonomously and in fact have no emotions, in which case well played for making it to the top of HN and successfully wasting my time.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#388

Post by dieselgate »

Arguing has negative connotations and conveys the author is bringing up minor quibbles for the sake of being pedantic: "Is the sky blue?" -> "No, the sky is not blue we just perceive it to be that way due to..."

My main complaint of the article, though, is the lack of nuance. Especially amongst complex topics where, maybe the definition of correct is not established, or there are multiple correct/valid interpretations.

See below "The Blind Men and the Elephant" fable:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#390

Post by Sol- »

satvikpendem wrote: post #383
Sol- wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

AI detectors are notoriously bad at actually detecting AI. I would not take those things at face value at all.

That was my impression in the past as well, but by all accounts pangram works well, at least at the moment.

It also seems quite plausible that it can be made to work by training on a lot of model output. Most of us already have become very sensitive to the various idiosyncrasies of model writing, after all. They have a very distinctive style.

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