Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

wangcong.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 599 posts

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#541

Post by JackFr »

adverbly wrote: post #308
a4isms wrote: post #60

Here's a simple idea: You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. And three interpretations to consider: 0: The default: That person is irrationally attached to being wrong. Best to walk away, argumentation will be futile, and I have a life to lead. 1: Whoa! Sometimes that person is me. 2: If they didn't reason themselves into it, how did they get into it? What if their position rep…

> What if their position represents their values One of my best professors often asked me: "what are you trying to achieve here?" Every time they asked this, it always put me into a deep thinking mode. In some cases it did trigger defensive mindsets, but I think having to actually engage by taking a step back and think deeply is for the best if you want to have any hope of changing your mind on something.

“What can I do to resolve this?”

“Hmmm. I cannot go back in time, but if you’d like I can sit quietly with a contrite look while you spew abuse at me for 10 minutes. Does that work?”

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#542

Post by SR2Z »

Chu4eeno wrote: post #422
duped wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Your experience is not every experience.

No, but it's extremely common. Whenever I've met people who claim to have "reasoned" their way out of religion it has always been extremely shallow teenage rebellion, and always driven by feelings. Even aalewis was "euphoric".

Yes, it tends to be the youths who reason themselves out of religion precisely because they don't have a strong emotional connection to it.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#543

Post by ChildOfChaos »

It's always worth going back to evolution and thinking about why we do things.

Reasoning came through evolution when we learned to communicate and needed to give reasons for things, not because we needed to figure out how to do things.

Caveman you, steals Caveman Dave's berries. You need to give Caveman Dave a good reason for why you did this, else you get bonk on head.

This explains a lot. The brain decides what it wants AND only then, does it decide the reasons why it wants it. It's a justification and excuse making machine.

Which is why people will argue and twist any fact or truth to match what they believe, they don't come up with what they believe through logic, they use logic to try and come up with a reason for what they believe.

When you really stop to think about that, it changes everything and explains a lot.

(This is outlined in the book The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding)

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#544

Post by OneOffAsk »

People often need a little nudge not to be on the defensive. I usually try to find a point that I agree with and let them know “that’s a good point”. It takes some listening and a lot of patience, but folks tend to reciprocate. It takes two to tango.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#545

Post by dctoedt »

prmph wrote: post #263
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you arguing against the existence of an objective reality? I’d argue against absolute certainty in any knowledge. That isn’t a statement about reality, just our measure of it.

I can be absolutely certain of my perception and recollection of what my consciousness is experiencing and has experienced. Note that the truth of this statement does not depend on any certainty about external reality, nor does it depend on certainty that what I perceive or remember is happening or actually happened.

> I can be absolutely certain of my perception and recollection of what my consciousness is experiencing and has experienced.

There's abundant evidence to the contrary — at least as far as your recollection of what your consciousness previously experienced.

(IOW: Memory is extremely fallible.)

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#546

Post by swat535 »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #444
miyoji wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I simply have not encountered such proof that hold up to my standards of proof of such an extraordinary claim. And you never will. This is pretty much my point!

If the skies errupted with the sound of trumpets and an angel descended to tell me to do something, my first thought would probably be that I'm having some sort of mental break, but if the person standing next me is seeing it, too, then I'll be the first one carving some commandments or whatever. There's a perfectly achievable standard of proof for you.

Isn't the Atheistic position that there is a rational, scientific explanation for everything? Thus we don't need to reach the realm of divine?

This basically eliminates any occurrences of God, Angels and so on.

What I'm trying to say is this: if you can scientifically proof the existence of supernatural , then by logic there's no such thing as supernatural.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#547

Post by a4isms »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #429
a4isms wrote: post #60

Here's a simple idea: You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. And three interpretations to consider: 0: The default: That person is irrationally attached to being wrong. Best to walk away, argumentation will be futile, and I have a life to lead. 1: Whoa! Sometimes that person is me. 2: If they didn't reason themselves into it, how did they get into it? What if their position rep…

3. Are you really really sure that person is wrong?

Excellent!

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#548

Post by t-writescode »

cvwright wrote: post #536
t-writescode wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journaling sounded stupid to me, until I tried it; and then the whole “do you really think that?”, “is that true?”, “what about this?” and “why are you lying to a sheet of paper?” started happening and I was like, “oh I get it.” Come to think of it, that’s a major reason why fully agentic coding doesn’t resonate with me and/or feels like I’m not growing or learning. I’m short-circuiting the “journaling” step where I…

You should try writing a design doc with the AI before you have it write the code. It will make random extrapolations from your first prompt, some good and some bad. Then you get a chance to argue back and forth with yourself with the robot as a helper.

Oh yes! I find an argumentative rubber duck to be one of the best uses of AI for myself!

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#549

Post by jrflowers »

> ̶M̶a̶n̶y̶ People are ego-driven. Their opinions aren’t positions they hold; they are the position.

> ̶M̶o̶s̶t̶ People don’t reason their way to conclusions and then feel accordingly. They feel first, then reason backward to justify the feeling.

ftfy

There are no people that aren’t ego-driven or feel first and then reason backward. There are just situations sometimes where it doesn’t look that way

Post reply on HN