Impressed to see that no-one here is suggesting a Disagreement Hierarchy: DHH.
And no I didn't.
How to Disagree
101–110 of 238 posts
Re: How to Disagree
#102Maybe "DHH" could be responding with insults, like "f* you" ? ;-)
Re: How to Disagree
#1031. Write controversial essay.
2. Act innocent when people call you out on its controversial content.
3. Taxonomize all criticism of and disagreement with you into oblivion.
4. ???
5. PROFIT!
Re: How to Disagree
#104Mind if I extend your Disagreement Hierarchy? DH-1. Flamebaiting. This is when you preempt that with which you would disagree by stating your case in such a way as to elicit quick disagreement (in the form of DH0 to DH6). Usually done by noticing a subset of all data, forming a hypothesis to explain only that subset, and presenting it as a conclusion. Often done without even realizing it. The relational database mode…
Text-based disagreements aside, I'd like to do an arc off this comment - to talk about the importance of perspective. Guess which two perspective(s) can fuel disagreement... The God perspective (Yeah, you the expert?) "This restaurant is the best in town" The 2nd person perspective (Why should you know what I should do) " You really should try this restaurant." The 1st-person perspective (the only one you can truly o…
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Re: How to Disagree
#105What I would love to read is an essay about "absolutism": the belief that there's only One Truth and that it can be really proved. I think many people disagree precisely about this, they think that being an absolutist is bad. Among programmers, the incidence of absolutism seems to be much higher (the closer to math, the higher?).
So I think that PG's essay is quite good (as most others), in that it looks for this "absolute truths", he tries to analyze stuff and make a contribution, say something that will last. I find this very scientific, which is good in my opinion. The problem is that many people don't see it that way. It is very difficult to stick to the principle of "egoless disagreement".
Re: How to Disagree
#106The author's main point seems to be x. As he says: But this is wrong for the following reasons: Who is this guy and what authority does he have to write about these topics? I haven't read the essay, but there's no way anything so short and written in such an informal style could have anything useful to say about such and such topic, when people with degrees in the subject have already written many thick books about i…
You're obviously lying when you say you didn't read the essay.
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Re: How to Disagree
#107Well, the main problem with this essay is that sometimes mocking someone's argument is the best way to disagree with it. The parody of PG's last essay on having a boss was highly effective at this: http://www.jsequeira.com/blog/2008/03/24.html Is this a lower form of disagreement than DH6? Most definitely, however, the English language has a rich tradition of satire and mockery going back at least as far as Jonathan…
Depends on what you mean by "the best way to disagree". If you are preaching to the choir (and most disagreements on the web fall into this category), then mocking is the best way, because it entertains, whereas the alternative does nothing at all.
But if you care about making someone understand your argument for the first time, why would you put extra layers on it, which will have to be unwrapped to get to the inner logic?
I think I know why most people do it. The point made in the form of mockery is laborious to refute, so nobody bothers. And if somebody bothers, the refutation is laborious to follow, so nobody bothers to read it. Thus mockery, however idiotic, often stays unrefuted, and to the author and his camp that's close enough to "correct".
Have you been to Reddit lately? Half of all disagreements are in the form of (idiotic) mockery. It wasn't like this early on.
Re: How to Disagree
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
A meme? How about a feature? I want to be able to rate things by DH level.
I've thought of doing that. Maybe. But not all comments disagree, and frankly I wouldn't want to do anything that increased the proportion that do.
You seem to imply in the essay that disagreeing comments are more valuable than agreeing ones, though:
"And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you're entering territory he may not have explored"
Re: How to Disagree
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another way out is to simply ignore poor arguments and spend one's scarce time responding to the intelligent ones instead. (Admittedly, this is not always possible or desirable.)
More and more I'm starting to believe that this is the best approach. It was a wise person who said never to argue with fools because, from a distance, you can't tell who's who.
It was also a wise person who said: "Never argue with an idiot, they drag you down to their level and beat you with experience".
Seasoned trolling pros are usually very good at this. I think it helps a lot to look at their underlying motivation and to crank up the bullshit detector.
Re: How to Disagree
#110The more things change... http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/sophistical... Edit: and on a more recent (and cynical :-) ) note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
These lists of rhetorical techniques are not quite the same thing. They're tactics. What I was trying to figure out are the categories of tactics.
It might be worth expanding the lower levels to include more than name-calling and ad-hominem, then. There's a huge variety of dirty tactics that can be used, and name-calling and ad-hominem are just two of the more obvious ones. A good list can be obtained at:
http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html
Perhaps it's worth adding a link in the article, clarifying that DH1 actually includes a whole set of techniques described at that URL (and other places).
Daniel