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The Dying Art of Disagreement

nytimes.com

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Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#31

Post by gizmo686 »

rayiner wrote: post #18
gizmo686 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can start by saying what ideas of his you think are wrong, and why they are wrong. Then you can listen to why he (or those he agrees with) believe those ideas are right.

If I think your ideas are morally wrong and getting people killed, I am compelled to either try and stop you, or resign myself to cowardly inaction. I of course choose cowardly inaction—I’m selfish and enjoy the comfort of my life and don’t want to disturb it. But I don’t try to make that out to be a virtue!

Why do you think his ideas are morally wrong. In my experience, almost every disagreement that is perceived to be moral is actual factual. That is to say, we have a disagreement on what the consequences of certain actions will be. These disagreements could be deeply rooted in ideology (as in, what is the consequences of wealth inequality), but are factual, nor moral.

Further, by not engaging, you miss the opportunity to present why you think his ideas are wrong. If people hear both sides, they can make an informed choice. If they hear neither side, they can only make an uninformed choice. If you think this arrangement benefits you, I would question how confident you are in your beliefs.

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#32

Post by grzm »

gizmo686 wrote: post #27
grzm wrote: post #17

It would be really amazing if those who choose to comment in this thread would try to do their best to disagree with each other thoughtfully, charitably, and respectfully.

I would love to, but those others are just spouting thoughtless nonsense that is impossible to argue with. /s But seriously, thoughtful comments take time; and are often formed by trying to explain why the thoughtless comments are wrong.

Indeed they do take time. Aren't we (HN in particular and our fellow humans in general) worth it? Figuring out what each other means and why we ourselves are misunderstood makes us better people. Like so many things, that does take effort, and does get easier with practice.

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#33

Post by gizmo686 »

grzm wrote: post #32
gizmo686 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to, but those others are just spouting thoughtless nonsense that is impossible to argue with. /s But seriously, thoughtful comments take time; and are often formed by trying to explain why the thoughtless comments are wrong.

Indeed they do take time. Aren't we (HN in particular and our fellow humans in general) worth it? Figuring out what each other means and why we ourselves are misunderstood makes us better people. Like so many things, that does take effort, and does get easier with practice.

Maybe, but most people want to see that the article (and therefore) there comments will actual get read before investing the time. Combine this with the fact that thoughtless comments simply get written faster, and you have a trend where you get a disproportionate amount of low quality comments at the beginning of a thread's lifecylce, and high quality comments show up later.

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#34

Post by matt4077 »

jim-jim-jim wrote: post #2

Speakers are compensated handsomely for their engagements, no? I don't see anything wrong with students refusing to see their tuition bankroll the likes of Kissinger or Rice--people with blood on their hands.

While former politicians do get compensated handsomely for giving speeches, I'm not sure about those they give at Universities. I believe those (as well as classes they sometimes teach) are usually part of their philanthropic efforts.

I once attended a lecture by Justice Scalia at my University, and I'm absolutely certain that the University can not legally pay a speaker anything close to the 6-digit sums that someone of his caliber would get on the commercial speakers' circuit. I once sat on a committee that organised such talks, and it took us a year of politics to get approval to invite the XKCD guy, who, unlike the usual academic visitors, charges a fee. Usually, speakers are afforded a stipend to cover their travel expenses only.

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#35

Post by gizmo686 »

rayiner wrote: post #30
ericd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to stop people like him without killing the foundation of our democracy is to explain rationally why his ideas are terrible and why no one should listen to them, not to prevent him from speaking at all. No one is suggesting that you do nothing.

Debating ideas is one thing. Thoughts are thoughts. Inviting architects of mass death to speak at your university is another thing. Thinkers and speakers get to pull the academic debate card. You should be able to say whatever the heck you want. But once you’ve got blood on your hands you’ve gotta be judged your actions, not on your ideas.

So unless their ideas end up working perfectly in practice, we should close our ears to anyone who has practical experience?

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#36

Post by grzm »

gizmo686 wrote: post #33
grzm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed they do take time. Aren't we (HN in particular and our fellow humans in general) worth it? Figuring out what each other means and why we ourselves are misunderstood makes us better people. Like so many things, that does take effort, and does get easier with practice.

Maybe, but most people want to see that the article (and therefore) there comments will actual get read before investing the time. Combine this with the fact that thoughtless comments simply get written faster, and you have a trend where you get a disproportionate amount of low quality comments at the beginning of a thread's lifecylce, and high quality comments show up later.

Sure. I'm having a hard time figuring out what you see as a good way forward for HN should be if the goal is to have substantial, constructive discussion. Or at minimum, civil discussion. The low quality, incendiary comments degrade discussion and can deter those who would otherwise engage in quality discussion.

Edit to add: What's motivating me continuing this discussion is that I feel like you're pushing back on encouraging people from doing better, from improving how they engage with others. I'm not sure if that's really what you intend, so please do elaborate on that point. Clearly this is important to me, so I appreciate that you're taking the time. (Though, with that, I'm signing off fir the night. It's late :)

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#37

Post by Mz »

imh wrote: post #23

>Yes, we disagree constantly. But what makes our disagreements so toxic is that we refuse to make eye contact with our opponents, or try to see things as they might, or find some middle ground. This bothers me so much. In my social circle (and I expect many of yours) simply understanding the other side is demonized. It's a sin to admit that, despite their conclusions being terrible, these human beings have some sense…

I generally agree with you, but:

applying the slightest bit of empathy, you'd immediately realize that the questioner simply didn't know the history of the test image (the original uncropped image was from playboy).

You are implicitly agreeing that with the idea that naked pictures of women are fundamentally crass, tasteless, openly hostile and disrespectful to women. I think this is not really a good thing to do, though I realize it is politically correct and the safe route.

I'm female and occasionally rant about how fashionable misandry (or the demonization of anything hetero male) has become, a la: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/11/having-sad.h...

I have a lame hypothesis that if a woman makes such comments, maybe people will see the logic. Experience seems to not support that hypothesis. Haters keep on hating anyway. Sigh.

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#38

Post by gizmo686 »

grzm wrote: post #36
gizmo686 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but most people want to see that the article (and therefore) there comments will actual get read before investing the time. Combine this with the fact that thoughtless comments simply get written faster, and you have a trend where you get a disproportionate amount of low quality comments at the beginning of a thread's lifecylce, and high quality comments show up later.

Sure. I'm having a hard time figuring out what you see as a good way forward for HN should be if the goal is to have substantial, constructive discussion. Or at minimum, civil discussion. The low quality, incendiary comments degrade discussion and can deter those who would otherwise engage in quality discussion. Edit to add: What's motivating me continuing this discussion is that I feel like you're pushing back on en…

First, big shoutout to dang and team for culling the worst of the comments and maintaining a culture of relatively thoughtful comments. Practically speaking, effective moderation is the only way forward I see

As an empirical matter, I would note that most threads (both here and on simmilar sites, such as reddit) seem to follow a predictable life-cycle. An initial wave of low quality posts gets down voted and gives way to more thoughtful discussion. In less trolly topics, the "low quality" posts are actually ok, but still give way to much higher quality posts through upvotes.

We can argue about the cause of this lifecycle. I think the general effort calculus I explained above is a part of it. However, I think that often times having low quality posts to respond to can be an effective prompt for high quality posts to respond to; or for a poster to consider why the thoughts expressed in them are wrong, and write a better top level post. Of course, this would be better done with high quality posts, but those take more time.

Put another way, the best way to get a good answer is often to give a bad answer and have people correct you.

edit for your edit:

I am pushing back because: A) I think you initial post is low quality. As such, it has led to (in my opinion) fruitful thinking on my part, and hopefully a fruitfull discussion. and B) Underlying your initial post is, in my opinion, a fundamental misunderstanding of how these threads work. I don't like you insulting everyone who comments on this thread just because you saw the thread at the ugliest part of its lifecylce.

Re: The Dying Art of Disagreement

#39

Post by guildwriter »

grzm wrote: post #36
gizmo686 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but most people want to see that the article (and therefore) there comments will actual get read before investing the time. Combine this with the fact that thoughtless comments simply get written faster, and you have a trend where you get a disproportionate amount of low quality comments at the beginning of a thread's lifecylce, and high quality comments show up later.

Sure. I'm having a hard time figuring out what you see as a good way forward for HN should be if the goal is to have substantial, constructive discussion. Or at minimum, civil discussion. The low quality, incendiary comments degrade discussion and can deter those who would otherwise engage in quality discussion. Edit to add: What's motivating me continuing this discussion is that I feel like you're pushing back on en…

I think the upvote system is flawed and needs to be evolved into a better system that rewards content based on different metrics. Maybe things like time spent on the page linked, or time spent writing content, or even word count should add subtle multipliers to comments that help promote their visibility.

Low effort content that incites a reaction is a hallmark of the upvote system and currently the only thing that I've seen curtail it is human moderation.

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