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Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

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Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#401

Post by Tangurena2 »

21asdffdsa12 wrote: post #158
cogman10 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now listen, I think you are dead wrong about this. :) It's a healthy attitude I believe. I think a little argument is fine, but there does need to be a time when you learn to stop. A lot of people want to get the last word in and I'm at the point where I just let that happen generally (though I do often want that last word myself :) ) What I've found is that when an argument feels like it's running in a circle, that'…

At a reply depth of 4, the parent can never have the last laugh.. unless he replies to himself.

Or, if that reply link/button doesn't show up, click on the timestamp of the comment you wish to rebut/remark/comment, then you will see a comment box with button.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#402

Post by mxfh »

al_borland wrote: post #347
mxfh wrote: post #156

This whole honesty based approach stopped working a decade ago latest online and in politics, there is no accountability anymore and who is the most persistent wins an argument in the public sphere, those actors exactly bank on that most people will give up eventually.

If both are equally persistent, I’d say the first one to fulfill Godwin's law is the loser.

That obviously stopped to be a useful indicator two years ago latest too:

I’ve never said that just because you’re invoking the Nazis you’re losing the argument. If you’re going to compare somebody to Hitler or the Nazis or raise the specter of the Holocaust, be sure you’ve got your facts right.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/19/godwins-la...

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#403

Post by realityfactchex »

vlan121 wrote: post #166

This is one of the core principles of How To Win Friends And Influence People (Dale Carnegie). Since Ive read I tried to apply this rule. It works.

That's true, and avoiding (direct) argument may well be the #1 takeaway in How to Win Friends And Influence People.

I read it in my early 20s and at that time my main takeaway, as I recall, was to (paraphrasing), "carefully plant the evidence, thus making the conclusion something the audience comes to on their own (they 'think of it' themselves)".

In entrepreneurship, this was slightly dangerous to me, since I immediately started implementing this successfully. Before long, I (apparently) took "credit" for "my idea" (that I successfully got the audience to see, oh so carefully), whereas audience thought that we "came up with it together"!

Oy vey! So, a word to the wise. I now subscribe to more of a "plain honesty but with tact" approach.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#404

Post by ellyagg »

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…

> I could well be wrong about this :)

Exactly. You assume and imply for most of your comment that the OP is wrong about his premise.

But people aren’t equally wrong about things. Some people are more right more often. So how should your POV change if you accept his premise that he’s usually right in these situations? Then could you make a fair reading of his post?

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#405

Post by zephen »

As others have discussed, people argue for many reasons, ego being one of them.

I didn't really understand this. I grew up before the internet, and I have ADHD, which essentially means I have limited working memory.

One of my compensatory strategies for this is to have a fairly comprehensive world model at the ready in long-term memory.

If you told me something that contradicts my mental model, I might argue, in order to figure out whether I need to update my model or not.

The argument between someone ego-driven operating on a motte-and-bailey basis, and someone who just truly wants to understand, but won't let it go because they feel they need to understand, gets ugly quickly.

Fortunately, I'm older, my model doesn't need to change as often, I'm better at discriminating about things I care about or that are irrelevant, and, of course, I can always disengage with "that's interesting; I'll have to research it" and go down a rabbit hole on the internet if what they are saying doesn't seem to make a lick of sense.

I will say that the need to be right -- not the need to lord it over others, or the need to prove I'm right -- has probably helped my programming career immensely.

The burning desire to be right can be completely orthogonal to giving a shit about whether others think you're right or not, or giving a shit about others when they're wrong and it doesn't adversely affect you.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#406

Post by hota_mazi »

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…

> You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

That's demonstrably not true, people deconvert from religion and other irrational beliefs all the time.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#407

Post by rib3ye »

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…

His point is, it didn't matter if he was wrong or right about the topic because he admitted he was wrong about the reason: his ego.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#408

Post by rdiddly »

Tempted to hate this guy but he's probably like, 19? Just starting to learn how humans work but still not aware he is one. Ahh the world, full of humans (always with the pronoun "they" and not "we"), full of ego and totally resistant to being wrong, rejecting my noble and completely egoless resistance to being wrong. As well as my compulsive need to best them in an argument, er I mean nobly rescue them from their ignorance! But sadly they will all have to live their lives first-hand without my help, developing reasons for thinking about certain things in certain ways, as if completely unaware that I was finally born and came to save them from all that!

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#409

Post by inglor_cz »

Karuma wrote: post #377
inglor_cz wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Most people can easily tell the difference between useless bot crap (like the article), and genuine human comments (like the one you're replying to). Too bad you and most HN commenters nowadays can't...

"This is slop." sounds like something that a fairly simple bot could paste in every thread, with slight verbal variations. Sorry, I don't see the genuine humanity there, and I doubt that any double-blind experiment could nowadays distinguish between 10-word drive-by comments written by humans vs. AI. That is nowhere enough material to analyze and tell apart.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#410

Post by redsocksfan45 »

gedy wrote: post #113
rob74 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 52, and over my lifetime I felt that there is actually an ever-increasing number of things that used to have an absolute right (scientifically proven) answer that become controversial. Climate change. Vaccines. Whether the earth is round - that kind of stuff. And, while I agree with the author's approach to let people learn from the consequences of their mistakes, what if the consequences of their mistakes (or th…

> Whether the earth is round I honestly think a lot of the flat earther types in particular are basically trolls and/or enjoy being stubborn/argue about common knowledge, for no other reason because they can.

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