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Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

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Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#591

Post by calf »

t-writescode wrote: post #505
calf wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't it be the other way around, you don't know that I am out of spoons too and rather than talk about why I am out spoons I should not be expected to validate other people's vibes or spoonfeed them... And so forth. As an exhausted person the issue is not being given advice. It is being given wrong, ignorant, or inappropriate advice.

How does someone know what is wrong, ignorant, inappropriate advice without first finding out from you, through communication, what kind of state you’re in and what you’ve already tried. And if the “listener” / fixer is in a state where they can’t do the work of finding out what kind of help and/or fixing is needed, then maybe *they* need to step back and have a break, too. In my experience, fixers tend to completely…

Well that's the basis of rationalism. Many important truths don't depend on the details of someone's state or someone's life history. To require it is to commit an ad hominem and destroys rationalism.

For example whether to drink alcohol is entirely unsafe at any level, according to the WHO. Expressing this as common knowledge is a counterexample of the popular heuristic to "listen to people's context".

Communicative empathy is still a heuristic, it is not an absolute rule. There are times when the message really is more important than how it is being conveyed. And actually people who run out of spoons know that all too well.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#592

Post by juleiie »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #590
juleiie wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they believe something is right, or even “good” then of course they think everyone else should probably do alike. Look, I don’t even know why are we arguing over what exactly? I don’t know. Seems like truisms I don’t even know what is exactly your opposite view on anything right now and if it indeed exists or what is the point of this exchange. I just said basic truth - majority of people won’t change mind under i…

> I just said basic truth - majority of people won’t change mind under influence of online strangers > You could of course provide me with data that this is not true Actually, it's the other way around - you have to provide data showing that the majority of people won't change their minds under the influence of online strangers regardless of the quality of arguments and the time they spare to participate in discussio…

The thing is: your inability to understand this is not my responsibility.

I am content with knowing what I know and more people joining this particular abstract group makes no difference to my wellbeing or sense of satisfaction.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#593

Post by jesterson »

ampersandwhich wrote: post #581
jesterson wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that I didn't ask for content - it's more like I would rather appreciate your genuine thoughts instead of AI output.

I often see variations on this exact comment on HN lately, even in response to things that are clearly genuine. Sometimes it's just ESL. In my opinion, whenever there is plausible deniability, just pointing it out is almost always the wrong move anyway.

Proliferation of AI "content" and people regurgitating the AI slop makes it extremely likely to be AI slop. You know, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck.

If you look at HN comments in pre-"AI" era, you will see posts were way shorter and way more concise. While I am certainly could be in wrong, it does look like AI output.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#594

Post by Garpagan »

ordu wrote: post #231
anthonypasq wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. this is a pithy think to say but its really not true, and every person that has lost their religion and been convinced by rational argument is a counter example.

> every person that has lost their religion and been convinced by rational argument is a counter example. Do you know any specific examples of this? All examples I know are like people collected some experiences, they needed some mental map for it, and they've built one that doesn't involve religion. In the process of building they really listened to rational arguments, but rational arguments were not the reason for…

I was reading the article and it made me think. I read through the comments here, and yours was resonating a bit with what was on my mind. So, I apologize for butting in.

The article was quite interesting, and basically was something I already noticed myself in a way. But it bugged me immensely that the author seemingly just gave up on the whole issue, that nothing can be done.

I don't want to go hard on the author, it's just my subjective feeling I got, but halfway through article went into some business leader speech, like something intended for a LinkedIn post. It also irks me when I see stuff like that getting weaponize into another tool for the cutthroat, capitalistic hellhole we live in, as if it didn't already done enough damage. And it smelled to me like some LLM writing, but that could just the author using a bit of marketing-esque, and that's what a lot of LLM training data consist of. Though, again don't want to sound harsh, just pressed some buttons in me that are not the author fault probably.

When I read the article, I just thought that there could be some way to change other person mind, while not engaging in fruitless arguments. And it kind of relates to your comment, but I think it could be more productive to instead engage with another person argument, and hear them out. And instead of directly attacking, just ask to explain their argument, not adversarial, but as one interested in the idea and curious about it. Make the position more like student - teacher, in a way. And that could maybe made the other person engage with their argument, to think through more deeply about it and rationalize it. And if it's incorrect that could be step forward to change their views.

Of course, that is simplifying the issue, and I'm not a smart person that could tackle it. Or it's something that was already known about, and just not working in most cases, anyway. I'm just maybe too naively hopefull that some more kindness in the world instead of treating every other person as a competition would provide something better.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#595

Post by cm11 »

cm11 wrote: post #551
scoofy wrote: post #454

This article really resonates with me. During college and graduate school studying philosophy, picking apart someone's argument and pointing out the esoteric and nuanced ways which made it wrong was celebrated. The general attitude in my cohort was: "I want to be wrong, because when I realize I'm wrong, I've become smarter." This was probably the most intellectually fulfilling period of my life. (Note here: some of t…

This resonated with me. I'm a bit struck by a theme in the comments around whether it's worth one's time to argue their side. The logic is understandable, but just the vantage point I see from. I think if this means stating your view and then after that deciding how hard to push it, that's one thing and fine. But I think a lot of people just see a potential disagreement and then don't state their view, or not uncommo…

Oops: "...but just *not the vantage point I see from."

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#596

Post by hakunin »

mdnahas wrote: post #583
hakunin wrote: post #25

One of the most cancerous developments of our generation is a bunch of people isolating themselves from everyone else, and having their perfect unchallenged audience captured views spread far and wide. On a more personal level, the reason people are frustrated about arguing is because they can’t fully articulate their reasons. They don’t realize it themselves. The older you get and the more practiced you get at argui…

My definition of a cult is a group where members don’t trust people outside the group. We have a lot of news sources saying that we should not trust other news sources. Especially statements like “that other news source lied once, so you should never trust them.” I think this promoted mistrust has created a lot of cults. When members of a cult don’t trust outsiders, it allows their beliefs to drift away from reality.…

I think this is not quite right.

There are news, and there's entertainment (opinions and punditry).

News actually have journalistic standards. They try to stay truthful and retract errors.

But what most people follow are shows/personalities that aren't even allowed to be officially called news, and independent media online influencers who are much more easily and directly corruptible and audience captured by much less money, with basically zero accountability.

The truth is, mainstream news (the actual news) are still good. But it's so easy nowadays to get on a platform and discredit everyone with almost no evidence, and have thousands of people believe you. And then sell your sponsors to that audience, because you sound trustworthy. It's so much easier to discredit everyone else than to build your own true credibility.

The goal is not to make you believe that "we are better than them". The goal is to make you believe that "everyone is equally bad, everyone is lying to you". It's like when phone scammers tell you that the other phone scammers are real scammers to appear more trustworthy.

I think the problem is with independent media and "opinions" replacing news. If everyone yells bullshit for personal gain at the top of their lungs and creates cults (as I agree these become), that's basically not free speech anymore.

Re: Most arguments are about ego, not ideas

#597

Post by krieger_857 »

unselect5917 wrote: post #499
lelandfe wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lincoln famously wrote and never mailed letters as a way to vent emotions.

I wrote an email to my titanically incompetent leasing office mostly to vent emotions, then sent it anyway so I could receive proof that they had read it in writing for any future issues. It was quite cathartic.

a recurring dream of mine is doing that to my incompetent work coordinators, but alas, gotta pay the bills
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