Re:How to win an online argument: lessons from Reddit
by logfromblammo on Tuesday February 16, 2016 @01:36PM
(#11112064)
Arguments on the Internet are exceedingly rare. Rhetorical contests, on the other hand, are appallingly common.
If you come armed with facts, and your adversary comes armed with knowledge of human psychology and tactics proven to successfully manipulate it, you will lose almost every time.
The typical engineer has a characteristic personality type, which is rather uncommon in the general population. This type knows that technically correct is the best kind of correct, and that a proof based on verifiable facts is unassailable. If you limit the audience to only engineer-like personalities, rightness and wrongness depends entirely upon accuracy, precision, and careful calculations.
But the rest of humanity thrives on its emotional response to statements to help determine whether those statements may be believed. As such, knowledge of the common logical fallacies is useful, not to avoid them, but to employ them intentionally, to generate the appearance of correctness despite a dearth of supporting facts.
If you come armed with facts, and your adversary comes armed with knowledge of human psychology and tactics proven to successfully manipulate it, you will lose almost every time.
The typical engineer has a characteristic personality type, which is rather uncommon in the general population. This type knows that technically correct is the best kind of correct, and that a proof based on verifiable facts is unassailable. If you limit the audience to only engineer-like personalities, rightness and wrongness depends entirely upon accuracy, precision, and careful calculations.
But the rest of humanity thrives on its emotional response to statements to help determine whether those statements may be believed. As such, knowledge of the common logical fallacies is useful, not to avoid them, but to employ them intentionally, to generate the appearance of correctness despite a dearth of supporting facts.