I think this hits it. Many (most?) people just aren't used to having people disagree with them. Let alone voice those disagreements and be expected to defend their beliefs and explain why they think they're right.
For many people the way they think is correct, just is correct. It's not something that needs defending or even investigating. It's just how things are.
Perhaps the problem is fundamentally how many different people social media exposes us to. And maybe if you weren't exposed to that in your formative years, it's a hard thing to get used to.
Some people are emotivists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotivism), which means that for them preferences are moral positions in themselves, not just reasons about the morality of preferences.
it is “… the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling.”
In other words, emotivism holds that there can be no way of rationally justifying one’s claims about controversial issues.
I think this view describes a great many number of people; though it's true that academia, STEM, and rational enlightenment thinking tends to filter it out or select against it.
And I don't think that's what I was pointing towards. My comment is about the idea that people aren't used to having their beliefs investigated or challenged. No matter what the basis is for their existence.
It's more a lack in their environment than in themselves I think. You can't get used to defending your beliefs until you're exposed to people and ideas that challenge them.
I mean it's fine if your defense is "That's what feels right". But it's not fine if your response to "I think you're wrong" is to think you're being attacked and it makes you feel superbad.
> "I think you're wrong" is to think you're being attacked
This is exactly what the emotivist thinks because challenging an idea means challenging a preference which is directly challenging the moral character of the individual. There is no ability to discuss things in a detached way for them; this seems to check out anecdotally.
Is that "not fine?" - I certainly don't like it, and I don't think it's fine for people i choose to interact with, but my first step is to understand it, if only because there are so many people like this. Folks will continue to act like this despite my desire to see the opposite behavior, so it's good to be prepared and not self-deceive what other people are really like.
> My comment is about the idea that people aren't used to having their beliefs investigated or challenged.
I think I get where you're coming from. someone people not used to something could be said to having a deficiency in dealing with that situation and presumably with more experience they would change their behavior.
But I think there may be a slight difference in what I was saying, which includes some overlap with your point, but also allows for people who are quite familiar with being challenged, but yet immediately disapprove of such behavior anyways, due to the explanations above.
I've noticed a few older, more experienced 'intelligent-rational' types who have developed techniques to deal with emotivists. For instance, they tend to couch criticism or disagreement in words like "Now it's probably just because I'm not as well acquainted with this issue as you are, but..." To my ears, this sort of language sounds disingenuous and insincere (and talking this way doesn't come naturally to me). But it's hard to dispute the results. I'm constantly amazed at how effective this approach can be.
I suspect this approach is effective, even though it feels like it shouldn't be, because people who are tied up in their own emotions don't pay close attention to what others are saying, and how they're saying it. The way the language 'feels' doesn't activate their heuristic-defensiveness and usually manages to slip past.
If I come across someone who really thinks that way, they get dismissed and I lose 100% of any shred of respect I may have had for that person.
I don't care if that's considered closed minded, the mindset is wrong, fullstop, and it's obvious to anyone with a modicum of thinking skills.
The idea you've described here can be true sometimes depending on the subject matter, but it is not nearly true all the time, and if someone is unable to recognize that, then I cannot trust anything they say, and it's not worth the mental or emotional energy to engage them.
Very well, but I don't believe that is what I described or claimed.
And some people like myself just don't feel like sitting around arguing all day.
So much complaining about arguments in social media boils down to "they didn't let me be!", rarely accompanied by an explanation of what the opinion stated was, as if it didn't matter.
If opinions matter, feelings will get hurt. There's ways to mitigate this to some degree, but at the end of the day many positions are irreconciliable, and just because people stop talking about it doesn't mean that it won't eventually bubble up.
That said, avoiding obvious minefields like FB seems like a wise choice too.
I disagree that argument is about recognizing each other's rhetorical flourishes. Argument is much, much, much more often about people opposed to each other, and bystanders making a decision about who won.
See: courts.
Beyond that, I agree utterly about the notion that argument is too often seen as a sport or a "winning" game. The best arguments IMO are ones in which both parties are reaching out to each other, trying to make a point or communicate some idea. It's a contest, but it's also cooperative when everything goes well.
I think about the Wright Brothers, who used the old rhetorical trick of, when they reached an impasse, switching positions in an argument. That's the way to do it! You can be hugely invested in a position, but still be willing to challenge it.
Wow! That's insanely good. You'd actually get to do one of two things; see the holes in your argument or see the holes in the opposing argument. Works both ways.
It's nice to have and good when it happens, but many arguments boil down to matters where there are, in very real terms, winners and losers.
Not everything can be patched up procedurally, nor can people "switch up" when it's eg: a black man told to try to understand the slaver's argument.
It's good to develop some capabilities to cope with difficult and heated discussions.
They don't end in agreement, they begin with cooperation; you might not resolve the argument, or your position might prevail, or even change. As you say, there is no argument to be had in some cases, there is no reason. I'm talking about a methodology, rather than an outcome; you can still disagree.
That said, in the case of something like the slave and their master, I'd suggest that an argument is pointless in any case; what's needed is a fight (in the literal sense).
Like abortion, or wealth inequality, or police brutality, or gay rights, or race and IQ.
When I occasionally do stumble into an internet conversation on Facebook or the like where the absence of experience with all those older cycles of internet culture is palpable it feels like I am wasting hard earned skill.
Let's educate everyone so that we get an even better internet than the one we came to love back in the 90s and early 00s!
Just got a recommendation for this great correlating speech by a friend actually:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxBQLFLei70&feature=youtu.be...
I concur. I've never understood this, and tbh haven't met anyone who does.
> For me, the problem with social media is a fundamental lack of self control...
I find this interesting because as a very frequent Facebook user, I don't really encounter this there, I guess due to the whole filter-bubble kind of effect of social circles. Facebook discussion are all reinforcing rather than combative, so the question of good faith debate rarely even comes into it at all. The echo chamber has it's own reputation for being "bad for you" for other reasons however.
> I mostly have left other mediums with these sorts of unfufilling conversations
I've definitely engaged in one or two of these on HN, but generally they're in a tiny minority. As an alternate example though, while I don't really tweet, and I figure Twitter is a more likely medium for those sorts of "unfulfilling conversations", it seems to offer a lot of value to counter-balance that aspect.
This is exacerbated by not having the luxury of taking cues from facial expressions, body language, smiles and the context of the situation. Moreover, f2f discussions are mostly real time and synchronous vs the social media ones being asynchronous, allowing people to pick up days old thread and continue the discussions, thus there is no end at all if one decides to weave the topic further.
This is caused by this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
Why not control yourself to not reply to people you know aren't going to have a healthy discussion with you? Surely the same issue exists in real life?
Of course their friends who I don't know can also see my comment, and they quickly weigh in with their un-thought out vitriol. I try to keep the discussion going for a little while, but they quickly degenerate it into ad-hominem attacks (which is impressive because I am a stranger to them) and I give up.
Facebook thrusts humans into very unnatural environments and just says "have at it"
You can't both have your opinion matter, and disagreements of opinion not matter.
So you never confront each other about their opinions directly, you just let the market mediate for you.
Sounds similar to real life though when serious topics come up...some people aren't interested in their views being challenged, get overly defensive and don't care about what an ad-hominem attack is. You're best either avoiding those kinds of conversations or those kinds of people.
Online, there is no escape short of opting out entirely.
In all, social media gives a megaphone to strident opinions, and has a chilling effect on everyone else.
It is also possible that something about Facebook makes it harder to deal with, and I simply have left other platforms that have that problem to that degree, and I just haven't left, hoping that I will get it figured out.
I've been tempted to reply to anti-GM food posts for example but it's very obvious how it would degenerate.
I mean, I don't really understand the 'feeling inadequate because of my cousin's baby pictures' thing. I mean, I am happy for them, but that isn't the life I want, so I don't feel bad that I don't have it. Alternately, I could be less jealous than most people, but let's run with the more realistic first reason.
For me, the problem with social media is a fundamental lack of self control; I get into 'someone is wrong on the internet' discussions, and for me, those are the 'addictive but not pleasant' aspects of social media. For me, a conversation is not fun if we aren't arguing in good faith ; if we can't acknowledge one another's good points and rhetorical flourishes, it is just not fun, and I end up feeling frustrated and rejected. The unhealthy part is that I feel the discussion is unfinished, and walking away takes a tremendous act of will, and even then, my mind keeps coming back to the conversation.
I hope it is just a matter of practice; I mostly have left other mediums with these sorts of unfufilling conversations, or at least learned to restrain myself from participating in the most obviously unproductive conversations.
I think the big difference with social media is largely cultural; lots of people are there who lack a background in early internet culture or academic culture, and our shared vocabulary doesn't run much past "you are wrong " and there isn't the social pressure to be civil like we have here, or to be smart, like there was in the heyday of kuro5hin.