this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Actual Discussion

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Are you tired of going into controversial threads and having people not discuss things, circlejerking, or using emotional responses in place of logic? Us too.

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(WEEKLY) Why are people so goddamn bad at discussion? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Reminder: This post is from the Community Actual Discussion. You’re encouraged to use voting for elevating constructive, or lowering unproductive, posts and comments here. When disagreeing, replies detailing your views are appreciated. For other rules, please see this pinned thread. Thanks!

This weekly thread will focus on debate, discussion, and the lack thereof on social media (including Lemmy).

My apologies for "leading" a bit more than I try to normally in these weekly threads, however this is a topic that pisses me off in particular. Not only as a mod of a discussion-based community, but as someone who loves it when someone challenges me and proves me wrong / disproves my logic so I'd very much like to hear outside opinions on the topic. I can't even partially understand how people don't want to have a more cohesive / logically sound opinion.

Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):

  • Do you feel that discussion is worse now? If so, what caused it? If not, where may others get this feeling from?
  • Is it potentially a platform issue, or does it happen everywhere?
  • Does discussion even matter any longer? Why or why not?
  • Do you feel that more could be done to encourage discussion with outside views or are we better off just "bubble"-ing ourselves and blocking everyone we disagree with?
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[–] Zachariah 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_question

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yep, it is a leading question. I added an apology to the initial topic because our threads are not normally leading in any way as I save my opinion for response posts below generally.

It was done because of the way that I'm currently feeling with a lot of experience on my side. If you don't think discussion has gotten worse, you're more than welcome to post why you feel that way. I'd be interested to see what you have to say.

[–] Zachariah 2 points 3 months ago

Alright, I’ll try to formulate my perspective.

[–] paraphrand 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)
  • reading comprehension
  • not reading articles/posts
  • the volume of content in their scroll
  • short form messaging
  • tldr, I didn’t read that, I’m happy for you, sorry that happened
  • apathy
  • pet points and topics
  • the sense that it’s not a discussion but a place to post whatever one can “contribute” to the post — facts, corrections, personal stories
  • hiding behind anonymous handles
  • asynchronous communication
  • irony poisoning
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

It's not just forums.

It is a reflection of real life.

Hate is easy, understanding can be difficult. Path of least resistance and all that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

There's two reasons for this:

  1. People are bad at discussion because we're not taught proper rhetoric any longer. The human brain is a fantastic pattern matcher, but logic, reasoned debate, etc. are patterns it has to learn to be able to replicate. Of course there's a reason we're not taught this. Teachers would have to tolerate children calling them on their bullshit and teachers tend to be control freaks who can't stand children "talking back". As would bosses, politicians, et al. It is not in the interests of those in power to have a populace that understands rhetoric and debate.

  2. Years of people arguing in bad faith makes loads of people (myself included) assume that someone who "just wants debate" is in reality a troll looking for trouble. Trauma is a thing and leads to maladaptive behaviour where its reflexes don't apply.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The reason this pissed me off in particular is that I've been running communities since I was 16 years old starting with a forum of an article-based site that I was the head writer (and main editor for contributors) for.

Some of those issues are persistent in Lemmy to this day and are things I tried to add rules against in the sidebar. Things like:

  • Calling someone dumb for bringing forth a logical opinion. No discussion, no "here's where things fall apart" or "here's why that isn't applicable to the situation", simply "lol fuck u, ur dum." Or as with modern social media, a drive-by downvote. Most often in the forum days, this would come from someone who you'd recognize as being very opinionated, but not intelligent or self-aware enough to articulate why they felt a certain way. We've got tons of threads on this community where bad logic is called out, then the person downvotes and doesn't comment further. My feeling is that this is because they don't want to be wrong, so they don't engage. They internalize the idea that their opponent must just be stupid, and walk away.
  • You can be right for the wrong reasons, and wrong for the right reasons. There are tons of examples. You do not have to disagree with someone in order to point out that their reasoning sucks.
  • Your morals are not an argument. You can use how you arrived at those morals, but not the morals themselves. Your morals are not logic and apply only to your outlook.
  • It's okay to be wrong. It's downright awesome to become smarter due to someone correcting you or providing newer / more accurate information. You shouldn't argue from a position of "I'm right, let me convince you." Instead we should approach things from "This is how I arrived at this position. Are you able to articulate why I'm incorrect in believing this?"

Things at present remind me of my high school days and that "shut up nerd" culture that the jocks were stereotyped to have. Everyone thinks they have the moral high ground. Everyone thinks their position is the most defensible. Everyone feels they are better than their out group.

[–] breadsmasher 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Proves me wrong

Maybe you can find a good discussion to have your mind changed. I personally find internet text discussions on forums or lemmy or wherever to just be pointless shitflinging contests where everything is an attempted “gotcha”

[–] thesohoriots 1 points 3 months ago

I agree, I think most people want to make a point without caring about whether or not they’re being persuasive. It’s the basic tenant of rhetoric that you are open to changing your mind; instead, internet commenters like to be hecklers, and you’ve frequently got a couple going at once. I think the post and comment thread format on the internet is part of the problem, because 1. OP is trying to manage a bunch of “conversations,” 2. There’s no turn order of speaking, partially due to 3. You’ve got potentially millions of people chiming in simultaneously, so how do you find the quality ones? And 4. Replies, as you said, try to be “gotchas” to end whatever dialogue, so no real progress is possible, and those responding aren’t here for a productive discussion.

Tl;dr quality vs quantity and willingness to change an opinion are difficult to get online

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Maybe. It's pretty rare, and on Reddit or Lemmy, it's been very much in the minority. Maybe 1 out of every 100 lead to something worthwhile. It actually makes me really miss a good forum.

[–] Alexstarfire 2 points 3 months ago

Online? Anonymity and there just being too many people. It seems pretty rare to have an actual back and forth with someone.

Being anonymous means you don't really have consequences for your actions. No need to follow any social contracts/norms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

  • Yes. I think there has been a move away from teaching and learning "soft" skills, towards focusing on employable, money-making skills. Oratory and philosophy used to be part of school curriculum; they still are in some of Latin America. If you:re expected to be an employee, you don't need to learn how to present and analyze ideas, you just need to learn how te repest the company's (or political party's) motto.

  • I'd say it happens everywhere, but it is made worse in Lemmy by an incredibly widespread and entrenched Dunnin-Kruger bias. See the many 100% authoritative and confident responses to this post, that completely fail to address any of your questions.

  • I'd say it matters now more than ever. Learning is the wind that pushes the sails of change, and there can be no learning without discussion, that is called indoctrination. I personally think discussion could be made more common and attractive by bringing back debate and oratory as forms of entertainment. A good debate can be engaging and thought provoking, great speakers present ideas not just technically well, but also try to make them appealing and easy to understand. I wonder how fun it would be to see two religious representatives debate each other in good faith. Maybe it is worth asking how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle.

  • It is our differences that make us strong. When we bubble up, we all lose. I think echo chambers are a defense mechanism, if the world was a bit less shit, and people had the mental space and physical comfort to just admire life, think and wonder, the walls of those echo chambers would slowly erode as well. Curiosity is the enemy of hate.

TL & DR: Monkeys strong together. Alone weak.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I don't have much to add that I didn't write elsewhere, but thank you in particular for your response. Thoughtful and thorough is always awesome to see! I hadn't considered the shift away from life skills to money-making skills, but you're quite correct.

[–] half_built_pyramids 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You're starting from assumptions. Assuming there could be value in internet comments. My thesis is that any comment that isn't just referencing facts is a shitpost opinion at best. The only time I've appreciated comments was poppinkream's political breakdowns.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But there CAN be value in internet discussion. Moreover, I feel there SHOULD be value. I've experienced it many times in the past and even somewhat recently in this community. When it happens and you get someone who thinks differently than yourself, and who treats you like a real person instead of "the opposition," it's absolutely wonderful.

[–] half_built_pyramids 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Starting from first principals, you seem to use debate and discussion interchangably.

Are you saying you want to see more debate online, as in actually debate type competitions with citations?

Or, are you looking for something else? A discussion with some pithy punctuation?

I didn't think you want actual debate. Not because of any personal judgement on your character, but because actual debate is about blurting out citations at auctioneer speeds and I don't think anyone on the internet has the patience or interest to make actual debate popular.

Edit: for example, https://youtu.be/t5ChDcqZEfs You have to be into rhetoric and other stuff to actually want debate, and there's a certain type of unavoidable cringe that comes with pointing out fallacies online.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

I do use discussion and debate as linked terms, yes, but they aren't the same. I'd like to see more of both.

Debate like how you're used to seeing "Debate Teams" engage in? To me it's as useless as most online commentary. They're bending rules to steamroll or Gish Gallop opposition. It's not interesting or enlightening and there's a distinct lack of substance.

Real debate with (as you mentioned) citations, respect, a point, and actual experts? Love it. At my college there was a debate between two professors who had differing opinions about research in their field and it was awesome.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

They're idiots. There's no way around that, world is full of drooling mouthbreathers incapable of complex thoughts or deeper understanding