I try not to argue with people on the internet. Its a complete waste or time and im actually surprised by how many people do it.
I dont think you can change anyones mind with comments.
My mind has been changed by comments on here.
People can be quite informative, patient, and empathetic. They can write eloquently and persuasively. I’m glad for those people who have helped me change my mind on topics where my view was wrong because of my ignorance or flawed logic.
But in all honesty, I probably would have been better served by in-person public discourse on those topics instead of spending my time reading a bunch of takes from strangers on the internet. In person, you (usually) know everyone participating is real. You can gauge their sincerity by their tone & inflection, facial cues, and body language.
While my mind has been changed by people on here commenting, I still would much rather step away from the internet and talk to people face to face about the topics that effect us the most.
Its a fun and engaging way to pass the time on occasion.
Yeah sure, but it has no hope of changing any opinions. But I agree. It can be a fun activity anyway to pass time.
I stumbled into a thread the other week of someone who tried to argue that basically, there exist non-invasive non-native species, as well as native invasive species.
Eh, no buddy. The Venn diagram is a single circle. Everything inside is native and therefore not invasive, and everything outside is invasive and therefore not native. Invasive === NOT native.
I used to work with people who would smoke whatever weed their friend gave them but wouldn’t get the covid vaccine because “you don’t know what’s in it”
A person who is looking to understand and be understood doesn’t come across that way.
It’s not dumb, and it’s not overwhelm. It’s an attack, a set up for something violent, or at best someone who doesn’t realize they’re aiding such a thing, as they’re in the middle of actively doing it.
So far I only really experienced this with two people on the Fediverse. @SmartmanApps@programming.dev (I have no compunction about @ing him, I assume he’s blocked me since he stopped replying to me ages ago - does that mean I win??) seems mainly to use the internet to further his incorrect beliefs about maths. He’s a maths teacher, but his knowledge seems to run out around the end of high school maths (contradicting some high school maths), and he doesn’t have the intellect to understand how maths beyond that point even works: he fundamentally doesn’t understand what a mathematical definition is, for example, so when he reads standard sources he doesn’t even understand how they contradict him.
Everyone else pales in comparison.
The common pattern I see often is that they simply refuse to address or even acknowledge your points and instead just spout even more bullshit. Once I see that, I just block and move on.
I have no time for intellectually dishonest people.
One thing I always hated about microblogs and their character limits was that it was just enough characters to spout stupid bullshit but never enough to explain to why it’s wrong.
George Will on Donald Trump and Twitter.
“It’s perfect for him, because he can encapsulate everything he knows into 140 characters.”
And you can’t just be like “Ok I have master’s degree in this specific subject” because then the response is inevitably some form of “ok then please provide sources which would allow me to condense 6 years of your education into something I can refute in 6 minutes, and refusing to do so will out you as a liar.”
Why interact on an even playing field? Just make like 15 accounts and convince them they have a neurological disorder like a normal human being.
Well then they have a PhD of course. In polar bears.
If you’re explaining, you’re loosing.
Introduction to elementary debate, 17th addition. page 1.
That’s fucking idiotic. It’s basically formalizing the whole “Whoever talks loudest and proudest wins” instead of “Whoever has the most valid and factual argument wins”
i wonder how intentional it was.
more argument = more engagement = more ad watching = more money
I doubt they thought that far ahead, at least when Twitter was starting. Smartphones didn’t really exist back then, except maybe some BlackBerrys and Palm Pilot-type phones. The 140 character limit on Twitter was so the tweets could fit in a standard 160 character SMS message. It operated basically entirely over SMS; I’m not sure they even had a web version in the early days. I still remember getting messages on my flip phone from 40404, the number they used. Once I was in the Oregon desert on vacation for a week without signal and when I got back to a signal my phone kept buzzing for 20 minutes as all the tweets I’d missed were delivered. No algorithm back then, you got everything from people you followed, and no advertising either.
I mean, the character limit was there originally because twitter’s gimmick originally was that you’d post via SMS, which has its own char limit. They’ve raised the limit even before the musk takeover, so I’m inclined to believe twitter motivates ragebait in other ways.
“Never argue with stupid people because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” George Carlin
In science there is an answer “you are not even wrong” which is a polite way of saying that wat you said makes so little sense, that it cannot even be disproven.
Originally used by Wolfgan Pauli, I believe. He also said “I don’t mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.”
I see you have met my in-laws. This isn’t just some boomer humor, they have truly transcended their Fox News addicted roots and now get really angry about aliens, chemtrails, and all sorts of bullshit.
Same here man. Its insanity. It has to be the lead. People can’t be this stupid otherwise right
Ruts in thinking. Fox News has given them the tools to win any argument with little effort on their part… Any person attempting to provide a sound argument is flooded with BS and gives up… Which they consider a win.
I honestly have no idea, but I suppose it could be the lead. My own mother is bonkers and is starting to remind me of the crazy old mother from Requiem for a Dream.
Same.
“No. You’re dumb. I refuse to elaborate further.”
That’s the only answer you should give them. More than that is wasted time.
OP has a 5 day old account, just saying.
This is my return. I was Chippys_Mittens before. Had an issue with the email associated. Spent about a year here talking to people before probably. More or less I think.
Brandolini’s law (or the bullshit asymmetry principle) is an Internet adage coined in 2013 by Italian programmer Alberto Brandolini. It compares the considerable effort of debunking misinformation to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The adage states:
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.[1][2]
The challenge of refuting bullshit does not come just from its time-consuming nature, but also from the challenge of defying and confronting one’s community.[3]
This is wrong because it assumes refuting bullshit always takes the same form, and this little issue with it has seriously strengthened the Ben Shapiros and seriously weakened the Normals.
More people pointing out that Brandolini’s Law has this unintended side effect would probably actually fix the problem, and nobody has to be a villain to do it.
This explains a lot. Thank you.
I had the misfortune to run into one of those tankies I had heard about on here. They are like the extreme alt right. In that they go so far left they go right.
Like they literally blame feminism for Trump. It felt like talking to a maga. Making up their own definition of terms. Refusing to acknowledge actual definitions.
I didn’t realize who it was at first then took the time to read the user name and was like . Ah. … yes. Your reputation proceeds you. I should not engage with this individual.
Other people had made a post mentioning a few problematic users and this person had been mentioned and other people had chimed in with comments regarding said individual too. This was a while back but yeah…
Its unethical to have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.
