And this is just a personal thing, but I’ll often get more involved with arguments than with learning when my brain is spent from work. It’s easy (for me) to point out propaganda and cognitive dissonance, and yes to call people names. It takes more mental effort to learn or teach.
So you’re here to play a game. To play whack-a-mole. I find that to be a disturbing approach to interacting with humans. I know I’m idealistic, but for anyone who (like me) is attempting to have real human-to-human conversation, someone coming in with the intent to just shout “fallacy!”, “propaganda!”, “wrong!” and play a game is extremely offensive.
For us (democrats, and US leftists in general), ignoring that fact got us Trump in 2016, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.
You have contradicted yourself here with another of your comments. In another comment you said
How often have you managed to convince someone of something by arguing with them on the internet? Or been convinced of something yourself? It’s quite rare.
And now you’re saying you have a duty to convince others to change their mind by arguing with them on the internet. So is honest argumentation effective or isn’t it?
No, I think you misunderstand. If I’m arguing with you, my intent is (usually) not to convince you, personally. This is usually because I pick arguments with people I suspect are speaking in bad faith, or who are heavily emotionally invested in an idea. My intent is to convince lurkers.
You might also notice that as I get further down an argument thread, I tend to engage more directly with the person I’m arguing with. That’s because there’s less audience down here, and we’re actually having at least a little bit of a productive conversation.
So is honest argumentation effective or isn’t it?
It can be effective but it is rarely efficient. In the time it takes you to present a detailed, sourced, and well-reasoned argument, and convince a single person who strongly felt the opposite way, twenty other people who have no strong feelings either way have been convinced by a well-timed quip or insult. And that’s if you could convince the other person at all.
So you’re here to play a game. To play whack-a-mole. I find that to be a disturbing approach to interacting with humans. I know I’m idealistic, but for anyone who (like me) is attempting to have real human-to-human conversation, someone coming in with the intent to just shout “fallacy!”, “propaganda!”, “wrong!” and play a game is extremely offensive.
You have contradicted yourself here with another of your comments. In another comment you said
And now you’re saying you have a duty to convince others to change their mind by arguing with them on the internet. So is honest argumentation effective or isn’t it?
No, I think you misunderstand. If I’m arguing with you, my intent is (usually) not to convince you, personally. This is usually because I pick arguments with people I suspect are speaking in bad faith, or who are heavily emotionally invested in an idea. My intent is to convince lurkers.
You might also notice that as I get further down an argument thread, I tend to engage more directly with the person I’m arguing with. That’s because there’s less audience down here, and we’re actually having at least a little bit of a productive conversation.
It can be effective but it is rarely efficient. In the time it takes you to present a detailed, sourced, and well-reasoned argument, and convince a single person who strongly felt the opposite way, twenty other people who have no strong feelings either way have been convinced by a well-timed quip or insult. And that’s if you could convince the other person at all.
The only thing you’ve convinced any reader of is how much you suck.