Comments on: Arguing On The Internet

By: jh

jh — Fri, 25 Aug 2017 16:18:30 +0000

In my experience you’re all wrong and I will defend my position till death or bordem. Also this is a super old page so I also get the last word which means I win!

By: ThisGuy!

ThisGuy! — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 00:21:29 +0000

In my experience, your observations are spot on.

I too don’t argue anymore and find qualifiers are very important to not ending up in stupid internet arguments.

By: Dean

Dean — Wed, 08 May 2013 23:17:08 +0000

Thank you sir. You have changed the way I argue, on the Internet and otherwise, forever.

It’s pretty simple realization. As good as calling the other guy an idiot may feel (in the moment), what does it actually accomplish? There’s so much more to be accomplished simply from civil conversation.

Thanks again.

By: norbandosahat

norbandosahat — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 03:48:54 +0000

you done good from the looks of it.

By: Not Being An Asshole In An Argument, by Tom Francis

Not Being An Asshole In An Argument, by Tom Francis — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:48:24 +0000

[…] I don’t argue on the internet anymore. The short version is: it usually gets hostile, and that drives everyone further away from changing their minds. […]

By: Infinite Lives » “Allow Natural Death” post-mortem (AKA “thanks”)

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 05:31:07 +0000

[…] order—by promising me the work I’m doing is good. A games critic named Tom Francis made a video that I think I perhaps didn’t agree with at first, only because it threatened to mitigate my […]

By: Pentadact

Pentadact — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 09:58:12 +0000

Haha. Yeah, that’s an elegant way to put it.

By: john

john — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 03:42:08 +0000

just saw this and thought of your talk – http://thedoghousediaries.com/4564

By: Cpt.Average

Cpt.Average — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 20:56:48 +0000

I tend to just state my opinion/experience with as little emotion as possible then leave the forum/whatever and never visit it again. Even then, I only bother to post on subjects I feel very strongly about or feel I have experience that is valuable to the arguement.

PS You reminded me of this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYLipRnAgIE&feature=plcp

By: Jason L

Jason L — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 03:42:34 +0000

For the record I was referring to fundamentalists who are solipsist (via inevitable retreats into nihilist denial of the existence of any objective truth), not solipsists who are fundamentalist about it :) The latter are uninteresting nonhumans; ‘I refute it thus’.

It gets a lot easier to not want to write SIWOTI dissertations for people when you turn it around and think about how much you care about what trufax some random prick tells you online. Now multiply that by Asshole (because they’re mouthbreathing trolls in the first place) and those are your odds of making any difference. You can ‘stand’ with someone who’s being hurt by them, but that’s emotionally homeopathic tea and requires a maximum of one sentence. 999/1000 if you have mod power give ’em some banhammer lovin’ and if you don’t they’re not your problem.

By: Pentadact

Pentadact — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 18:13:41 +0000

The date’s in the URL.

By: Pod

Pod — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 17:55:14 +0000

Date your posts! I don’t know how old this is!

Did you know that this page comes up as the top result for “solipsist fundamentalists”? Not that I found it via here (I wanted to look it up and it was what I thought it was — the “you don’t exist if I can’t see you/you’re all figments of my mind” thing).

I love arguing on the internet. Millions of people are wrong and just need correcting.

How do I stop doing this? How do you stop yourself from doing that? What happens if someone says something terrible like “All blacks should be shot?” or “Spelunky sucks”? Do you not want to say “you’re wrong, here’s why: ” ?

re: Statements on paper — I guess this is how Derren Brown does all of his tricks? ;)

By: Nonomu198

Nonomu198 — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 04:22:34 +0000

Tom, what nice people arguing were you talking about?

By: Pentadact

Pentadact — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:35:48 +0000

Not sure if it’s the same one, but WorthlessBums (username, not an insult) on YouTube points to one with the same finding: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1422132?uid=3738032&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21100923017461

By: ninecome

ninecome — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 21:49:03 +0000

I’d really love to read the article you mention – the one about written statements and subjects’ perception of truth. I tried to search for it based on your description but wasn’t able to find it. Do you happen to know where you saw it?

By: Jason L

Jason L — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 18:43:37 +0000

Well, you’re right. I should try to find out what different life experiences result in positions abhorrent enough to be worth fighting.

100% result: They were raised by bigots or solipsist fundamentalists.

That was quick. Now what?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:24:57 +0000

Nice video I totally agree. I always find I grow and learn more about myself and the world by talking to people I disagree with.

By: ghosttie

ghosttie — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:16:00 +0000

I don’t think the people who would benefit most from adjusting their attitude toward arguments are people who are much into self-examination.

I think people in general are more interested in defending their beliefs than in challenging them. A lot of the time people believe things because they were raised to believe them and that’s not something you can argue with.

By: Diffractionman

Diffractionman — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:10:21 +0000

Wow, really enjoying these Kitchen Videos (or whatever you’d like to call them) and this is a particularly great one.

I wonder if our experiences is also, along with determining what data we have, affecting how we see other data. We assign different weights to the same statements. And can’t seem to understand why someone else doesn’t assign the same weight. I’ve often wondered why I feel differently about situations to most other people, maybe it’s just different experiences.