(WEEKLY) Why are people so goddamn bad at discussion?

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

• 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

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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”

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.

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