[nikdaheratik]

As a former card carrying Debate Club member, I suppose this article may be helpful for people who aren't used to having these arguments. But I don't believe it is very helpful for most interactions on anything really controversial right now.

Most people making arguments for "the other side" haven't actually had to defend them against real criticism. They also are usually not the originators of their position, they're forwarding the ideas from someone else, so they don't necessarily even understand what it is they are articulating.

Trying to engage with someone who doesn't know how to argue and doesn't actually grasp their ideas is about as productive as trying to argue with a 4-chan meme. I've long ago decided to just put my 2-cents in a single time, if I feel they're saying something really stupid, then move on.

[nadagast]

This attitude ignores the other 90+% of people who read your replies: people who aren't actually engaging, just reading and considering. I think the meme of 'debate online is pointless' is wrong because the vast majority of people who read anything you write publicly will be able to read from a position where they could have their mind changed, maybe. Write for those people.

[tamana]

This is explained in Thank You For Smoking, and illustrated every day on C-SPAN

[nadagast]

Interesting, I didn't know that--is it worth watching?

[rtpg]

Isn't this kind of the reasoning the article is talking about?

I mean, I assume you think your positions are reasonably thought out. Perhaps other people also think their positions are reasonably thought out?

My takeaway from this article is to give people this benefit of the doubt. Sometimes this means acknowledging that _I_ am the one who is parroting something I heard from someone I agree with generally.

On a practical level, Onion articles aren't going to stop people from Trump/Cruz/Le Pen/Farage(well nobody votes for Farage anyways ;)). Though sometimes there's good fun in circlejerking, if you're legitimately worried about the other side's positioning, not taking them seriously from the outset you won't be able to do much convincing/persuading.

[foxhedgehog]

I think that it's useful to distinguish between arguments that are, and are not, put forth in good faith.

[JackFr]

But I think the point is to assume good faith on the other's part -- that there should be a very high bar before you can assume an argument is not made in good faith.

[wsxcde]

> Most people making arguments for "the other side" haven't actually had to defend them against real criticism.

If you go into a conversation with a condescending viewpoint like that, don't be surprised if you don't get anything out of it.

Even if the person you're arguing isn't an expert on the issue you're talking about, they are an expert on why they feel that way. And understanding that can be helpful.

I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a right winger in rural Indiana. We somehow ended up talking about global warming and he told how me how he didn't believe in it. I probed a bit further. He told me when he was younger people were talking about a food crisis and then he saw wheat yields increase by a factor of 3 or something. His main point was that we've heard stuff like this before and somehow it all turned out okay, so we'll probably be okay this time too. And this viewpoint is a lot more reasonable than he's just a fool who is repeating what Trump and his cronies are feeding him.

[alsetmusic]

> Even if the person you're arguing isn't an expert on the issue you're talking about, they are an expert on why they feel that way.

Not always. Sometimes we may be experts on knowing that we feel strongly one way or another without having thoroughly explored the potentially complex ideas and experiences that have shaped us. I was just having a conversation tonight with a family member about self-destructive patterns that we both get into and trying to analyze where they come from. Our society doesn't really cater to deep self reflection and a lot of times a response may be fairly reflexive if not deliberately considered. That doesn't mean the person making the argument would change their mind after further deliberation. Just that a lot of people actually cannot explain their feelings out loud.

[dawnbreez]

Protip: It's spelled 4chan, no hyphen, and if they're memeing at you then you've already lost their interest. As a banner on 4chan once explained, "post things we like and we'll post things we think you'll like; post things we don't like and we insult you with image macros."