Argue to Win

[Aimless]

Apart from honor, glory, cheers from an adoring crowd and emotional satisfaction, you can persuade onlookers, or mobilize those who've already been persuaded. But it may also be habit, which drives a great deal of our most stupid and least adaptive behavior.

[EyeKhan]

Apart from honor, glory, cheers from an adoring crowd and emotional satisfaction, you can persuade onlookers, or mobilize those who've already been persuaded. But it may also be habit, which drives a great deal of our most stupid and least adaptive behavior.

As in Facebook, with onlookers liking your post, reposting your posts... I was thinking more of face to face, real life, casual discussion. As you note, motivations in cyberspace are entirely different.

[GGT]

As in Facebook, with onlookers liking your post, reposting your posts... I was thinking more of face to face, real life, casual discussion. As you note, motivations in cyberspace are entirely different.

wiggin doesn't see why people would argue on Facebook, but maybe it's the same reason we argue here? I find it hard to have any real life, face-to-face, serious discussions about the world, especially the last decade or so. I've never had a Facebook account (and never will) so I come here to fulfill a need that can't be met in RL discussions.

I've mostly focused on *discussion* part of D & D, and tried to deal with being chastised for not *debating* properly. I consider that part of the expectations-game and goal-setting that also makes politics and policy so challenging. What's a win anyway? How many times have people used the moving-goalposts trope to shut down a good conversation here? Too many anecdotes, wrong metrics, bad analogies, mixed metaphors, circular thinking, etc.

Seems to me this forum is a pretty good example of what the OP article was talking about....and how easy it is to stop listening and learning, and resort to name-calling and personal insults, in order to "win". I'm guilty of that with Lewk, which is a shame, because I really DO want to understand why he thinks the way he does (and apparently there are millions who think that way, too). If perception is reality, I want to understand why we can say there are two Americas, or that they line up between two parties, right/left, right/wrong, black/white, forget the nuances or grey areas.

ps to wiggin: leggings and jeggings count as pants, just like shorts do. Streetwear, probably not appropriate for most offices, or a job interview, or under a lab coat.