The Shrine

I know arguing on the Net is mostly a futile endeavor and probably not worth talking about the merits of such discussion, but this one always bothered me. Sarcasm is a useful tool, but it seems like most people must have just read about it once in high school and decide that sarcasm = auto win on the Net. For example let's say you have a hypothetical argument as below:

Me: Does this mean you support Bush's action in Iraq?
Some guy: Yes and I support nuking the whole place to oblivion as well!

Now obviously this is some kind of hyperbole (which I don't really think is quite the same as sarcasm, but we'll ignore that for now). Generally speaking the 'some guy' expects an automatic win because sarcasm has been used. Never mind that whether you support nuking Iraq to oblivion has any relation to the original question of whether you support Bush's action in Iraq.

Worse yet, some people are very good at convincing others that this is really what they believe so you may have to ask if they're some kind of flaming idiot with no grasp on reality, but if you ask that you automatically lose because that was sarcasm. I think if you did a good job portraying yourself as a flaming idiot to an average listener where the listener can no longer be sure if it's just sarcasm, then you're the one who's having problems.

I remember reading A Modest Proposal, which is probably one of the more well-known works that deal with sarcasm/satire. The whole point was that proposing to eat babies really wasn't even worse than the way they were being taken care of. It's not as if Jonathan Swift just made a totally nonsensical argument and that somehow validates its correectness. It's well written because the absurd conclusion of eating babies for food was actually derived from fairly logical premises. Now I know you can't compare the average Net guy to Swift, but I sure wish people listened to their English teacher more during high school to understand that the whole point was that it made sense!

It's just as bad here

Arguing - not just on the internet - often becomes more about showing someone up than an actual exchange of ideas. If someone is more interested in one-upping someone, then sarcasm is a win, because in it is implied superiority. Clearly, if you're interested in a clear discussion of different ideas, this is counterproductive.

Paul Graham wrote a tidy essay on the subject called How to Disagree.

I rememeber some said that in sports, if you make a guaranteed and it failed (e.g. we're going to win the next game) you should be forbidden from making another guaranteed for 5 years. It'd be nice if there can be something similar in arguing!

Edit: after reading that, I think the structure is more like a circle. DH6 is strongly countered by DH0 or DH1!

In my experiences, 98% of people see arguments as destructive, a you vs me battle rather than an exchange of ideas. Either on the internet or in real life. It's like you can't disagree without it being personal. Until that mentality changes, it's nearly impossible to have any level of a sustained constructive argument as people now are conditioned to avoid them.

We see that here all the time.