started thinking about it unironically in the shower, but then it all spiraled till I got this.
Throughout the whole history of humanity, most of the language and information were passed through personal one on one interactions. Where disagreement was personal. In the modern age of the internet. Both right and left, rich and poor, have destroyed that. To be a successful scientist before, you needed to learn how to transmit your ideas not only on paper, but also in a conference room filled with tens of people. Nowadays, modern scientists are struggling to even speak, as social anxiety induced by the social separation of the internet makes them publish any of their studies on online platforms. This involves costs not only for the scientists but for the society as a whole. As simply using a source of a science article that is published by a big name now makes you right and the other person wrong. I myself am still debated on this issue.
But what touches me the most is the political debate. Both right and left have sunk into the deep pit of awful, gut wrenching, poisonous and hazardous debates that do not impose a greater meaning than to gain a popular majority. People such as Vaush, Hasanabi and many others construct themselves on the basis of debating on the internet. Most awful detail being that their debate is mostly just critique of a video. While the right in what I’ve personally seen is just as awful, or in my opinion even more. They use nonsensical, straw-man and other logical fallacies filled arguments that do not impose or add anything to the greater picture. Even debates in real life are now a vomit-fest. Biggest example being the Trump and Biden debate. People didn’t even consider it as one and turned it into a joke. Real life debates are now filled with either animalistic screaming or the unacceptance of either one’s platform. It leads nowhere and the result of it is minimal at best. I’m afraid for the future of debates and what it might lead to. Debates are dead and we killed them, but what shall we kill next?
Please prove me wrong, I’m going to sleep with this horrible thought that I hate.
Well, here is the problem: the right wing has made it their platform to go after certain classes of people. I can debate you all day long about the economy or gun control or taxes. I should not have to debate you on my right to exist and thrive as a citizen.
And it’s not even so much the fiscally Right as it is the social ideas held by most of that side. I value personal rights, small, less involved government, and most of their other fiscal platforms. But they happened to be the side the got infiltrated by the Christian theocracy that calls for dehumanizing LGBTQ+, restricting abortion access, and calling out anyone not in their cult as demonic… it could have been any side economically, but when the put their roots down and started the ‘Christian conservative’ movement, they destroyed any possibility of more than to-party politics by turning it into the ‘party of basic human rights’ vs the ‘party of the Christian theocracy.’ I agree with classical liberalism. I agree with modern liberal social / human rights policy. I do not agree with the Democrat Party’s fiscal and economic policies. But you can’t dissent without being associated with the bigots and cultists (‘conservatives’) who took over the other side. For obvious moral reasons I’d have to vote Democrat. But I do not support their economic policies.
I totally understand that feeling. The lack of representation by the Republican Party due to social conservatism hurts everyone.
And then what sucks is that they’ll try to debate reasonable things after saying horrific dehumanizing shit. And you don’t want to engage them, since they are being dehumanizing, but then they’ll say they won because you won’t debate them on the normal stuff. It’s just so damn tiring.
most scientists are great at speaking. Your research is only as good as how effectively you communicate it. You don’t have to be a TED talk speaker, but generally most scientists can put together a logical story on what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and why you should care. (That’s how we get funding, but convincing people that it’s important).
This phenomenon is as old as history.
Socrates was killed because he made fun of powerful people. Anaxagoras was exiled from Athens for arguing that the sun and moon are just fire and rock, rather than gods. Galileo was persecuted because he got into a pissing match with the Jesuits over the nature of comets, then when the Pope’s support for Galileo’s (geocentric) views wavered (…they wavered for political reasons), Galileo wrote a treatise ridiculing the Pope. Hearst and Pulitzer propagandized the US into the Spanish-American War. Mondale lost the election because the media decided he looked ridiculous.
Yeah the internet is terrible for discourse, but the more basic fact is that almost all humans suck at discourse. Even, or maybe especially, Galileo.
Marx and Lenin both have entire chapters of foundational books devoted to take downs of their contemporaries. This isn’t a new phenomenon.
I think what’s different now is algorithms encouraging very surface level debate to top. To the point that it doesn’t feel like anyone really has anything to say. The people actually discussing solutions and debating their merits are completely drowned out.
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I dunno, looks like it’s doing fine to me: https://youtu.be/OVJrtzbK4zE
This really just speaks to the kinds of people and communities you spend time around. If you do not want to be around garbage, you actually need to leave garbage behind.
They need to put people in a soundproof box, and turn on the mic when it’s their turn to speak. Don’t even show the audience their video when it’s not their turn.
We’d be forced to only pay attention to the words of the person speaking.
No ‘thats wrong’ being yelled. No gesticulating from the opposing party. A lot of the pageantry would be gone, and for the benefit of all.
Together with longer speaking times, I think that could do a lot to make debates more civil.Sorry, but you’re right.
The thing I’ve noticed over thirty years or so of posting on forums, and the reason I pretty much entirely stopped even bothering to try to debate anything online, is the ubiquity of fallacies.
At this point, I would say that the single most common “argument” presented on the internet combines strawman, hasty generalization, ad hominem and non sequitur.
The way it works:
Jane says [opinion X].
Tom responds with something that boils down to “So what you’re saying is [something other than opinion X]. That’s what [pejoratives] say, therefore you are a [pejorative], therefore you are evil and stupid and wrong.”
And that’s it - that’s the majority of internet “arguments” - strawman the assertion so you can characterize it as the same as an opinion held by some hated group, then assign the person making the argument to that hated group, then assert that they’re self-evidently wrong (and evil and stupid and whatever else) because they’re (purportedly) part of that group.
It’s really not even an argument at all - it’s a non sequitur. Even without the strawmanning and the hasty generalization and the ad hominem, it’s still just an arbitrary assertion. But the thing is that it works, and it’s simple, and likely most importantly, it’s emotionally satisfying, since it gives people (both those making it and those reading it) that handy little self-affirmation rush that comes from tribalism.
And due to the asymmetry of bullshit, it was always difficult to counter, and at this point it’s so ubiquitous that it’s effectively impossible. And it’s not worth even trying.
Christianity killed civilised debates. They took over the economically conservative side and turned it into the party of intolerant theocracy. Anyone who disagrees with them and their hate speech is l labeled as ‘immoral’ and ‘demonic,’ and immediately dismissed and shunned rather than logically debated. The emotional reaction to this hate (as expected) has also lacked logic, because you can’t debate a force that labeles decent morality and acceptance as evil, and calles evil, hatred, and bigotry “morality.”
Christianity by its very nature takes the Bible as the absolute word of ‘god.’ And the Bible is explicitly intolerant of homosexuality, LGBTQ+ rights, and religious freedom. To follow that religion is to be intolerant and label everyone else as demonic. To claim to follow it, yet be tolerant and decent, is to compromise on the very core of the religion. It is, at that point, not Christianity.
If you accept others, and support their rights, and do not think homosexuality and other religions are evil, don’t claim to be a Christian. The Christians will tell you that. Others will tell you that. Do not be afraid to reject a doctrine built on hate, and simply accept only some of Jesus’ words as those of a very wise man, not ‘god.’
To truly have free debate, to argue freely without Christian morality labeling dissenters as evil, we must remove Christianity from politics. And to do that, because of its very nature (that they must make others comply to ‘save’ them), it cannot happen until Christianity is dead.
While i agree with most of what you saying - the media and their focus on the „loud people“ and the separation of the society in bubbles and echo chambers has largely ruined debates. I think you vastly underestimate the method that scientists use and have to follow for their work. A big name under your work does not qualify it as correct. For one you need multiple rewiwwed sources, you have to defend your work in front of experts… and so on. And thats why they appear like they do in the media - because it is a different world with different rules.
It’s one of the things I blame the modern school system for. If all you’re supposed to do for ~16 years is to sit quiet, memorize and parrot back for hours a day, how can you grow to think, never mind communicate?
Add to that that nobody has time because we’re busy with bullshit jobs and distracted with blings, so even at best we only have the time and energy for very brief bits of information (or “information”).
Yes, the modern world is too complex and nobody can know everything anyway, but we’re absolutely making it worse for ourselves.
