How to win an online argument: lessons from Reddit
It&#x27;s not about the win.  Other people, willing to demonstrate acceptance online, is a rare thing.  Almost doesn&#x27;t happen.<p>BTW, if you want it to happen more, be sure and model this in whatever peer group you are participating in.  If others see you reach and acknowledge acceptance, they are far more willing to do so themselves, and your overall standing, credence, etc... within that community will very significantly improve.<p>A while back, I did an experiment on this in a small, consistent community I participate in.  The control is a fair number of regulars, who have met in person.  I listed each strategy used to avoid acceptance on a point fairly taken, and regularly published it.  With each one, I put names on it, including my own, and soon, we were watching for this and identifying how people avoid acceptance.<p>That list grew to something like 20 items.  Even though most of us were aware of the dynamics, we STILL DID IT, only to be called out by someone not invested in the argument.<p>BTW:  Mere silence or choosing to make a lot of noise are by far the number one strategies.  Say a point is taken, and we&#x27;ve lost.  Just wrong, or not very defensible, whatever.  If acceptance is recognized, that argument isn&#x27;t useful anymore.  Now, one would and should recognize that it&#x27;s not useful in the rational sense anyway, but the key outcome of that experiment wasn&#x27;t about the rational.<p>It&#x27;s all about advocacy.<p>Debate would see that point rendered moot, and the discussion moving on.  As it should too.<p>But, people want what they want.  They will justify it however they think they can, and that&#x27;s the core difference between advocacy and debate!<p>Silence works by letting the record of the loss or invalidation fade over time.  A few months later, the same shit can be put out again, resulting in the same dialog again, and it&#x27;s going to resonate with the same people again.<p>So, it&#x27;s not always about progress as much as it is mindshare and status quo.  Very enlightening.  (to me, at least)<p>One other thing...<p>If I were to put those items in very general terms, they are:<p>silence<p>distraction (like mention abortion to derail the dialog)<p>the bible (discussion moves to competing bible verses)<p>character (you are an idiot, discussion moves to that)<p>qualification (I&#x27;m in a club, you are not in, so you lose)<p>noise (just be a big mess, people tire and leave)<p>Those are the heavy hitters online, IMHO.<p>There is this too:<p>Acceptance comes at a cost.  If you reach it, and you make that public within your peer group, you also then have some ownership of it.  No excuses.<p>People want what they want and they want to do and say what they do and say.  Recognition of acceptance is also being bound by that same acceptance, and that&#x27;s a very powerful motivator for avoiding recognition of it.  That&#x27;s not discussed much, and it should be.<p>Additionally, people may put off acceptance because they want to try again too, or the matter is a value judgement.  This is fair.<p>Model this by stating those things, and it has the same positive impact I mentioned above.  &quot;Good points, I want to revisit this.&quot;<p>An example on the other extreme might be a flat out rejection of the whole thing, and when it really is a value judgement, it works well! &quot;I am OK with poor people paying hard for being poor.&quot;<p>Do that, and your credence with like minded people will go way up.  Your haters will move to your character too.<p>Here is the interesting bit: so what?  Everyone has haters, and a bold, honest value expression carries a ton if weight with onlookers, while frustrating the hell out of your opponents, who will often self marginalize out of anger, rather than accept the value differences.<p>Acceptance is not always the goal.  Remember that.<p>Advocacy is nearly always the goal, and you can get away with murder doing advocacy, and that being confused with debate, and the pretense of rationality allows it to happen.<p>I&#x27;ll end with the idea that raising awareness of advocacy vs debate can raise the level of dialog, but the cost is demonstrating acceptance when warranted.<p>Most people love the game and the release of online dialog a lot more than they value improving somehow.