The Dying Art of Disagreement
&gt;Yes, we disagree constantly. But what makes our disagreements so toxic is that we refuse to make eye contact with our opponents, or try to see things as they might, or find some middle ground.<p>This bothers me so much. In my social circle (and I expect many of yours) simply understanding the other side is demonized. It&#x27;s a sin to admit that, despite their conclusions being terrible, these human beings have some sense somewhere.<p>When you hear a view you disagree with, instead of disagreeing, first try to understand. These are intelligent human beings who will surprise you. Most often, it turns out the point they are making isn&#x27;t quite the one you thought, or at least it has some nuance and the truth is somewhere in between you.<p>It&#x27;s bad even here on HN. There was a post last week about using genetic algorithms to solve jigsaw puzzles. It looks like this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;raw.githubusercontent.com&#x2F;nemanja-m&#x2F;gaps&#x2F;master&#x2F;images&#x2F;lena.gif" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;raw.githubusercontent.com&#x2F;nemanja-m&#x2F;gaps&#x2F;master&#x2F;imag...</a> .<p>One commenter was disappointed  at the test image used, because:<p>&gt; At best, it&#x27;s crass and tasteless. At worst, it&#x27;s openly disrespectful and hostile to women.<p>Another commenter asked:<p>&gt; Why is it crass and tasteless? And why is it openly hostile and disrespectful to women?<p>The response was:<p>&gt; If I need to explain to you why using a nude image of a model (taken from a pornography magazine, no less) is hostile and disrespectful, then I suspect you are part of the problem.<p>As typical, treating your &quot;opponent&quot; as an intelligent moral person, trying to understand them first, applying the slightest bit of empathy, then even if you agree that the picture is crass&#x2F;hostile&#x2F;whatever, it&#x27;s much more respectful and likely that the asker simply did not know the history of it, rather than the asker being immoral (from that POV).<p>Jumping straight to &quot;you are part of the problem&quot; is an extreme version of what happens in most of these disagreements. There&#x27;s no respect or effort towards empathy and it makes me really sad.