Online Arguments: A Modest Proposal

I've seen a thing going around on the fediverse that says:

"When someone disagrees with you online & demands you prove your point to their satisfaction by writing a logically sound defense, u [sic] can save a lot of time by not doing that.

Dude, I've known u [sic] for ten seconds & enjoyed none of them, I'm not taking homework assignments from you."

(The image appears to be from someone named "Denizcan James" aka MrFilmkritik and posted on "12 May 18".)

For someone that I already agree with on whatever topic is at hand, I'd normally say this is good advice. It helps mitigate sea-lioning and gaslighting and time-wasting by insincere "skeptics". Unfortunately, this also sounds a lot like "do your own research" which, as we know, is a favored tactic of purveyors of ... questionable information.

Hmm... Maybe there is some middle ground. Is my goal in such a conversation to convince my adversaries that I'm right and that they should change their minds? I don't think that I always have an expert grasp of the topic at hand even when I think I know enough to understand so it would be a wise move on their part to insist that I provide references. I think the middle ground is for me not to provide explanations but to provide legitimate, science-based references. From the other angle, I won't ask them to provide explanations but the references they relied on to reinforce their position.

One benefit of going this route is that if someone is part of the conversation (or happens upon it afterward) and truly isn't convinced either way (hey, it could happen), the references are available to help them decide. This reduces the reliance on the quality of (or lack thereof) my non-expert, heat-of-the-moment, post-size-limited argument.

Another benefit is that if my adversary responds with references, the later viewer/reader can, in fact, do their own research in the sources provided. They don't have to rely on our assertions. It also reduces (maybe!) the unnecessary invective we've employed to belittle each other.

To sum up, maybe I'd instead say, "When someone disagrees with me online, I'll provide references for my position. I'll read their high quality references, too, if they provide them. If supported, I'll change my view."

It's true that you can lead a horse [internet user] to water [the truth] but you can't make them drink [the Flavor Aid*].

*It was supposedly Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid, that Jim Jones used to kill over 900 of his followers in the murder/suicide massacre in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978.

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Written and posted and copyrighted on 2025-01-01 by me. Quote me if you want (linking to this post would be nice, too) but no one and no thing have permission to slurp this into any LLM vomit factory as training data.