Arguments. The internet is full of 'em. People have opinions, and voice those opinions loudly. I have no objection to discourse, but so many arguments reflect badly on all involved. People say they know things they cannot possibly know, and are absolutely certain of things that are demonstrably wrong. Every formal and informal fallacy is on display.
One common failing is the strawman misrepresenting someone's position in a way to avoid their actual arguments and criticize something at best superficially similar. A better method of making your own case is to steel man an opponent's position. If you can argue someone else's position better than they can themselves before dismantling it, you have engaged in honest discourse.
Iron Man (Marvel/Disney) and Scarecrow (MGM) standing in for these principles
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Social media, especially Web 2.0, creates echo chambers and rewards engagement instead of honesty. This perverse incentive structure has helped drive wedges between people. I doubt a better tool could be designed to divide and conquer under the guise of promoting free speech. I'm not saying this is some kind of deliberate strategy, but it is the outcome of a corporatized attention economy.
Along with the strawman argument, we often see various forms of ad hominem (against the man) argument. Instead of addressing someone's actual point, the rebuttal makes assumptions about their motives, prejudices, or something else entirely irrelevant.
You're just saying that because you're [insert skin color, gender, or religion here]
Right-wingers are saying that because they're just secretly racist fascists who hate the poor!
Left-wingers are just saying that because they don't want to work for anything!
Millennials/Zoomers are just lazy whiners!
Anarchists are ungrateful for the sacrifices made by their betters!
OK, but what do these responses have to do with what someone actually pointed out as a problem? A good debate is about ideas and evidence, not personalities. This is also one of the reasons I hate talk radio, newscasts, and politics. It's rarely about the fundamental principles and problems or serious discussion between dissenters, it's about narcissists and sociopaths shouting nonsense and insults back and forth.
Here on HIVE, we have an infrastructure designed to foster more fully-developed conversations with hyperlinks for evidence. We can also be more conscious when engaging on old social media. Let's try to be better and set an example for the way we would want our own arguments to be treated.
