I disagree, and offer the world of 2026 as anecdotal evidence lol. Most of what you wrote implies that every person participates in arguments honestly, with full faith, and are both cognitively capable of, and actively willing to, receive, evaluate and ultimately accept the argument as a zero-sum "winner". In reality, illogical appeals to emotion tend to win the day.
This also kind of refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people simply don't feel the need to be right; some people move in silence, others just don't care for the friction, or need the accolades. Still others don't enjoy the company of self-righteous, unbending, argumentative people, or have wildly different perspectives on a topic due to life experiences that are unfathomable to the rest.
I believe that multiple things can often be right simultaneously, and it's exactly that kind of positive sum philosophy that drives the most argumentative and need-to-be-right people completely insane haha. Different strokes for different folks man.
Not to a neutral party. Debates and arguments that can change the course of a project happen in front of a neutral committee (ideally) in that case logic can win.
> This also kind of refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people simply don't feel the need to be right; some people move in silence, others just don't care for the friction, or need the accolades. Still others don't enjoy the company of self-righteous, unbending, argumentative people, or have wildly different perspectives on a topic due to life experiences that are unfathomable to the rest.
I didn’t refuse to acknowledge. Did you even read my post? I said people feel both. The need to argue and the need to avoid it. Most people feel it on sort of an even 5050 ground but there are some people who of course swing one way or the other. If you describe the human condition in general and not get into specifics or edge cases. Overall the most apt description is a duality.
> I believe that multiple things can often be right simultaneously, and it's exactly that kind of positive sum philosophy that drives the most argumentative and need-to-be-right people completely insane haha. Different strokes for different folks man.
Did you read my post? I feel you read the first part and felt the need to argue your point without consideration to the topic at hand. My entire post is about a conflicting duality when it comes to arguing. You embody your own stereotype you describe.
For what it's worth, I did read your post twice before I replied, just to see if I didn't get it on the first pass. What I took from it, and maybe I'm thick as molasses, was that humans defacto love to argue due to biological imperative, we stratify social value based on the success of arguments, and ultimately promote argument as a contact sport that you can dominate in for personal gain and personal validation. Dominate instead of mediate, which I've found through life experience to come most often from people who are deeply insecure with themselves.
When I came back to the thread, I noticed that the submission title had been updated to Most arguments are about ego, not ideas and saw your replies to my post + siblings, and felt like that new title encapsulated your responses perfectly. You and I simply disagree on the purpose and value of argument.
Persuasive people rarely argue. Persuasive people do not need to be unequivocally right. The most persuasive people do get what they want in the end, but you often don't even realize you've been persuaded.
Argumentative people leverage power if they have it, and data, and sometimes "win", but rarely succeed in persuasion.
And that's just my opinion! Feel free to disagree, I've no interest in an argument LOL
Frequently accompanied by a feeling of despair when you are dominated by another.
> The fact that this thread even exists speaks to the fact of the extremely high survival benefit this behavior confers onto a human.
Dialog brings clarity. Clarity helps build tools. Tools help survival. So, if there is anything to seek, try clarity of understanding - not being right, and being right stands in the way of understanding.
Take a few minutes to read the entire post. I talk about this. In fact the entire point of my post is about this. If you missed the point I can only assume you decided to respond without reading everything.
> Dialog brings clarity. Clarity helps build tools. Tools help survival. So, if there is anything to seek, try clarity of understanding - not being right, and being right stands in the way of understanding.
The dialog itself is not what I’m referring to. I’m referring to empathetic relation. This “dialog” or thread exists because participants in this thread relate to all the emotions described in said topic. Please finish reading my post before responding.
There's a lot of sloppy thinking in that post, starting with the pseudo-scientific framing in terms of evolutionary psychology... which is ironic given then ScIeNcE-bro tone... couched against an artificial and incorrect taxonomy of reason into "philosophical, logical and scientific"... in reality those are intersecting at times, orthogonal at others, and the devil is generally in the details... but it certainly doesn't make sense to impose some kind of juvenile "batman vs superman" power scaling hierarchy on top of them...
The reduction of the results of an argument to a binary win/loss between two people is probably the most humorously absurd bit. There are many outcomes of an argument. Sometimes it pivots research in a fruitful direction. Sometimes it leads to compromise. Sometimes parties talk past one another. Sometimes it serves to create an artifact for later analysis/reflection. Sometimes it causes us to pause and re-evaluate before acting. Sometimes it plants a seed that bears fruit later. Sometimes it strengthens both parties by refining their respective views. Sometimes it wastes everyone's time and nothing valuable comes of it.
Pursuit of knowledge or aligning action to truth isn't an arm-wrestling contest with winner-takes-all outcomes. That's just a silly framing that doesn't reflect reality, it's the kind of way you see the world of you aren't actually part of knowledge production and consume "debates" as influencer-slop from Ben Shapiro types.
I argue with people all the time. At work, with friends. It's generally a form of productive commerce. I see things one way and have knowledge/strengths that I bring to bear through my perspective. Others have their own knowledge/strengths. Working together, we might build a scalable data system, prioritize a road map, design a better game, make food decisions at a restaurant, have an enlightening political conversation, improve a speedrun. Whatever, the ends are various. The means are often spirited debate, in which, generally, everybody wins. That's just kind of the first principal of macro economic theory, if you need a bro-system to cash things out into.
This is kind of rude, implying I’m on drugs. It’s a cheap way to win an argument to sort of degrade your opponent before even talking.
I prefer to keep what’s underneath my post is as a discussion rather then play games or engage in arguments like this. So I’m sorry to say, everything you wrote underneath that initial paragraph you can just throw it in the trash because I’m not reading it. Apologies and thank you.