capnpea:

Things I’m sick of seeing in internet arguments

• Telling somebody to kill themselves because they disagree with you. This shouldn’t require explanation.

• Creating a false superiority for your argument by implying that the other party is “too upset”. This comes in a TON of forms- calling somebody “butthurt”, saying “u mad”, saying anything to the effect of “they’re crying and moaning like babies because I disagree”. You end up with two parties who both claim to be “cool and aloof” to their “hysterical” opponent, but are doing so by hysterically attacking their opponents with claims of hysteria. Not only does it imply that being upset makes you wrong, it turns an argument about an issue into an argument about whose more “cool”.

• “I don’t have to explain myself because if you don’t understand my opinion you aren’t worth dealing with.” No matter how obvious the reasoning behind something seems to you, this sort of attitude isn’t going to convince anyone of anything, because only the people who already agree with you are going to understand why you feel the way you do. 

• If somebody is disagreeing with a belief that you hold so fundamentally that you believe it is self-evident and can’t be explained with reason, then you might as well stop right there because you already know neither of you is going to change opinions.

• Did you notice I already violated one of my own rules? I didn’t explain point number one, even though my third point clearly says that I should explain myself even when my reasoning seems obvious to me. Hypocrisy is surprisingly easy to fall into, so be on guard and remember that conceding that you made a mistake in your argument does not mean that you have “lost”, it means you’ve made an error because you’re a human being and presumably so are the people you’re arguing with.

• (The reason I don’t think you should tell people to kill themselves over an argument is that telling somebody they don’t have the right to live is just about the most personal attack you can deliver, and if you’re trying to convince a person to agree with you, personal attacks will just convince that person that they don’t want to agree with you.)

The internet is a means of communication, so arguments will naturally occur because that is how human beings have always communicated. “Internet arguments” have such a strong stigma because for whatever reason we often behave more erratically communicating on the internet than we do communicating in other ways, so just try to keep that in check.