New posters and older posters alike get fed up and decide to foolishly dare the mods to enforce the guidelines.
What are people thoughts on why they do that? — DingoJones

I think there are two factors to this:
1. people who do that do so as the final act of making clear there are irreconcilable differences between themselves and the social group they're currently in,
and
2. these irreconcilable differences are taking place where there is a hirarchical social structure, a power differential, and the person in question is in a position of lesser power.

They could just leave, but some anger or frustration compelled them to

I think it's an act of getting closure to an unsatisfactory relationship.
Leaving quietly wouldn't give one closure.

So a sign of the times then? Are we just so divided that certain people crack from the stress of knowing people out there disagree with them so so much?

Realizing that one is in the wrong place, and has been there for a long time, can look rather ugly.

Is it the nature of discourse, that some people just arent equipped for?

All discourse is overshadowed by the power differentials at play. Even at a philosophy forum, where the power of the argument should be bigger than the strength of the argument from power. But in reality, the argument from power is always the strongest one.

It's a tough duplicitious dynamic to navigate.

Ok, but why haven’t I seen this on other similar forums? Is there something about this forum that attracts these sorts of people? — DingoJones

I've seen it elsewhere a few times. I don't know what was happening via PM's or the stuff that was deleted, so I can't know for sure, but the common point seems to be: authoritarian politically correct moderators.

Now, difference of opinion is a difference of good and evil in the hearts and minds of most people. — DingoJones

As far as I have seen, it's always been like that.

They just didn't like being told what to do, or how to behave. — Philosophim

Who does??!


Esp. when being told what to do or how to behave by people who don't care about you, and who have made it clear that they don't care about you!

Are we just so divided that certain people crack from the stress of knowing people out there disagree with them so so much? — DingoJones

For my part, the thing that I tend to find stressful is the perception that nobody agrees with me. Even if I know better, if I'm well aware of prominent thinkers who agree with me... they're not here, or anywhere else that I am.

I'm fine having discussions with people who disagree, so long as there's a mix of agreement and disagreement. It's when a thread turns into a long interminable repetition of me vs everyone else participating that I feel discouraged.

For that reason I try to give signs of encouragement to others I agree with in other threads, even if I'm not going to go to the effort of really engaging in their battle against their opponents. Just so they know that someone is on their side, and they're not alone.

I think the forum would be a much more pleasant place if people generally would do things like that more often.

The best remedy for bad ideas like fascism is discussion, to show where these ideas fail and where they lead — DingoJones

Where on earth did you get that idea from? Have you honestly seen any evidence of it, in general. Do people, in your experience, generally have a tendency to listen to arguments (no matter who they're from) and alter their opinions accordingly?

Where on earth did you get that idea from? Have you honestly seen any evidence of it, in general. Do people, in your experience, generally have a tendency to listen to arguments (no matter who they're from) and alter their opinions accordingly? — Isaac

Of course not.

Venues such as philosophy forums are essentially intended as echo chambers, and people visit them for that purpose.

Yes, I realize this sounds awfully derogatory. But think about it: Who would make a point of visiting and posting at a forum which they know to be very different from their own views?

For that reason I try to give signs of encouragement to others I agree with in other threads, even if I'm not going to go to the effort of really engaging in their battle against their opponents. Just so they know that someone is on their side, and they're not alone.

I think the forum would be a much more pleasant place if people generally would do things like that more often. — Pfhorrest

So you're suggesting we should become even more partisan? It's not enough that discussion be seen as a battle but that we must now have a jeering crowd egging each combatant on?

What do you think it says about our relationship with ideas that you feel bad when no-one is agreeing with you and you know that signs of agreement make you feel better? If I , for example, were to chime in to one of your discussions to say I agree, would that have the same effect on your well-being as if [insert some well-respected poster here]?

I think herein you have your answer as to why Dingo is exactly wrong that "The best remedy for bad ideas like fascism is discussion, to show where these ideas fail and where they lead". The result is only that ideas which draw a cheering crowd are bolstered and those which receive muted sniffs of derision as dropped.

For that reason I try to give signs of encouragement to others I agree with in other threads, even if I'm not going to go to the effort of really engaging in their battle against their opponents. Just so they know that someone is on their side, and they're not alone. — Pfhorrest

If I don't have your sword, your bow, or your axe, then what use are your little words of support to me?

Who would make a point of visiting and posting at a forum which they know to be very different from their own views? — baker

I think there are a small but significant number of people who've somehow misunderstood the nature of the 'marketplace of ideas'. More than average in fields like philosophy, politics, sociology... People seem to be unable to see the difference between something seeming to them to be the case and something's actually being the case, as if there were no further step that need be taken to get from the former to the latter. I think these people do indeed deliberately join forums whose culture is generally opposed to theirs, deluded into thinking that they only need present what seems obvious to them and all 'right thinking' people will fall into line on reading such cold hard logic.

I think these people do indeed deliberately join forums whose culture is generally opposed to theirs, deluded into thinking that they only need present what seems obvious to them and all 'right thinking' people will fall into line on reading such cold hard logic. — Isaac

(And they end up being called "trolls" by the forum members.)

People tend to be cognitive misers. They are willing expend only a little effort to understand other people, and they underestimate the effort a particular other person would need to make in order to understand them.

It's not enough that discussion be seen as a battle but that we must now have a jeering crowd egging each combatant on? — Isaac

I would prefer that it not be seen at a battle at all, but if it's going to seem like some people are attacking you, instead of us all just cooperatively working on a puzzle together, then it's nice to have other people comforting and supporting you too. Someone to affirm that you're not completely crazy, that there's some worth and merit to your thoughts, even if there is also room for refinement.

If I , for example, were to chime in to one of your discussions to say I agree, would that have the same effect on your well-being as if [insert some well-respected poster here]? — Isaac

It would have a more positive effect on me for you to say something supportive than for someone I already know agrees with me to say the same thing.

(Saying this is the only reason I've bothered to respond to you here, as I have too much shit going on in real life to risk being drawn into another interminable fight with you, so I'm trying to just ignore you generally).

An anecdote for illustration: I recently redesigned an old website that I originally ran about two decades ago, and attempted then aborted a redesign of about a decade ago. During that aborted redesign a decade ago, one of the people I had worked on the site with two decades ago gave me some pretty negative feedback that made me feel very bad about my competency in that field in which I was trying to forge a career. In the midst of this recent design, I had to ask him for some advice on a complex part of the site that he had originally built, and when talking to him he said some very brief but positive comments about my new redesign. Having someone who had once seemed to pose themselves as an opponent instead say something supportive was a surprisingly enormous relief.

Additionally, I don't even know how to gauge who the generally well-respected posters here are, besides the mods. For all I can tell you're one of the in-crowd. If it was clear to me that everyone else disregarded your opinions as worthless, I would feel more comfortable doing so myself. Not that I would automatically do so; if I agreed with you I would stand against the popular crowd with you. But when so far as I can tell you're not just some crazy person I can safely ignore, it makes me feel obliged to address your responses, at whatever length necessary, no matter how obviously wrong I think you are.

My experience is that not many people around here will admit they're wrong about something and there are incredibly few posts with an actual question in them. Usually it's just someone sharing their opinion and sticking to it no matter what.

It's how we learned to write but it makes for poor discussions. And I'm guilty as charged probably 90% of the time.

Years ago I had a post on racism on the old forum, trying to understand what the issue was with Dutch Black Pete. I got it was racist but I just couldn't understand why there was a focus on it while we had racist politicians that could be taken to task. One of my favourite moments was that click of understanding I got thanks to a post from @unenlightened about his wife's everyday life and golliwog dolls. Those moments are few and far between.

Nowadays I just seem to be arguing to offset nutty ideas.

People tend to be cognitive misers. They are willing expend only a little effort to understand other people, and they underestimate the effort a particular other person would need to make in order to understand them. — baker

Yes. I think that's true but this is one of the reasons why social media (all internet platforms really) might be such breeding grounds for extremism. Much of our bandwidth is occupied with the judgement of social relations - the intentions of others, their social position etc. It's supremely hard work (in terms of how much brain power it takes).

People use their resources differently in internet interactions, much information we'd normally use to judge someone's intent is unavailable so there's a theory that a lot of the behaviour popular online is an attempt to extract that kind of data from a medium we're not used to. Just a theory...

All discourse is overshadowed by the power differentials at play. Even at a philosophy forum, where the power of the argument should be bigger than the strength of the argument from power. But in reality, the argument from power is always the strongest one. — baker

This reference to power seemed to be your main point. I dont think it overshadows all discourse, its just another factor and it may or may not be a significant factor in any given case.

As far as I have seen, it's always been like that. — baker

Its always been a thing yes, but thats not the same as that thing becoming more widespread or significant. Im talking about the latter.

Yes. I think that's true but this is one of the reasons why social media (all internet platforms really) might be such breeding grounds for extremism. Much of our bandwidth is occupied with the judgement of social relations - the intentions of others, their social position etc. It's supremely hard work (in terms of how much brain power it takes).

People use their resources differently in internet interactions, much information we'd normally use to judge someone's intent is unavailable so there's a theory that a lot of the behaviour popular online is an attempt to extract that kind of data from a medium we're not used to. Just a theory... — Isaac

While I agree, there's another, even simpler explanation, and that is that most people are not trained philosophers.
Philosophers are, ideally, supposed to have that characteristic critical distance towards claims, regardless whether those claims are made by themselves or by other people.

Yet typically, people, and that includes some of those who consider themselves philosophers or have advanced degrees in philosophy, feel very attached to their claims, see those claims as part of their identity, their property. So that when someone as much as addresses those ideas, those people feel like the other person has crossed the boundaries of the acceptable. This, of course, hobbles critical discussion.

Its always been a thing yes, but thats not the same as that thing becoming more widespread or significant. Im talking about the latter. — DingoJones

Thinking back several decades when I was growing up, to be different in any way meant to be evil, or at least wrong or defective.

What do you think drives the social pressure for conformity?

For my part, the thing that I tend to find stressful is the perception that nobody agrees with me. Even if I know better, if I'm well aware of prominent thinkers who agree with me... they're not here, or anywhere else that I am. — Pfhorrest

Im the opposite, I don’t care if people agree with me or not. Im just not that invested in any conclusion I reach. By design, I think this is useful for avoiding bias, or dogmatism. People get married to their conclusions and end up closing their minds in various ways that Id rather avoid. Plus, most people are dumb so its hard to care what they think.

I think the forum would be a much more pleasant place if people generally would do things like that more often. — Pfhorrest

Maybe, but Im not sure pleasantness is what folks are after on a forum like this.

I would prefer that it not be seen at a battle at all, but if it's going to seem like some people are attacking you, instead of us all just cooperatively working on a puzzle together, then it's nice to have other people comforting and supporting you too. — Pfhorrest

Are you sure the one resulted from the other, and not vice versa? What could less give the impression we're co-operatively working on a puzzle than people jeering on one 'side' or the other?

Someone to affirm that you're not completely crazy, that there's some worth and merit to your thoughts, even if there is also room for refinement. — Pfhorrest

Yes. That's part of the problem with having lower standards of OP. That you're not crazy and your ideas have some merit should be the bare minimum to even be responded to. It should be assumed, not pointed out.

when so far as I can tell you're not just some crazy person I can safely ignore, it makes me feel obliged to address your responses, at whatever length necessary, no matter how obviously wrong I think you are. — Pfhorrest

As I was just discussing above, this seems to me to be the crux of this entrenching. If a person who you think is not crazy tells you you're wrong, but you don't think you are, it surely demonstrates as clearly as possible that something's seeming to you to be the case cannot itself be sufficient evidence that it is the case. Yet, no amount of internal reflection is going to get any more than something's seeming to you to be the case. One cannot take another person's contrary position and examine it against one's own web of beliefs. It will as obviously fail such a test as taking a Land Rover component and bolting it to a Ferrari would fail. You have to create a virtual web of beliefs built around what your (non-crazy) interlocutor is saying - a kind of joint space which neither of you actually believe in. But since neither of you own this space, there's not much incentive to do so in a combative environment.

I know it seems rather fusty, but the process of citation and building very gradually and slowly on previous work is a grand scale manifestation of this mental process, the academic corpus in general being the shared web of beliefs which neither party completely believes. This is why I think that "I've re-written the whole of..." type posts are just combative from the start (no matter the intention of the poster). They eschew the shared space of beliefs we already have. Doing so is equivalent to turning up to a negotiation with gun and expecting that not to have any influence of the parties' approach.

I would prefer that it not be seen at a battle at all, but if it's going to seem like some people are attacking you, instead of us all just cooperatively working on a puzzle together, then it's nice to have other people comforting and supporting you too. Someone to affirm that you're not completely crazy, that there's some worth and merit to your thoughts, even if there is also room for refinement. — Pfhorrest

I think one needs to be stronger than that, more self-confident, more self-efficacious.

Where on earth did you get that idea from? Have you honestly seen any evidence of it, in general. Do people, in your experience, generally have a tendency to listen to arguments (no matter who they're from) and alter their opinions accordingly? — Isaac

Took a pretty leap to get to that bolded portion sir. Thats not what im saying. No matter who they’re from? Where did you get that from what I said?

Thinking back several decades when I was growing up, to be different in any way meant to be evil, or at least wrong or defective.

What do you think drives the social pressure for conformity? — baker

Thats not been my experience at all.
I think social pressure to conform comes from our ape brain, the primitive instincts that remain from our evolutionary past.

Took a pretty leap to get to that bolded portion sir. Thats not what im saying. No matter who they’re from? Where did you get that from what I said? — DingoJones

It's not from what you said. I just mean by it that even in cases where people do renounce ideas after discussion, it's often traceable to the social position of the person with whom they're discussing, not the ideas themselves. The point you made was that "The best remedy...". I'm contesting that superlative.

Im not sure pleasantness is what folks are after on a forum like this. — DingoJones

Regardless of what folks are after on a forum like this, what purpose should a forum like this serve? I.e. what's a place like this good for, anyway?

I really don't think any serious breakthroughs in professional philosophy are going to be made here, so that's not it.

Nor do I really expect any widespread social opinions are going to be changed just from the small group of people talking here.

The only real use I can see for an internet forum about philosophy is people who for one reason or another aren't in a position to participate in the academic philosophical dialogue but who find the subject interesting and want to talk to other people who also find it interesting.

They can share thoughts that they've had and find out if others have had similar thoughts and what kinds of arguments for and against those thoughts have been made, and who (if notable) has made them.

Consider for comparison a physics forum. Say someone wanders onto one of those because they just read a lay text about general relativity and from what they've read it seems to imply to them that many large masses moving rapidly around a "stationary" mass (from a given frame of reference) should cause that "stationary" mass to begin to rotate in the direction that the other masses are moving around it. To them, this is a neat new idea they just came up with, that is implied by general relativity so far as they can tell, and they want to talk to someone who knows something about physics about it.

So they share it with the physics forum. What good can possibly come of that? Surely they're not going to make any real progress in physics there. But they can find out that yes in fact, something like that is an implication of general relativity, it's called frame-dragging, and here are various experiments confirming it and other theoretical consequences of it. If that was not the case, they could instead find out what the errors in their reasoning from GR were, or what evidence against that hypothesis has been found, and where to read more about it. If that wasn't the case either, they could at least find out who else had thought of that hypothesis and why it hasn't been tested thoroughly yet. Or if, best case scenario for them, it was a genuinely novel idea, someone could at least confirm that for them, even if nothing is really going to come of that fact, because they're a nobody without the education to act on that idea. Unless, perhaps, someone with the education to act on it happens to be reading that forum too.

As I was just discussing above, this seems to me to be the crux of this entrenching. If a person who you think is not crazy tells you you're wrong, but you don't think you are, it surely demonstrates as clearly as possible that something's seeming to you to be the case cannot itself be sufficient evidence that it is the case. Yet, no amount of internal reflection is going to get any more than something's seeming to you to be the case. One cannot take another person's contrary position and examine it against one's own web of beliefs. It will as obviously fail such a test as taking a Land Rover component and bolting it to a Ferrari would fail. You have to create a virtual web of beliefs built around what your (non-crazy) interlocutor is saying - a kind of joint space which neither of you actually believe in. But since neither of you own this space, there's not much incentive to do so in a combative environment.

I know it seems rather fusty, but the process of citation and building very gradually and slowly on previous work is a grand scale manifestation of this mental process, the academic corpus in general being the shared web of beliefs which neither party completely believes. This is why I think that "I've re-written the whole of..." type posts are just combative from the start (no matter the intention of the poster). They eschew the shared space of beliefs we already have. Doing so is equivalent to turning up to a negotiation with gun and expecting that not to have any influence of the parties' approach. — Isaac

That's a very interesting take on the problem. Thanks for sharing it!

For my part, the thing that I tend to find stressful is the perception that nobody agrees with me. — Pfhorrest

For what it's worth, I agree with a lot of the things you write. I think you're a good thinker and you are an asset to this forum.

But it's better for my ego to disagree and prove I'm smart. So it's hard to suppress the urge to just do the quick, simple, combative replies to things I think are obviously wrong as opposed to trying to find something interesting to say about an already well thought out topic.

trying to find something interesting to say about an already well thought out topic. — Echarmion

I think the emoji function is useful for this. If I see someone say something that I think is worth saying that's not being properly appreciated I'll often just reply with some combination of :up: :100: :clap: etc.

Also, thanks. :)

Tolerating it leads to, well, you've seen what just happened. — Baden

It’s just one with very obvious cons — like, for example, what just happened. — Pfhorrest

What? What just happened? Did I miss a thing?

I’d say even that should be “tolerated” to the extent that that means taking it as an idea about which we can discuss the pros and cons. — Pfhorrest

Absolutely. I'd say that about almost anything. But propagandising is not discussion. I think questioning e.g. whether the Holocaust happened, i.e. disguising propaganda as debate, likewise.

There was an initially interesting thread on fascism recently, actually.

But propagandising is not discussion. I think questioning e.g. whether the Holocaust happened, i.e. disguising propaganda as debate — Kenosha Kid

Yeah, this is the important bit. We have to draw a line, and the fact that doing so is fraught and involves contextual judgement does not absolve that duty.

Where someone, as has been increasingly the case, presents uncorroborated speculation again and again without updating their view in the light of evidence to the contrary, we can be sufficiently sure they're not here to 'debate' for us to make such a judgement call.

'Free speech' is already all too often confused with 'free access'. This is a debating platform and so only speech amenable to debate is generally appropriate for access to it.

What is your superior remedy to a bad idea?

What is your superior remedy to a bad idea? — DingoJones

Address the reason why someone is attracted to it.

Regardless of what folks are after on a forum like this, what purpose should a forum like this serve? I.e. what's a place like this good for, anyway? — Pfhorrest

I suppose the purpose of this forum is more or less specific to each person, falling under some broad categories. I think learning through discourse is a good general purpose of any forum.

It's funny to see how this has become such a controversial issue, back in the 2000s the golden age of internet forums, people would get the "ban hammer" for saying similar nonsense repeated on these forums and no one gave a shit.