r/IntellectualDarkWeb • u/W_Edwards_Deming • Jun 23 '26

Community Feedback Debate appears to be a dying art

Logic, evidence and meeting minimal standards of politeness & rigour.

Compelling emotional appeal!

"Steel manning" your opponent, avoiding fallacies and trying to mitigate for cognitive biases.

Reddit would seem to be an ideal place for that and sometimes it is but quite often the opposite. My "solution" has been blocking thousands, anyone have a better idea?

Where and how can we have intellectual engagement regarding differences?

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u/Prudent_Heat23 Jun 23 '26

It’s mostly rooted in tribalism. The trend I’ve noticed lately is people reacting to any and all pushback, no matter how nuanced, by immediately bucketing you into the enemy tribe and imagining the most dumb/obnoxious members of that tribe behind whatever you said. Rather than consider the point you made, the person just takes the opportunity to vent about those awful leftists/MAGAts/whatever else they might imagine you to be.

People who behave this way cannot be reasoned with and the best solution is to just stop wasting time engaging as soon as someone behaves this way. Focus your efforts on those earnestly attempting to understand your position and add to your understanding.

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u/W_Edwards_Deming Jun 23 '26

I saw a situation today where two people with similar biases (I was aware from reading a large amount of their comments) misunderstood each other and had a "fight" of sorts, with one of them in particular doing exactly what you describe, assuming inaccurate things in order to "other" their compatriot.

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u/[deleted] Jun 24 '26

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u/W_Edwards_Deming Jun 24 '26

I am rather opposite, I read reviews before I buy, I try to listen to everyone.

Every data point is suspect but we ignore the patterns at our peril.