The most useful and effective tool I've come across to use in a debate is to get the two sides to outline the position and argument of their critics as clearly as hey can, to the satisfaction of their critics, before engaging in the debate. That's not really practical in internet forum comment wars, but I think if you come to the table with this spirit in mind it can be very helpful.
Arming yourself with rhetorical weapons like this, especially if you rather view them as tools for thinking, will get you some way but I think rarely aid in reaching consensus or understanding where disagreement comes from.
Doing so obliterates context from a position, especially long form comments (which is the main reason I’m here) in two main ways. First, the technique rarely reproduces the parent in its entirety, picking out black and white statements that are easier to argue against from a sea of nuance. Second, it cuts up the narrative in such a way that downplays the rationale of a position by either leaving out reasoning, or placing arguments between the reasoning and the conclusion.
Sure, the readers can go back and reread the parent. But when the structure of an argument depends on those snippets (and it almost always does) it becomes very difficult to grok.
Generally I just see it as a big warning sign that the quoter is more interested in winning than learning or getting to the truth of the matter and thus is best ignored.
An interesting article, expanding from means of disagreeing to methods used I'd add a few observations. There's the shotgun refutation where a poster quotes almost every part of a post with a weak disagreement making responding to every point almost impossible and there's the essayist who writes a needlessly long response making finding and responding to their central point much harder. Essayists often use deliberately ambiguous passages so they can claim you don't understand rather than explaining clearly.
Another internet or more general debate strategy is to refer to the voluminous works of others as if you've read them and behave as if your opponent cannot respond until they've read every last page, often with little attempt to explain or apply the supposed arguments and facts that come from those sources.
Most internet posters are unable to state things clearly, partly because people are taught to obfuscate and because they're embarassed to put their points in view so nakedly.
As a former card carrying Debate Club member, I suppose this article may be helpful for people who aren't used to having these arguments. But I don't believe it is very helpful for most interactions on anything really controversial right now.
Most people making arguments for "the other side" haven't actually had to defend them against real criticism. They also are usually not the originators of their position, they're forwarding the ideas from someone else, so they don't necessarily even understand what it is they are articulating.
Trying to engage with someone who doesn't know how to argue and doesn't actually grasp their ideas is about as productive as trying to argue with a 4-chan meme. I've long ago decided to just put my 2-cents in a single time, if I feel they're saying something really stupid, then move on.
In my 15+ years of conversing online, migrating from usenet to slashdot, to reddit, to eventually here, I've learned that online arguing by and large is a waste of time - most of the conversations superficial, many of the thoughts I express and agree with, or even disagree with, having little to no consequence on anything tangible.
I've gotten lots of positive responses over the years, from sideline viewers and even the people I was directly conversing with, but I've also received more than my share of negativity, 'trolling' and hostility.
I agree with you, that one way to carry an argument to a conclusion is to avoid aiming to convince the other person of anything, to simply illustrate your point, and allow whoever is reading to be able to read your point without feeling as though their own ideas and beliefs are under attack.
The slightly humorous thing is, the more people agreed with me and rallied behind me, the less I wanted to converse. I neither sought debate for the purposes of constructing heated arguments, but I began to fear that I had learned some kind of argument algorithm, that made my perspective more appealing to listen to and agree with. I felt as though I was combining elements of logic and rhetoric in ways that seemed to directly reveal truth, but when I walked away from my computer, I felt none the wiser for what I had expressed. On top of this, I realized much of the time, I wasn't even really thinking about what I was saying, and in retrospect, I wound up trailing down paths of ideas that seemed to have more control over me, than I did over them, just because the argument itself seemed to stitch itself together so eloquently.
I pop my head in from time to time, place to place, but I think it's much more enjoyable and valuable to learn what my opinions are, isolated, than what they are, publicly. I have had far more questions about my own ideas, when I don't feel compelled to distill them down to something easily digestible, easily understood, and easily communicated.
There is a lot of loneliness in this, I will say that. And there was a lot of growth I had myself, in conversing with so many people, so I don't discredit it entirely. A balance between knowing one's own self, and being able to effectively communicate one's own ideas is probably the ideal, but this itself requires just as much, if not more time, to achieve directly, than it does to experience life, observe it, derive opinions from it, and express them on any other subject matter. It was that realization, that made me realize how superficial my opinions were. These were ideas that I connected strongly to my identity, and because of the response I received, I thought they were valuable, deep, well thought out, worthy of holding tightly to.
I'd like to learn to converse again, one day, but I would hope that the things I get to talk about affect both myself and the people who want to interact with me, in ways that are not so short lived. Small talk can be nice, but I've learned that even the most intellectually challenging subjects can find ways to turn themselves into small talk. When I hit that realization, I felt that every bit of knowledge I had acquired had just turned into one giant dump of 'stuff' that I had to sift through once again, to distinguish fluff from truth.
With regard to bystanders though - I wouldn't be so quick to make assumptions. In many internet contexts, I am inclined to agree with you, in theory and from direct personal experience and observation. I don't know if it's some sort of effect of psychological projection - when I used to quickly jump to agreement while following along a well sustained and well worded conversation with multiple participants, I thought it was obvious that everyone would be in agreement easily, their minds skimming and snapping into the same places my mind would. Even if they were in silent disagreement, that too was knowable, capable of having something said about it, without it being directly revealed. But the more time I spent in disagreement, in silence, the more doubt I have on that kind of certainty. It has taken me years to learn enough self control, such that I can still interact while disagreeing, without communicating any sort of passive disagreement - and this I am sure I have yet to master. But it's just possible that every mind is like that - there is no predictability in knowing how anyone will respond to anything, and even through thorough observation, there is no certainty that what is to be observed in the future will conform to what was observed in the past.
I've repeatedly found that the ability to paraphrase and summarise the opposing positions in a way that the opposition can agree with, is a good indicator of whether someone is interested in, and able to have a meaningful discussion in a controversial subject.
It might be illuminating to compare this heuristic to the requirement of a decent scientific paper to summarise related work properly.
I wonder if the scale doesn't go high enough. It's hard to say because it's not clear what the goal of "disagreeing" is. If it's to convince the other person of your own perspective, then I humbly submit that none of these is likely to get you there.
What about the dialectic? What about appealing to common values or goals, and drawing connections between these common values or goals and your own argument? Maybe these approaches are too large in scope to be contained -- or, for that matter, likely to succeed -- within a single comment or comment thread, but I believe it's "higher" on the scale and, when practiced well, more likely to pursuade others than simply demolishing their arguments or employing the other tactics on down the list.
I think this is a useful article. The bit that struck me as most important was the bit about Clarifying - I think many pointless online discussions, including most straw-men, could be rescued by that practice.
More specifically, if I were dang for a day, I'd edit the third guideline ("Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.") to add, "When in doubt, try paraphrasing the other side's argument in a way that they would agree with before responding to it."
For me, the key way of thinking is that if I want someone to agree with me, my argument needs to make sense to them from within their own internal perspective. So to be effective I need to understand their perspective first, then see if what I want can be fit into it respectfully.
The big exception to this is if a third party is adjudicating the argument--like in a debate or trial. In that case, hammering the foe can help establish a perception of confidence and credibility with the 3rd party.
No seriously, once you recognize the components of Rhetorical Combat, you can determine if you are going to have a civilized discussion, or if the parties will weasel their way around for sport or entertainment.
If someone attacks my argumentation with uncharitable takes, my discourse with them is over.
I personally would rather arrive that the truth and be wrong, than win an argument and let the truth escape.
Like many commenters here I am disappointed by the lack of emphasis in this article of listening to the other side. Which is strange because at the end it concedes that it is not about winning the argument but gaining insight, valuable ideas, a sensible course.
One of the smartest ways I know to approach a discussion with insight in mind, is called steelmanning. It is the opposite of strawmanning. In strawmanning you attack altered, weakened versions of the other side's argument. In steelmanning you attack its best, most convincing version. You even seek to corroborate the argument and verify it with your opponent before attacking it. The benefit is that you genuinely have to understand the other's arguments before arguing against them.
I've found that it pays to argue all sides of a discussion. Provide arguments in favor of the other's opinion, provide arguments against your own position, counter-arguments against your arguments, etc., all the while providing context and relative valuations of the arguments. When the other party is not capable of arguing their case or they need to be convinced that your case is superior, then this will not only broaden your view on the subject, but it will also give you a good chance of steering the outcome towards the solution you prefer.
Of course, if you are just discussing matters with smart colleagues to flesh out dis(advantages), then you don't have to do that much work and can just ride the waves.
I initially read the comment as you positing your chain of thought (instead of theirs) and i was trying to work out the underlying fact being such a chain of logic.
I guess what ill say is that having a mental concept of debate, i personally find useful in getting to the root of ideas.
Of course circling the wagons in your echo chamber by always taking on the debate in your favour isn't good, asking people to further explain thoughts and arguments you don't understand/don't agree with i think is good and people should do more of it.
One beautiful piece of advice from the book: articulate your opponent's point of view so well, they'll want to say "I couldn't word it better" -- because that is how you know you have correctly understood the opposing view (a must before you start trying to argue against it).
Indeed, some the most beneficial exchanges to observe are outright arguments.[1] When no one disagrees, no idea is truly tested.
This reminds me of pg's "What you can't say" essay[2]. We may be able to identify areas we are wrong by evaluating the topics on which we are most unlikely to allow dissent.
From my experience, I've found that trolling and Socratic dialogue bring out the key points forthright and also highlight the most severe points of disagreement. That usually doesn't happen so fast when arguing with hard facts (when applicable). You can also hardly say that about a Wikipedia article or a propaganda poster/website/book.
This is also the basis of the Steel Man Argument [0] [1], as opposed to Straw-manning. Instead of attacking (basically nitpicking) the easy missteps in your opponent's reasoning, find the best form of their argument, and then argue with this. It seems to me as the ideal way to both win over those on the other side and provide yourself with a solid ground. You present yourself as avoiding undermining their position (really listening and caring to understand where they are coming from) and present a better argument yourself.
I was using "put work into it" as a shorthand but yes, this is what I mean: many counter arguments have merit as well. People always tend to assume the other side isn't being rational.
Arming yourself with rhetorical weapons like this, especially if you rather view them as tools for thinking, will get you some way but I think rarely aid in reaching consensus or understanding where disagreement comes from.
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