Anatomy of an Internet Argument #5 - "Your writing is dumb"

How to turn haters into supporters

Someone dunks on your work and calls it dumb. How do you respond?

Some take the view that “it’s a waste of time to respond to haters”. This is incorrect. The reason you should respond is not for their sake, but for your own.

When I read a comment like this, it forces my brain to pick a side:

1. 😓 They are correct, my writing is dumb

2. 😡 OR they are the dumb one. They don’t understand my brilliant work. Or they are jealous, have malicious intentions etc

(1) feels bad, and destroys my ability to keep working. (2) feels better, it retains my self worth, but it leaves me with this misanthropic world view: “why are people so rude and evil?? *sigh* i guess that’s just the way humans are”. This is even worse in my opinion. It’s also hard to justify when the person making the comment is smart & articulate. It requires self deception to consider someone dumb who is clearly not.

Good news: neither are true! My core principle is that when two smart, reasonable people disagree, it’s a puzzle. Either you are missing something, or they are. The only question is whether you will quit & take the easy “1” or “2” exits before you solve it.

https://x.com/DefenderOfBasic/status/1812591340888453179

The Ideal Outcome

If you can crack the puzzle, you get to secret option 3 where you feel good about your work AND retain your faith in the goodness of humanity. And you actually believe it, because it’s true, no self deception required!

Here is how this interaction ended. Can you figure what I said? (you don’t need to know what “D+G” is)

The Solution

Here’s what I said:

My tentative name for this technique is “acknowledge the evil they point to”. It’s a very common pattern:

• You say X

• Someone reads that as you saying Y

• Y is evil

• They attack you and say “what you are saying is evil!”

It’s *extremely* easy to diffuse. All you have to do is:

• Say yes: “Y is indeed evil! I agree with you!!!”

This usually triggers something like “wait, you also think Y is evil?? then why would you say what you said!” This is a great place to be because now it’s no longer you vs them, it’s both of you vs the puzzle. And you can now say “what I meant to say was [X rephrased in their language]” and they will get it, because they see you as on their side now.

Here is my friend Taijitu explaining this technique:

Remember that I do this for *me*. I do not want to be stuck with a pessimistic world view, and I do not want to delude myself. I am proud of my work, and I am not afraid to hear the truth about it.

If you believe something is valuable, real, and true, then nothing that anybody says can destroy that. The truth is not fragile. The truth becomes stronger when it is attacked with multiple perspectives. That’s how we know that it’s the truth!!

The Big Picture

Last week I wrote a “memetics 101” essay where I argue that there is a nascent scientific field that I am interested in studying. This internet argument analysis is a concrete application of the theories of memetics¹.

I first noticed this dynamic in myself, that when I read a hateful comment, I feel bad. My brain automatically finds ways to feel better. What it latches onto (option 1 or 2) has downstream consequences for my world view & behavior. This process of what my brain latches onto is NOT something I can control. But I CAN notice it, debug it & steer it².

I’m obsessed with this game of internet arguments because it’s proof that this stuff is real, concrete, and reproducible. It is science, and we can all contribute. You are carrying a research lab with you all the time: your own mind.

I think the more people understand these techniques, about what happens in your own mind, about how to persuade people, about why conflict arises and how to diffuse it, the more resistant we will be as a population against propaganda and manipulation (from the media, or from your real people in your life). But also the more we can coordinate, collaborate, and thrive.

I believe this strongly & I don’t think reading theory is the best way to learn. I think the science of the mind is as rigorous and reproducible as the laws of physics, or the rules of computer code. I think we all have direct access to truth about human minds, and I get immense insight about humans from playing these internet argument games. And I’d love for you to join me & report back.

If you have an interaction that made you feel bad, where you felt stuck between options 1 & 2, or where you failed to resolve it, I’d LOVE to hear it & give you feedback, especially if you’re OK with me writing a blog post about it!

1. How is memetics different from psychology, sociology, cognitive science? My current answer is: I think these different fields are fundamentally the same field & memetics is the name people use for a unified framework. Like imagine if biology & chemistry used different fundamental laws/didn’t agree on the existence of molecules. I think that’s the current state we’re in with sociology/psych etc.

2. This is the essence of what I want to study: how do I debug my own mind? How do I debug others? Can we collectively debug our communities, our society?