I’m pretty convinced that most of the worst internet behaviour is linked to poor dopamine regulation. They just want that sweet hit of satisfaction from the “gotcha” moment, the feeling of “winning” without having to expend any effort. When it’s called out they have nowhere to go other than trying to “win” again with a more extreme/absurd “gotcha”.
Yeah that’s definitely consistent with the behavior shown on this thread. People deploy arguments that I can’t imagine are actually supposed to be persuasive because they have absolutely 0 convincing content behind them. It feels almost as if they’re only doing it for the performance of arguing, not for the prospect of arriving at a better understanding of something or convincing someone else.
Debatebro culture has a lot to answer for. And twitter, for that matter. Before that at least most political arguments online were somewhat long-form in my experience. (I grew up on the Gaiaonline “Extended Discussion” boards lmao.) Now it’s all about trying to shut it down as definitively as possible within an arbitrarily small character limit. Hexbear is genuinely the only place I see anyone engaging in lengthy discussion nowadays
I’m pretty convinced that most of the worst internet behaviour is linked to poor dopamine regulation. They just want that sweet hit of satisfaction from the “gotcha” moment, the feeling of “winning” without having to expend any effort. When it’s called out they have nowhere to go other than trying to “win” again with a more extreme/absurd “gotcha”.
Yeah that’s definitely consistent with the behavior shown on this thread. People deploy arguments that I can’t imagine are actually supposed to be persuasive because they have absolutely 0 convincing content behind them. It feels almost as if they’re only doing it for the performance of arguing, not for the prospect of arriving at a better understanding of something or convincing someone else.
Debatebro culture has a lot to answer for. And twitter, for that matter. Before that at least most political arguments online were somewhat long-form in my experience. (I grew up on the Gaiaonline “Extended Discussion” boards lmao.) Now it’s all about trying to shut it down as definitively as possible within an arbitrarily small character limit. Hexbear is genuinely the only place I see anyone engaging in lengthy discussion nowadays