alt Hacker NewsMost arguments are about ego, not ideas
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Here's a simple idea: You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
And three interpretations to consider:
0: The default: That person is irrationally attached to being wrong. Best to walk away, argumentation will be futile, and I have a life to lead.
1: Whoa! Sometimes that person is me.
2: If they didn't reason themselves into it, how did they get into it? What if their position represents their values, not some perfectly architected strategy for maximizing some hypothetical measure of rightness? In that case, if I wish to discuss it with them, I should be talking about their values and my values and where they intersect, rather than arguing right and wrong?
I have personally found all three of the above useful at one point or anther.
孟子曰：「人之患在好爲人師。」
Mencius said: "The trouble with people is that they are too fond of being teachers to others."
仁者如射，射者正己而後發。發而不中，不怨勝己者，反求諸己而已矣。
The benevolent person is like an archer. The archer corrects their own posture before releasing the arrow. If they shoot and miss, they do not blame the one who surpasses them, but simply turn around and seek the cause within themselves.
孟子曰：「愛人不親，反其仁；治人不治，反其智；禮人不答，反其敬。行有不得者，皆反求諸己，其身正而天下歸之。《詩》云：『永言配命，自求多福。』」
Mencius said: "If you love others and they do not become close to you, reflect on your own benevolence. If you govern others and they are not well governed, reflect on your own wisdom. If you treat others with courtesy and they do not respond, reflect on your own respectfulness. When things do not go as you wish, always turn inward and seek the cause in yourself. When your own person is upright, the whole world will turn to you. The Book of Odes says: 'Always strive to align with your destiny, and seek your own blessings.'"
One of the most cancerous developments of our generation is a bunch of people isolating themselves from everyone else, and having their perfect unchallenged audience captured views spread far and wide.
On a more personal level, the reason people are frustrated about arguing is because they can’t fully articulate their reasons. They don’t realize it themselves. The older you get and the more practiced you get at arguing, the less contentious it becomes, as you can simply say what underpins what you’re saying in an easily understandable way, and then if that didn’t convince the other side, you did all you could.
Other than the obvious, self-reflective question that the author doesn't pose - "what if I'm the one who's wrong?" - I think it's worth arguing if the conditions are right.
Because I also like being correct, a debate to me has become something of a game where (ideally) we both win in both end scenarios: either my thinking was correct, and now I verified/validated it, and got you to think differently; or my thinking was incorrect, and you corrected it for me (or helped me get there).
However, I implicitly figured out that there are some qualifiers to actually getting the benefits:
- Can I be, and remain, polite and reflective? If not, my personality or knee-jerk responses will always get in the way of an argument's benefits.
- Is the subject sensitive to the person for whatever reason? If yes, any argument inadvertently becomes a signal of a person's worth.
- Are we in a competitive setting (e.g., corporate meeting, or larger social group)? If yes, any argument inadvertently becomes a social status competition.
- Do I know how to stick to the issue (instead of moving goalposts), and stop when the debate gets overwhelming (too long, too much difference)? If not, I'll overstep the boundary after which it isn't mutually beneficial anymore.
These are not easy to figure out, and sure, maybe stop arguing with most people if the conditions aren't right.
But unless you stop communicating altogether, I don't see how you can stop arguing with people in general.
There are 2 very different kinds of arguments. Arguments where you're trying to convince the other person. And arguments where you're trying to convince bystanders. These require completely different tactics.
If you're trying to convince the other person, be humble. Be gentle. Be subtle. Ask them questions. Let them think they came up with the idea entirely on their own. If any bystanders are watching this discussion, they are more likely to think that the other person is right, or that they are "winning". But this will give you the best possible chance of convincing the person you're talking to.
If you're trying to convince bystanders, project confidence. Present compelling evidence. Pick apart the other person's arguments and show why its flawed. Chances are, this will make the other person dig in even more strongly and resent you. But this will give you the best chance of convincing neutral bystanders.
Use the right tool for each job. If you're using "debate tactics" in a 1:1 discussion, you will never get the desired results, no matter how data-driven and logical your arguments are. I've made this mistake far too many times, and this seems to be what OP is getting at as well
Semi-related piece of advice for younger folks:
When you join a new team, don't try to change team tools, processes etc. starting in the very first week.
Most things are the way they are for a reason. Your "obviously better" idea may lack the full context. Start with observing the situation, talking to people to build understanding and historical context, and don't jump to conclusions too early.
Sometimes you'll be right, and things are suboptimal and based on long-outdated assumptions. Then, it's great to change them and improve! Freshman eyes are great for spotting such inefficiencies, and "new blood" is critical to make the team well-functioning and to improve the legacy stuff.
But improving and rewriting everything all the time has a cost. If you do too much of it too quickly, the team loses the understanding of long-stable processes and things. You may become a bottleneck as the "last person who touched this" in too many areas. People also have limited bandwidth to support your "rewrite everything" ideas every day, while trying to move on with their tasks.
Don't hesitate to suggest improvements, but please be mindful about the volume - especially in times of AI where everything can be vibecoded in an hour.
Finally, some "objectively better" things have no business justification. Improving performance of a piece of code than runs once a month? There's probably 10 more important things to do in your backlog.
They never mention they could’ve been wrong. The author assumes they’re always right, but that trying to convince others and argue them to their right side is not valuable.
How about: maybe I’m wrong and I didn’t let their ideas influence me. How about: even when I think I’m right, it will be better to calmly kindly discuss, listening as much as talking, not debating or arguing or speaking over them, but attempting to see new perspectives.
I could well be wrong about this :)
I came up an academic philosopher, before I switched careers. When you're surrounded by academic philosophers, you become very used to argument as a default form of interaction. People expect that they'll be asked to give reasons for their assertions, and that those reasons will be scrutinized and challenged.
And it's great! You can learn a ton from having these arguments with smart, engaged interlocutors. It's not that ego doesn't come into it at all. Often, the "loser" of the argument -- and there isn't always one! -- won't admit they're wrong, and at some point will just bow out and live to fight another day. But the point is that everyone agrees they need reasons for their beliefs, and rebuttals to strong objections, and if they lack those they need to go find them. So the arguments serve to help you find those gaps. People argue because they want to be right, but being right is hard. So you work at it. You aren't just trying to assert dominance, you're trying to prove -- to yourself, first and foremost -- that you have the right beliefs! And if you can't, you might even change your mind.
Leaving that world was eye-opening, because I still expected people to feel a powerful need to justify their beliefs. But most people don't, and they take the mere act of asking for justification to be a personal attack. This cost me relationships with people until I really learned the lesson.
>Slartibartfast: I'd far rather be happy than right any day.
>Arthur: And are you?
>Slartibartfast: No. That's where it all falls down of course.
>Arthur: Pity. It sounded like rather a good lifestyle otherwise.
Adulthood, career, marriage, parenthood, nearly everything since I first read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a (pre?)teen has been slowly, stubbornly learning that this exchange is basically the key to everything.
I argue about ideas, that is why I enjoy it so much.
Someone upthread mentioned that arguments can be about convincing the person you're arguing with or convincing the audience which is absolutely true.
I'd suggest that arguments are frequently not about convincing anyone of anything. They become conversations withe people who already agree with you using the person you're arguing against as a foil.
In my workplace we argue without ego and with the assumption that we are working together to find the best way to do something. If someone realizes that the other person is right, they will say something like "Ah, OK, yes that's true..." and from that point on it stops being an argument and becomes a collaboration where both of us examine the correct position to make sure we're clear on it and its potential downfalls.
Reading this article has me a bit surprised, and the culture the author describes does not sound like an engineering culture to me. I am a bit saddened to think that people have to work in such an environment, and I am curious what it would take to change such an environment for the better.
Most people make their ideas and opinions part of their identity. And so if it turns out they are wrong about something then a part of them has died, or at least severely injured and needs to be healed. A few people are not like this and their ideas are more like a collection of trading cards they keep in their pocket. They think they have a pretty good collection but are not opposed to throwing out one for another if they find something more valuable.
The latter types are the only ones who you can have honest intellectual debates with.
> So I’ve drawn a line. I only discuss pros and cons with smart people; I don’t argue right and wrong with ego-driven ones. With the first kind, a disagreement is a joint search for the better answer, and both of us walk away sharper. With the second, there is no answer being sought, only a self to be defended. Knowing which conversation you’re in is half the battle. The other half is having the discipline to walk away from the second one.
This is something I've learned over the last year and it's made life a lot better.
Once you detect that you're having a battle of egos (not minds/ideas), cut and run is the next best step. I've internalized a little mantra I start saying to myself as soon as I catch it: "they want the fight, you don't." Repeating that internally made it very easy to move away from arguing with others all of the time and knowing when to move away from people who just want to fight to fight.
"Never wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig enjoys it."
My human-written summary:
Most people are ego-driven and won't listen to your logical arguments. They will only get angry with you even if you're right. So don't argue with them. Give advice only if they ask.
If you really know something others don't realize, maybe that's a valuable edge for you to profit from. Use it.
And don't hesitate to ask others for advice when it might help you.
Ego kills growth
Lot to unpack and there is some real gold here (at least for me).
> In this world, there is no one you can change. Not your spouses, not your friends, not your kids, and of course not strangers on the internet. Only yourself.
A few years ago, working at $PREVIOUS_COMPANY, we had 4-5 hours of company-sponsored time with a a coach/counselor and she also said those words to me. It's something that hit something inside myself and it's really, really true and... liberating, when you fully embrace it. Especially when you are a parent, but also in many other situations. You cannot change the others. You can only change yourself.By changing yourself MAYBE you might influence others - especially kids, by being a virtuous example, and they can decide to follow what you do. But changing people, let alone by arguing, that's impossible and will only cause you frustration.
I like the author’s viewpoint, but I would have appreciated mentioning that:
1. Truth does not always rely on Boolean logic. Both A and non A can be true at the same time
2. Truth is often relative, so it may change depending on the viewpoint
“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.” ― George Bernard Shaw
I find this far too black and white. There's a lot to gain from conversations where you can't change the other person's mind. If you see making them agree with you as the only positive outcome, I can see why you'd give up arguing with people, but you're losing out on a lot of potential benefit.
I also think it's too adversarial. The author's claim, "If you genuinely believe something others don’t, that’s not a debate to win. That’s an edge," is not very persuasive, because you communicate far more with teammates, bosses, and subordinates than with enemies and competitors. Most of the people you communicate with on a day-to-day basis are people who can be dealt with more profitably through cooperation.
"You Can Only Change Yourself" is another far too absolute conclusion. You change and are changed by everybody you come in contact with. Every conversation is a chance to influence someone. If you can't make them see your point right away, you can sow the seeds for a future insight. Or you can clarify why you disagree. You can change their mind from "this person doesn't understand the problem" to "this person cares about an aspect of the problem that I don't think is primary."
I think the author should broaden their idea of what can be achieved in talking with someone they disagree with. It won't help them win arguments, but it will help them reap more benefit over time.
There is arguing, and then there is arguing. The whole post discusses whether to argue or not, without touching on the fairly important (imho) topic of how to argue and how not to argue.
Vast majority of people probably hate to argue with someone who's a jerk during said argument, regardless of their correctness.
I've also found myself arguing against someone whose point I actually support, but who is arguing in a non-sensical way, or with bad arguments for said point. Because I don't want that point to be dragged down by easy-to-defeat arguments, even if I then have to fight both sides.
But anyway: how you argue matters, put some effort into it, and don't assume that being right means you're doing a good job.
I adopted a behaviour at work that if I am fairly convinced about X ending up being wrong, and I see that trying X is not too costly (esp compared to arguing about it), then I just let X eventually fail, and take it from there, already knowing why this happened.
People seem to learn better this way, and there is no better argument than reality itself. Of course it cannot be used everywhere, eg if trying X until it fails takes too long, if it involves buying an expensive machine that we will not be able to change etc, but there is a good portion of stuff it can actually reduce interpersonal friction on. And the process of changing from X to Z happens organically that sometimes I don't even have to explicitly say that "I knew all along" (though I must admit I derive an internal satisfaction that I knew all along).
It was a time when at work there was a widespread interpersonal tension between everyone, and reducing interpersonal friction was more important than spending more or less time on sth that would not work. I dont think arguing and discussing things are to be avoided per se, but in certain circumstances, if one knows that a team will eventually go down on path Z anyway due to necessity, it may not be worth arguing about at all.
There are two tools I usually employ in "technical arguments":
* The socratic method. I ask questions. Why did you do it this way? What are the tradeoffs? Get them to explain their reasoning. And not in an accusative way, I'm genuinely interested in how they arrived at the decision. Sometimes I just need more context; sometimes they rethink; sometimes we figure out something new together. It is a voyage of discovery, no egos involved.
* Be tolerant. Sometimes design issues are bikesheddy, and my rule is to err on the side of "let the person doing the work decide". Even if it isn't the way I would do it. I will usually phrase it something along the lines of "this is how I would do it, but if you strongly prefer this other way, it's fine". Pick battles that are important; help engineers develop "good taste"; but try to empower, not disempower, them.
I have some hard lines but they're easy and everyone knows them. Immutable data structures, use the typechecker, constructor injection, don't use null, etc etc. I wrote up a doc that all new employees read and it's distilled into a CLAUDE.md file. AI review usually takes care of these.
The only place I find that I still have to push a little is applying the YAGNI rule. Folks aren't particularly resistant, they often don't realize when they're violating it. Over-engineering is habitual. But people eventually get it.
The article reminds me on smart and competent people, that in addition to being smart lack the feeling for social norms and empathy. Yes, they tend to unnecessarily run into arguments and fights. Not because they are right, but because they are really insisting on being right. They are pushing the "enemy" into a corner where they would have to declare defeat in public and take the shame. Like animals, their opponents get very uneasy and aggressive in such a situation. People who watch this hate the "clever" person for not handling this more gracefully, and are afraid of being themselves caught in the corner the next time. You lost. Without knowing the author personally its hard to tell, so this is just my hypothesis/thought.
I disagree on one point though: You don't have to stop arguing, you just should do it differently. You will really "win" when the other person thinks it was actually their own idea, or that you came to this conclusion together. You can do so by staying kind, humble and polite and guide the other person towards this revelation, and offer small thoughts and hints. If you have charisma you can be more direct, but such people are in a different league anyways.
The most important thing is staying friendly and kind. You will never convince or win people with an offensive "YOU ARE WRONG!" attitude.
Reeks of AI prose past the first paragraph or two. I don't need to know a bot's opinion on how to convince others.
I realized many arguments end up not well because we keep focusing on the wrong thing and neglect the question that actually matter: why do you believe in what you believe; asking people to define the terms they use is also helpful and forces them to be precise and think more about their beliefs, which a healthy thing to do. People are often much nicer than we think when we approach them with kindness and they can see in our eyes that we actually care about them and not just winning. Yet at the same time we need to lower our expectations. Because we need to be kind to ourselves, otherwise we would feel too frustrated. I'm talking about daily life arguments. In some online arguments or public debates, sometimes you need to be harsher to protect others from what you claim and believe is wrong.
> Help people when they explicitly ask for help. When someone asks, the cause and effect reverse. You’re no longer imposing your judgment on someone who never wanted it.
Maybe this is why pull request reviews can become contentious. The reviewer thinks the author is open for feedback while in fact it’s just the widely accepted practice and team/company enfored that you are supposed to give feedback.
This is epic: "People Are Not Rational We like to believe humans are rational animals who occasionally feel emotions. It’s the reverse. We are emotional animals who occasionally think."
Thanks for sharing
What's that old saying?
> "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
Due to my odd approach to life, I'm not competitive. Haven't been, for most of my life. It hasn't been a problem.
I always find it fascinating, that folks can't just be good at something; They have to be better than someone else.
I know that it happens, because I see it all the time, but I can't actually understand it.
> Most people don’t reason their way to conclusions and then feel accordingly. They feel first, then reason backward to justify the feeling.
That is how sales work, if someone is ever interested in increasing sales and one of the pieces of advice that opened my eyes the most. It is like the argument: hey, stop reasoning about features with your potential customer and making them bored: make an impact, something that creates reaction. Good or bad (bad is even better than indifferent sometimes).
Something that provokes emotion. Otherwise they are going to be indifferent.
They are not going to end up buying bc of the features most of the time anyway when there are ten or fifteen similar. They will do it bc you cause some kind of emotional impact, be that trust, authority or something else, though those ones are pretty important.
Exactly.
C. S. Lewis participated in many arguments about Christianity. He was a professor and had a very good memory (the biography says "total recall") so he was a formidable opponent. Yet he himself wrote in private writings that he never felt himself farther from Christianity than after having won in another such dispute. It was around fifty, I think, when he decided to stop doing that and started to write the first book about Narnia.
Sincere communication is only possible when the ego defenses are down; when ego is vulnerable. Ego is scared of that, so this rarely happens. But this is the only true communication; all the rest are status games. (If you haven't read "Impro" by Keith Johnstone, pick it when you have a chance.)
One point that was not addressed is the sorry feeling one gets when others are wrong and you are right, but for whatever reason you cannot convince them otherwise, and as a consequence they are going to go in a direction that they will severely regret, or would regret if they survived it, entirely foreseeable (sadly).
I have often had to tell myself "I wish they had listened to me." or, not quite "I wish I was wrong", but at least "I regret that I was right." because it led to a situation where someone suffered without objective need for it. Only a jerk would proudly state "Ha, of course I was right, they should have listened to me."
I added this post to my HN favorites.
I experienced myself at least two of those points. In different words:
Never teach to people that did not ask you to teach them. They will not listen to you. They will forget. They will not thank you. Time wasted. As a corollary, I'm sorry for most teachers at school and even at universities.
You can change your mental state. A friend of mine told me about 3 years ago "When X happens I can't change the way I react" and she was not necessarily reacting in a good way. My answer was "Your mental state is the only thing you can control." She stopped talking and started thinking. I don't know if it had an effect. Changing the way one reacts to a stimulus takes time and effort but it can be done.
This article is sort of a self-advertised red flag that the writer is rationality-challenged.
1) many disagreements are not ultimately about facts but about intentionally different tradeoffs/prioritization.
2) if in fact one argues on facts/logic then losing the argument means you had your own logic or facts corrected, which should be a good thing, not a bad one.
I once had a manager who was extremely quiet and very good at winning arguments. They too would never argue. Instead they would present themselves in as supportive of a way as possible, and then just ask questions. There was never a point in the questioning where he would declare you made a mistake. Instead, he would just remain silent and maybe write something down. It was astonishing to watch. There was no counter to it. Maybe the clock, but he was persistent too, like Colombo.
I read “how to win friends and influence others” many times but didn’t realize the main lesson is not to argue. That is until I reached 40. So, some lessons will take certain age to understand. I bet the OP is not in their 20s or 30s even.
One reason TO argue is to seek out opposite points of view, which you can then use to hone your own thinking, including doing a 180.
I stopped engaging in arguments once I realized there's very little to gain by trying to convince someone you're right (regardless of who's actually right).
If there's nothing major at stake (say, trying to convincing someone with cancer to seek treatment instead of ignoring it), it's not worth your (or their) time.
> Once you accept this, arguing with logic starts to look absurd. You’re bringing a proof to a feeling. The proof is airtight. The feeling doesn’t read.
> There’s a clean exception to all of this, and it flips the entire logic.
Humans don't write like this. "The feeling doesn't read" is nonsense.
I've met quite a few people who see themselves as rare rational individuals in a world full of irrational, emotion-driven people. In each case, when I've gotten to know them better, I realize they actually have pretty low awareness of their own emotions and are as prone to irrational outbursts as anyone.
Saying something like this signals to me not that you've achieved mastery of your emotions, but rather that you haven't even learned to notice when you're having them.
Or, perhaps you're just an AI operating autonomously and in fact have no emotions, in which case well played for making it to the top of HN and successfully wasting my time.
Tempted to hate this guy but he's probably like, 19? Just starting to learn how humans work but still not aware he is one. Ahh the world, full of humans (always with the pronoun "they" and not "we"), full of ego and totally resistant to being wrong, rejecting my noble and completely egoless resistance to being wrong. As well as my compulsive need to best them in an argument, er I mean nobly rescue them from their ignorance! But sadly they will all have to live their lives first-hand without my help, developing reasons for thinking about certain things in certain ways, as if completely unaware that I was finally born and came to save them from all that!
> If someone was wrong, I wanted them to know it, and I wanted them to know exactly why. I collected counterarguments the way I collected patches. I believed that if I just laid out the logic clearly enough, the other person would have no choice but to come around. Truth would win.
This is probably how flat earthers think. If you engage in arguments without being prepared to be proven wrong, and you're hoping people to accept your argument as truth instead of both of you arriving at the truth together, you're not debating, you're being eristic (which is a fancy word I just found).
Why was the title changed? It no longer reflects the original title but did previously
I would question how effective this would be in any kind of professional engineering setting.
Oh your math is wrong? Well i guess i cant discuss this...
Arguing has negative connotations and conveys the author is bringing up minor quibbles for the sake of being pedantic: "Is the sky blue?" -> "No, the sky is not blue we just perceive it to be that way due to..."
My main complaint of the article, though, is the lack of nuance. Especially amongst complex topics where, maybe the definition of correct is not established, or there are multiple correct/valid interpretations.
See below "The Blind Men and the Elephant" fable:
"I would walk away technically right and completely alone."
Seen many great engineers walk that road right into burnout and then exiting tech all together being fed up.
It's a sad and anti social state that drives people to depression and more sad is the fact that all you really can do is just take it and accept at work things just aren't always logical and correct.
It's more and more, unlikely to lessen as more people enter tech with shallower required upfront knowledge due to more advanced tooling being available to them (more often then not, built by that 'grumpy guy' who quit.)
Try to accept it and have hobby projects you can scratch your real engineering itch with, would be my advice.
In career, I found infrastructure a great place to work in the sense that data wins arguments since the nemesis is physics. In product spaces, I flounder because there is no real data as products depends on people and people can massage data any way they want.
In life, I've learned "don't cast pearls before swine" as you have to understand if someone wants to learn something. I fully accept that I can be wrong, but I look at results I drive and I would like to believe others want similar results. This is far from true since some people just like complaining about problems and doing nothing about it. I don't understand this mindset, at all, but I've come to learn that I will tell what I'm doing, answer questions to the curious, and then stop there.
> I only discuss pros and cons with smart people; I don’t argue right and wrong with ego-driven ones.
There is a certain logic to this. If someone can't reason, there is no point in giving them the truth. You might as well lie to them.
Of course, your ability to assess someone's reasoning depends often on their existing opinions, so there is a circular reasoning here where two sides with the same mindset can each believe the other to be stupid because of their position, and then refuse to engage in good faith discussions.
I don't make a lot of friends this way, but I usually try to just focus on facts no matter what, and do my best to separate the fact that I'm discussing ideas and not people. An idea might be good or bad given a certain situation, but not the people involved.
That leads to political disaster. Changing just myself has an almost unnoticeable effect on the collective life, while political organization, action and propaganda work much better, and those rely on arguments and persuasion.
Of course, the author seems to have a pretty individualistic mind, comparing the political nature of humans to startups and markets, and that will lead to disaster in my opinion. We cannot survive in the long-term like that.
This article really resonates with me. During college and graduate school studying philosophy, picking apart someone's argument and pointing out the esoteric and nuanced ways which made it wrong was celebrated. The general attitude in my cohort was:
"I want to be wrong, because when I realize I'm wrong, I've become smarter."
This was probably the most intellectually fulfilling period of my life.
After graduate school, I literally had to re-learn how to interact with people. No conversation was good faith. Everyone cared much more about the vibe of the conversation -- even when discussing highly nuanced political opinions suggesting they were genuinely curious for feedback -- more than they cared about having a coherent view on the topic.
I slowly realize that the best way forward was to have three interaction profiles with people. Generally there is the "I don't know you" profile, with all Dale Carnegie's rules fully in place. After that, there is the "we know each other" profile, where I would occasionally offer some probing questions on more or less uncontroversial topics to see whether or not good faith disagreement is allowed. And lastly there is the "we know and trust each other" profile, where I can actually have the open and honest real discussions with people that were so trivially normal in the philosophy department lounge.
Learning to do this was honestly one of the saddest and most disheartening things I've gone through in my life. It's genuinely stupid that we can't just talk to each other like adults.