How To Disagree

[BrassDragon]

One of my favorite writers, Paul Graham, recently posted a short essay called How To Disagree.

Here is his introduction to the piece:

The web is turning writing into a conversation. Twenty years ago, writers wrote and readers read. The web lets readers respond, and increasingly they do—in comment threads, on forums, and in their own blog posts.

Many who respond to something disagree with it. That's to be expected. Agreeing tends to motivate people less than disagreeing. And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you're entering territory he may not have explored.

The result is there's a lot more disagreeing going on, especially measured by the word. That doesn't mean people are getting angrier. The structural change in the way we communicate is enough to account for it. But though it's not anger that's driving the increase in disagreement, there's a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier. Particularly online, where it's easy to say things you'd never say face to face.

If we're all going to be disagreeing more, we should be careful to do it well. What does it mean to disagree well? Most readers can tell the difference between mere name-calling and a carefully reasoned refutation, but I think it would help to put names on the intermediate stages. So here's an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy:

His disagreement hierarchy is really interesting, and probably would even be useful in considering many disagreements on OO.net.

[musenji]

That was a quality essay; thanks for posting it. It applies to real life as well, though in real life, as noted, people are more likely to keep the bad comments to themselves.

I find it interesting that, on the internet, comments relating to YouTube videos and the like are so much less articulate than Amazon book reviews. I just realized it for myself yesterday (though I'd seen it on a comic a while back).

A couple of relevant comics (including the aforementioned):

http://xkcd.com/386/

http://xkcd.com/202/

[Mammon]

That was a quality essay; thanks for posting it. It applies to real life as well, though in real life, as noted, people are more likely to keep the bad comments to themselves.

I find it interesting that, on the internet, comments relating to YouTube videos and the like are so much less articulate than Amazon book reviews. I just realized it for myself yesterday (though I'd seen it on a comic a while back).

A couple of relevant comics (including the aforementioned):

http://xkcd.com/386/

http://xkcd.com/202/

I've noticed the huge quality gap between comments on Amazon and Youtube as well. It's because of the type of people who surf both. I think the type of people who make idiotic comments on Youtube wouldn't be surfing around Amazon as much.

I love those comics by the way.

Edit: I think people on this forum should take this essay's advice to heart. Too many shitstorms around here.

Edited March 29, 2008 by Mammon

[themadkat]

I've noticed the huge quality gap between comments on Amazon and Youtube as well. It's because of the type of people who surf both. I think the type of people who make idiotic comments on Youtube wouldn't be surfing around Amazon as much.

I love those comics by the way.

Edit: I think people on this forum should take this essay's advice to heart. Too many shitstorms around here.

It's funny you mention that xkcd comic. The one about "Someone is wrong on the internet!", my group of friends passed that around chuckling about how one or more of the group members is completely that person, especially the compulsive Wikipedia editor.

[Mammon]

I'd be that guy if Wikipedia didn't confuse me. "I need to edit this.... oh wait, this is toom much work and I gotta go do *real* homework."

[Chops]

Great essay. Paul Graham's Essays (and his book Hackers and Painters) are reliably top-notch, and usually quite inspiring (the business related ones, anyway).

He seems to be musing about forum discussing more lately, most likely because of his forum Hacker News.