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Comment by throwntoday | Hacker News Reader

I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve. Discourse should be no holds barred. If your points can't stand unfiltered scrutiny maybe they're not as solid as you think.

I consider HN somewhere between 4chan and reddit. People here are actually smart (unlike reddit, which appears to attract angsty teenagers more than anything) and willing to engage in discussions outside of the status quo. It's not the chaotic jungle of 4chan, but if you're talking out of your ass people here are too clever to fall for it and you will be called out. On reddit if something sounds right to enough people who know nothing at all about said topic, it will get upvoted to the top where more people will absorb blatantly false information or self-fellating, pandering opinion.

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> I genuinely don't get what civil discourse is supposed to achieve.

I could be wrong but I think the purpose of being civil is so that people will actually want to talk to you.

Also logic is easier for humans to parse with everyone (the writer and the reader) helping to filter out distracting emotional cruft.

I prefer civility so we can try to have a discussion free of distractions.

Richard Hanania had some interesting comments about this ( https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/reflections-on-2021 )

> When I’m on Twitter, how rude should I be?

> I tend to admire thinkers who are civil and think less of those who are rude. Usually, I try to emulate those I admire and not those I don’t, but I actually think there’s an intellectual case to be made for rudeness and snark as long as it’s used in defense of worthy ideas instead of tribalism or self-aggrandizement (maybe a topic for a future Substack). One thing that used to bother me about academia was how someone would have a critique of a research project that completely discredited it, but nobody would actually follow the argument to its logical conclusion and say the research was therefore worthless and the author should go do something else. We as a society would be better off valuing being correct more and being civil less. Maybe you would ideally want both, but I suspect that there’s actually a tradeoff, as people who tend to be right about a lot are often jerks, and academics who are wrong about everything always seem to be complimenting each other for being stunning and brave (see #HighlightingWomen and #WomenAlsoKnowStuff). Economics is less crazy than other disciplines, and now there are female academics complaining that the field is too mean, which to me seems necessary to trim bad ideas. So I’m sort of a fan of incivility and rudeness, but also thinking carefully about how to make snark constructive (I’m aware this could all be motivated reasoning and I just enjoy insulting people). Another consideration is that people usually say that movements do better when they’re polite, so I may be harming the prospects of the views I advocate for. This always struck me as a belief rooted in social desirability bias, a kind of “nice guys finish first” philosophy. The woke are the most aggressive and least civil and tolerant political faction in the country, and they seem to have had the biggest political impact in the last few years. Trump supporters are the rudest people on the right, and they’re wining on their side. So why do we think civility is good for a movement? Like using Twitter though, this is one of those things where it’s easy to see the benefits while the costs are hidden.

I'm no genius by any means, I get into this topic a bit with a few friends of mine who exhibit this genius/jerk persona. They're great, sincere, loyal, and friendly in a million ways too: love em to death. I want to emphasize this because I don't want the jerk label to be too much of a dismissal.

I can agree that for them I think "jerk-ness" is really connected to dive and passion to be deeply informed and meaningfully correct. Everything else can feel like a distraction, or extra, or dancing around the point. And they can typically take being proven wrong gracefully because they respect correctness.

But I also find it (playfully) funny when they jump through logical contortions, ad-hoc speculation, just-so thinking when it comes to defending these things. If anyone had come to them with arguments structured so arbitrarily they would have ripped them to shreds for being unfounded and self-serving.

My take: Being a jerk is just as much a personal/emotional quirk. The challenges they have with managing the different odd logics of "emotion-y" things make valuing civility for others BUT ALSO to logically frame a convincing path for why they should be bothered to do anything different.

That's indeed motivated reasoning; insulting people closes them off to your ideas. In the context of the internet, where there's no pre-existing relationship of respect towards you, no one being insulted is inclined to pay attention regardless of your truth claims.

>. So I’m sort of a fan of incivility and rudeness, but also thinking carefully about how to make snark constructive (I’m aware this could all be motivated reasoning and I just enjoy insulting people).

It's easy for him to be rude. He has a big twitter and substack platform/following, but being a dick will promptly get you banned from many communities if you have not paid your dues.

It’s hard to get someone to not only change their mind, but openly agree with you that they are wrong and you are right, if they hate your guts. I’m always perfectly happy to change my opinion when discussing things civilly, but I’d never admit I was wrong to an asshole.

But why? Your argument boils down to "I don't admit defeat to people I don't like". Strikes me as incredibly dishonest

Rudeness may "win" the right to represent a side but does little to convince the "opposition".

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