For when arguments go off the bottom of The Debate Pyramid
from Digit@lemmy.wtf to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 15:27
https://lemmy.wtf/post/29802418
from Digit@lemmy.wtf to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 03 Oct 15:27
https://lemmy.wtf/post/29802418
Is this a faithful recreation of the version of Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement with 2 additional bottom levels?
#nostupidquestions
threaded - newest
I ask, because, I’m not sure if the 2nd from bottom level was called “suppression”, nor am I sure (at all) what was the elaboration in the “violence” layer. … But I hope I’ve at least remained faithful to the spirit of it. Eager to hear any corrections. Or even, if anyone finds the original extended version, that would be great to compare to.
I just did this today in another thread. Currently at name calling, hopefully stops there.
Mods - please ban this
/s just to be safe
Hope better, higher.
Hopefully you can raise it to centrally refuting the point.
Or at least to counterargument, above mere contradiction.
The problem is if the other person doesn’t go higher. You can completely refute the central claim of their argument. But if they simply respond by essentially shoving their fingers in their ears yelling “I can’t hear you!” the argument will go no further.
Yup, it is problematic when others keep their arguments nearer the bottom. But at least your argument will have been valid. Even if they do attempt childish suppression.
One can even reference Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement, and some will still remain on the attack at the bottom. As just happened to me on another thread on lemmy. It harms their credibility, and their cognitive ability.
that pyramid makes it look like debate is build on a foundation of violence
Maslow’s Hierarchy of arguing. You can’t refute the central point unless you have a stable source of violence.
So here’s how a healthy debate progresses. First, you hammer the opponents face with your fists until your knuckles hurt. Switch to insults, and verbal violence. Focus on attacking the opponent’s appearance, gender ethnicity and so on.
Eventually, you can actually start approaching the main topic, but do that gradually. Begin with addressing the tone first. Next, you can just state the opposite of the main argument, but skip all logical reasoning and evidence.
And so on….
Who doesn’t like to start debates with a little fisty cuffs to warm-up?
A point to raise with Paul Graham (or whoever first depicted it as a “pyramid” graphic), for his appearing like debate is built on a foundation of name-calling.
Accurate. Before talking, monke solved disagreement with personal touch.
All law and civility is based on violence.
It’s the basis for human societies.
I feel that online arguments always start at the Contradiction layer and always sharply go down short of the violence part.
This is a really great resource, thanks for sharing it!
I’m sorry I can’t answer your implicit or explicit Q, but I have something to say about discussion or argument or disagreement:
It’s really good and important to communicate with people you disagree with. But sometimes there comes a point where all parties realize that there’s just no common ground, or what little there is has been charted.
You say one last thing, then it ends.
Or at least I would think so, but there’s way too many people who do not. It must go on, until … what, they whittled me down to agree after all? That’s where it becomes slightly abusive* imho.
* Of course I can just block them online, but not IRL
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I suspect (or perhaps am being wishfully optimistic), this may be confirmation bias, and that common ground and progressing dialogue can be rediscovered.
We are each not our arguments, and it serves the dialogue and exploration/search for truth, to rest in this non-attachment. But yes, there’s much risk of misfortune and succumbing to compellingly argued wrongness, failing to find adequate counterargument in a timely manner.
The argument was the discovering of common ground. But at some point it will end.
Ok but are you arguing for something selfish like getting them to agree with you? Or do you care that the president is a fucking racist child because everybody disengaged with his followers giving them free access to the eyes and ears of every day people.
We all lost because we disengaged. At the point you realize there’s no common ground, that’s when you pull out every trick in the book and beat their argument into the dirt. You don’t give up because there’s no point. The point is that you give no room for that bullshit to spread
When two humans can’t come to an agreement about fundamental human rights, the only option left is violence.
The problem with human rights is that they function as the justification for State violence. “We’re arresting you to protect property rights”. “We’re invading you to free your people from oppression”. I can’t think of a modern conflict that doesn’t have a “human rights” casus belli.
Even your comment follows the form: I can suspend human rights to protect human rights.
Exactly
When that conclusion is reached then unfortunately might makes right
Until you physically can’t communicate anymore, it’s always an option to keep trying.
That’s a nice thought
The lowest form of argument is semantics.
Wouldn’t that merely be responding to tone?
I don’t think the additional levels quite fit. From the original blog post:
The bottom two aren’t really themselves arguments. They aren’t things you read and then make a decision whether to take seriously, but rather means of controlling what you read to begin with. So while there is reason to criticize these practices, their inclusion muddles the scope of the message. The scope of the message is important, because the ideal of free expression has become more controversial since it was written in 2008, and it’s not itself a defense of free expression, more of a proposed heuristic for getting more out of a debate with the assumption that you are approaching that debate with the intention of improving your rational understanding of something or leading others to a rational understanding.
IMO arguments about censorship and violence need to be made separately, because the value of that approach (as opposed to words being valued mainly as persuasive weapons) is in question and has to be addressed.
I think insults and name calling should be higher, for shit-for-brains reasons
<img alt="" src="https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1749420068-20250612.webp">
Wheres the one for refuting a point that was not actually made and then pretending that was the central point?
The chart does not cover fallacies like strawman arguments. Perhaps that’s around a corner of the “pyramid”, on a side not shown.
i’d say fallacies in general are the same kinda thing as as hominem attacks… things that muddy the waters without even trying to address the point
I suppose fallacies could exist at any level… … except the bottom two (since they’re not really offering an argument at all)… and perhaps, arguably, at the top. That’s a tricky one though… could a point be centrally refuted, fallaciously?
i’m not sure that it could exist at most other levels… perhaps tone and name calling, but im not sure that the contradiction level is a fallacy: there’s no active intent there (not that active intent is required; i’m just not sure of the words right now)
like you’re stating the opposite case but that’s not intending to mislead exactly, and simply doing so isn’t harmful to the dialogue - it’s just not super helpful
i think it’s an action rather than a tactic, if that makes sense?
Took a while to contemplate how mere contradiction could be fallacious. It could be:
But, that was a good point to raise. On face value, it is at first difficult to see how mere contradiction can be fallacious.
(And I confess, only the first of those I came up with entirely by my self. The others were suggested by an LLM, with examples which I’ve omitted for brevity.)
ah yup that’s all very true!
Your suggestion that men are made out of pyramids is laughable and logically flawed.
Check and mate.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/7f6a166c-8f67-4ed4-a1f5-ed00ace02bb3.jpeg">
Could be not even on the chart, or could be suppression.
Zionists live at the bottom.
Orwellian language of the oppressor. But beyond that, yes.
No, I don’t think so. You’ve introduced metagaming. It’s an interesting thing you’ve created, but it’s not the same kind of thing.
???
I’m not sure you’re aware what’s happening here.
This is an attempt at a re-creation of someone else’s extended version. As noted in the text in the image, and in my other post here (which in hindsight (especially after seeing this comment) I think I should have included in the original post, and put my question in the title.)
Like I say, I’m not sure you’re aware of what’s happening here.
If you are, then please, by all means, if you have access to the original extended version this is a re-creation of, please share it, so we can compare where I went wrong. (I re-created it as faithfully as I could from memory, after exhausting myself on several attempts to find it again.)
If not, and you thought this extended version is entirely created by me, then let this reply be a correction, refuting that.
Also… re:
I’d like to know more about your thoughts and feelings on this, as it’s not clear to me how you think this is so, and is not apparent to me how the original 2-layer-extended version I’ve copied from memory is doing this.
To my thinking this extended version seems exactly in the same spirit of Paul Graham’s original, adding necessary extension to cover further levels by which some people seek to win arguments by worse means than mere name-calling.
But like I say, I’d love to hear more about your perceptions of this is being in error, and it being “metagaming”, and “not the same kind of thing”. If you can, for those of us to whom that nuanced insight’s not apparent, may you please elaborate on that?
Hey, remember “Too Much Coffee Man”?
Nope.
But I’d still love to hear what credence is behind your metagaming introduction assertion.
Invert the rows and you get “time and effort required”
For the original version, nearer true, since suppression may take time and effort, or none, similarly with violence. Even then, arguing tone seems to always take more time and effort than mere contradiction.
I like it when people are just talking shit on social media and someone steams in accusing people of “ad hominems” like it’s a formal debate.
As we all know, informal debates actually make ad hominems productive and good somehow.
I think sometimes in an informal context it’s worthwhile to realize the other person is not a credible source arguing in good faith. The amount of effort it takes to discern and counter bullshit is way more than the effort to just make shit up. Sometimes you don’t want to spend an hour researching to refute someone’s lies.
In that case, “You’re a dishonest person arguing in bad faith” is appealing, reasonable even, despite attacking the person instead of their statements.
I don’t think the use of a pyramid is ideal here. It implies that violence is the basis of every conflict and should be used most often.
* slaps alleycat around a bit with a wet trout *
Shouldn’t it be the other way around
how so?