Here’s a quick list of 7 things people sometimes do instead of losing arguments, when it would be too personally costly to change their position.
They pick a variable in the argument that is hard for the debaters to get closer to, and state that their raw-intuition is simply different to the person they’re talking to. (“I just believe that human ingenuity will overcome problems like this, and you don’t, and this isn’t something we’re easily going to be able to resolve.” or “I think we’re just not going to be able to resolve whether this city-wide intervention works or not without a good RCT.”)
They undermine your ability to have an opinion in the argument. (“I’m afraid there’s very advanced research papers you’d need to read to have an understanding of this” or “You have been wrong so many times on so many issues, I don’t think you’re worth trusting on this one”)
They performatively don’t understand basic ideas, or weaponize confusion. (“I’m sorry, could you explain your theory of ‘ownership’, I don’t really understand what you mean when you say you own your company” or “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what it means to ‘provoke’? I was just saying what I thought.”)
They get emotionally irate in a way that makes the format of the conversation breakdown. (“Eh, something about this conversation feels confused and pointless, let’s move on...” or “Look, it’s a Sunday night and I have work tomorrow, can you pick something we can talk about that we might actually get to the bottom of tonight or else I’m leaving.”)
They make false claims about social consensus that the conversation doesn’t have access to. (“Oh I don’t think anyone involved in the situation would agree with what you’re saying, and I know them better than you” or “As an expert in blah, I can tell you that other experts broadly hold my position, unfortunately I don’t have any quick links to show that.”)
They make it uncomfortable or costly for you to be part of the conversation. (“My interlocutor is showing by their arguments that they are a person of bad character” or other ways to make the social situation costly, such as bringing someone you have other conflicts with into the conversation.)
They simply do not show up to argue, and select their social environment to be people who won’t challenge them on this. (“I of course love open discourse and wish you all the best but I am simply very busy” or “It’s generally not appropriate to debate whether someone should quit their marriage / job / country / etc, that’s a private matter” or more often you don’t know their name and you don’t know what they’re up to and you never even know they exist.)
Schopenhauer’s sarcastic essay The Art of Being Right (a manuscript published posthumously) goes in this direction. In it he suggests 38 rhetorical strategies to win a dispute by any means possible. E.g. your 3 corresponds to his 31, your 5 is similar to his 30, and your 7 to is similar his 18. Though he isn’t just focusing on avoiding losing arguments, but on winning them.
You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something which you have invented entirely yourself. As a rule, your opponent has no books at hand, and could not use them if he had. The finest illustration of this is furnished by the French curé, who, to avoid being compelled, like other citizens, to pave the street in front of his house, quoted a saying which he described as biblical: paveant illi, ego non pavebo. That was quite enough for the municipal officers.
Of course it’s harder now given that people do have the internet at-hand, but I think I still see this tactic employed.
more often you don’t know their name and you don’t know what they’re up to and you never even know they exist
Yeah, there are 8 billion people like that, so that’s probably the most frequent case.
I think the list of “things people sometimes do instead of losing arguments” would be very long. Did you pick these 7 because they are most frequent (in your bubble) or just because they irritate you most?
I can add an example of a thing that irritates me (but maybe that’s just 1 person I talked to too much recently); it’s when after explaining some crucial fact that was missing in their ‘edgy’ perspective, the person suddenly goes: “and why is this topic so important to you? why do you care so much?” as if it’s weird to know facts about something, but just a while ago it was okay for them to spend fifteen minutes talking platitudes about it
Worth keeping in mind is that seeing one of these things happen doesn’t prove that what is going on is that subconsciously or consciously they believe they are losing the argument. It also shouldn’t be taken as evidence from the universe that your argument is correct.
People are fallible and run on noisy hacky biological computers.
So yeah, it’s worth noticing these sorts of argument breakdowns, but also worth being careful about reading too much into them.
Here’s a hypothetical:
Suppose instead that the person you are arguing with is very knowledgeable about specific topic X. You have dabbled in X and know more than the average layperson, but lack a deep knowledge of the subject. The two of you have a disagreement about X.
The two of you begin arguing about it, but after a few minutes it becomes clear to them that you don’t have a deep knowledge of the subject. They think through what they’d need to teach you in order for you to make a valid argument which would potentially change their mind. They estimate it would require at least 6 hours of lecturing, maybe divided up as 3 lectures, with lots of dense technical sources assigned as prerequisite reading before each lecture. They realize that that investment of time and energy, even if you agreed that you needed it and committed to wholeheartedly tackling it, wouldn’t be worth it to them in order to continue the argument. They give up on you as a conversational partner on the subject of X, and seek a convenient social out to end the conversation as soon as possible.
Here’s another hypothetical:
Someone begins having an argument with you, on a topic which for you is mostly emotionally neutral. You are arguing politely for your point of view in a fair and objective way. They, however, do not have an emotionally neutral stance on this. They start out arguing in an fair and objective way, thinking rationally and logically about each point. Soon however, the debate touches on deep powerful feelings they have, and (consciously or unconsciously) their ability to think objectively and logically about the subject becomes impaired by their emotional associations.
At some point, they realize that they are emotionally impaired. Like many people in such a situation, they don’t feel comfortable admitting this. Their emotional response feels like a vulnerability. They don’t at all think that they are wrong or losing the argument, they just don’t think that they’re going to be able to continue sharing facts and updating your worldview long enough for you to come to agreement with them. The discussion has simply become too uncomfortable for them to continue. They search for a social ‘out’ in order to end the conversation, and plan to never discuss this with you again, while remaining completely convinced that they are in the right.
In either of these hypotheticals, you might well be correct! Or wrong! They work either way!
So while I agree that ‘deciding that they are (or might be) wrong but not wanting to change their position’ is a possible motivating factor for these evasive behaviors, it isn’t the only possible source of motivation. Nor is it exclusive, many motivations may co-exist within a given situation. I do agree that it’s probably a non-zero factor in many cases.
Here’s a quick list of 7 things people sometimes do instead of losing arguments, when it would be too personally costly to change their position.
They pick a variable in the argument that is hard for the debaters to get closer to, and state that their raw-intuition is simply different to the person they’re talking to. (“I just believe that human ingenuity will overcome problems like this, and you don’t, and this isn’t something we’re easily going to be able to resolve.” or “I think we’re just not going to be able to resolve whether this city-wide intervention works or not without a good RCT.”)
They undermine your ability to have an opinion in the argument. (“I’m afraid there’s very advanced research papers you’d need to read to have an understanding of this” or “You have been wrong so many times on so many issues, I don’t think you’re worth trusting on this one”)
They performatively don’t understand basic ideas, or weaponize confusion. (“I’m sorry, could you explain your theory of ‘ownership’, I don’t really understand what you mean when you say you own your company” or “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what it means to ‘provoke’? I was just saying what I thought.”)
They get emotionally irate in a way that makes the format of the conversation breakdown. (“Eh, something about this conversation feels confused and pointless, let’s move on...” or “Look, it’s a Sunday night and I have work tomorrow, can you pick something we can talk about that we might actually get to the bottom of tonight or else I’m leaving.”)
They make false claims about social consensus that the conversation doesn’t have access to. (“Oh I don’t think anyone involved in the situation would agree with what you’re saying, and I know them better than you” or “As an expert in blah, I can tell you that other experts broadly hold my position, unfortunately I don’t have any quick links to show that.”)
They make it uncomfortable or costly for you to be part of the conversation. (“My interlocutor is showing by their arguments that they are a person of bad character” or other ways to make the social situation costly, such as bringing someone you have other conflicts with into the conversation.)
They simply do not show up to argue, and select their social environment to be people who won’t challenge them on this. (“I of course love open discourse and wish you all the best but I am simply very busy” or “It’s generally not appropriate to debate whether someone should quit their marriage / job / country / etc, that’s a private matter” or more often you don’t know their name and you don’t know what they’re up to and you never even know they exist.)
The last one is of course the most common one.
I’m interested to hear others in the replies!
Schopenhauer’s sarcastic essay The Art of Being Right (a manuscript published posthumously) goes in this direction. In it he suggests 38 rhetorical strategies to win a dispute by any means possible. E.g. your 3 corresponds to his 31, your 5 is similar to his 30, and your 7 to is similar his 18. Though he isn’t just focusing on avoiding losing arguments, but on winning them.
It’s quite funny, thanks for the link!
Quoting from number 31:
Of course it’s harder now given that people do have the internet at-hand, but I think I still see this tactic employed.
Yeah, there are 8 billion people like that, so that’s probably the most frequent case.
I think the list of “things people sometimes do instead of losing arguments” would be very long. Did you pick these 7 because they are most frequent (in your bubble) or just because they irritate you most?
I can add an example of a thing that irritates me (but maybe that’s just 1 person I talked to too much recently); it’s when after explaining some crucial fact that was missing in their ‘edgy’ perspective, the person suddenly goes: “and why is this topic so important to you? why do you care so much?” as if it’s weird to know facts about something, but just a while ago it was okay for them to spend fifteen minutes talking platitudes about it
I just picked the first ones that came to mind, so I guess they’re probably the ones I run into most frequently.
Worth keeping in mind is that seeing one of these things happen doesn’t prove that what is going on is that subconsciously or consciously they believe they are losing the argument. It also shouldn’t be taken as evidence from the universe that your argument is correct.
People are fallible and run on noisy hacky biological computers.
So yeah, it’s worth noticing these sorts of argument breakdowns, but also worth being careful about reading too much into them.
Here’s a hypothetical:
Suppose instead that the person you are arguing with is very knowledgeable about specific topic X. You have dabbled in X and know more than the average layperson, but lack a deep knowledge of the subject. The two of you have a disagreement about X.
The two of you begin arguing about it, but after a few minutes it becomes clear to them that you don’t have a deep knowledge of the subject. They think through what they’d need to teach you in order for you to make a valid argument which would potentially change their mind. They estimate it would require at least 6 hours of lecturing, maybe divided up as 3 lectures, with lots of dense technical sources assigned as prerequisite reading before each lecture. They realize that that investment of time and energy, even if you agreed that you needed it and committed to wholeheartedly tackling it, wouldn’t be worth it to them in order to continue the argument. They give up on you as a conversational partner on the subject of X, and seek a convenient social out to end the conversation as soon as possible.
Here’s another hypothetical:
Someone begins having an argument with you, on a topic which for you is mostly emotionally neutral. You are arguing politely for your point of view in a fair and objective way. They, however, do not have an emotionally neutral stance on this. They start out arguing in an fair and objective way, thinking rationally and logically about each point. Soon however, the debate touches on deep powerful feelings they have, and (consciously or unconsciously) their ability to think objectively and logically about the subject becomes impaired by their emotional associations.
At some point, they realize that they are emotionally impaired. Like many people in such a situation, they don’t feel comfortable admitting this. Their emotional response feels like a vulnerability. They don’t at all think that they are wrong or losing the argument, they just don’t think that they’re going to be able to continue sharing facts and updating your worldview long enough for you to come to agreement with them. The discussion has simply become too uncomfortable for them to continue. They search for a social ‘out’ in order to end the conversation, and plan to never discuss this with you again, while remaining completely convinced that they are in the right.
In either of these hypotheticals, you might well be correct! Or wrong! They work either way!
So while I agree that ‘deciding that they are (or might be) wrong but not wanting to change their position’ is a possible motivating factor for these evasive behaviors, it isn’t the only possible source of motivation. Nor is it exclusive, many motivations may co-exist within a given situation. I do agree that it’s probably a non-zero factor in many cases.