Julia GalefVerified account

For ppl saying "5) Also you might learn something" - true, but tbh this only feels salient & motivating w/the most thoughtful interlocutors.

When ppl are being unreasonable, arguing in bad faith, or making arguments you're already familiar with... it's hard to muster a sense of

"Ooh, I might learn something!" It's possible. But I'd feel fake if I claimed that "wanting to learn" is a motive for me in a typical debate

You might learn something in the anthropological sense. (Though at this point even that's fairly rare.)

You might also learn something by formulating arguments in a new way, but that's not a good reason to engage with bad-faith interlocutors.

I find it is also a good way disciplining yourself, behaviorally but also intellectually via charitable construction.

Also every once in a while, we, or at least I, blow the call on whether the interlocutor was bad faith after all.

Yes, good point. Hard to tell sometimes. But after a few tweets it often is very clear!

or to change *our* mind...

For sure, sometimes that happens & it's a benefit. But I'd be lying if I said it's a viscerally motivating factor, much of the time.

Perhaps it should be a motivating factor. I have learned much during online arguments, sometimes that others are idiots, sometimes it's me.

It's a motivating factor for some debates, definitely. For many others, however, P(learning) is pretty low.

And if we insist "You can ALWAYS learn from disagreements!" we just undermine our own case. Ppl *know* this isn't true, so we sound fake.

To sum up: "Striving to change your mind" is a great goal I highly endorse. But only a fraction of ppl/debates are ~conducive to that goal.

I'd like to think another important one is "I might learn something" :)

In some discussions, yeah, that feels like a salient and motivating possibility. In others, not as much.

There's also: 5. That someone should stand up for the truth, even if no one else cares. Eppur si muove.