Anatomy of an internet argument

There is an art to replying and commenting, and probably like 60-70% of people I’ve seen on the internet fail at it. The important thing is not to speak your mind, but to “support” the OP. You can support them by disagreeing well & you can “mis-support” them by agreeing stupidly

I can’t tell whether this is so obvious it doesn’t merit mentioning, or so fundamental it’s hard to see, but I’ve noticed recently that there seem to be two core approaches people take to establishing trust in communication. Call them “truth-seeking” and “community-seeking.” Most people seem to have a dominant social mode in which they operate basi... See more