Argument and the Internet
I have extremely strong likes and dislikes when it comes to pop culture. I’ve tried my hand a reviewing movies and TV shows and follow a lot of people who do. I’m an ardent supporter of a football club. I like to read about politics and sometimes try and form my own opinion about them. Combine all this with atrocious amount of time on Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, and any other online discussion thread and you get someone who reads hundreds of arguments everyday. Now these range from those that I do not understand because they make absolutely no sense, to those that I do not understand because they are a little too nuanced for my mind. Im someone who believes arguments are good and they help us decide better, think of solutions and test out our strongest held beliefs.But that is when arguments are good. When they use sound logic. Or when someone helps you understand where you might have gone wrong. The internet on the other hand is just a sling-fest of insults where it sometimes feels easier to locate Waldo than to try and reason out.
The world wide web was nothing like the world had seen before. It laid the universe in our laps and let us reach every nook and crevice there exists. Over decades, with internet becoming incredibly cheap and internet literacy booming, anybody and everybody could voice out what they think. It became the age of vocalising. We met similar minds across the globe, forged friendships, built communities and within them entire worlds filled with unknown buddies and friendly strangers. The amount of diversity we could connect and communicate with was unprecedented. And that might just be the problem. Rule number 332 of the internet states that “If it exists, then someone is offended by it. No exceptions (I’m not kidding, check http://rulesoftheinternet.com/internet-rules.php).
We are officially living during a time where there needs to exist an antithesis to everything. Where it is only normal to have a problem with what we see and offer a counter even when no one is asking. Although I need to clarify that is not the problem for me. Dissent is always good (No its not!). But the approach adopted for the same by the masses is often incredibly flawed and hence protects and even sometimes reinforces really harmful ideologies and notions. The argument when taken online is formed with and thrives on fallacy. It laughs at the face of logic and in fact sometime belittles it. Now I don’t claim to be the most rational human there ever was but rather this comes from a place of frustration and at times even humour.
Fallacies are false logic. Flawed reasoning that is cloaked and convinces the bystander that it actually makes sense. In fact when smartly used fallacies can be like cheat codes. They get you to your desired result without the necessary blocks of rationale. But they’re still cheat codes. You would be embarrassed if someone caught you using them. And to be realistic, the barrage of comments you would find on a Youtube are from “smartly used”. From what I notice, I could group the most common fallacies into two; Ad Hominem and Ad Populum (By choosing the most commonly and widely used fallacies I fall prey to one of them myself).
Ad Hominem translates from Latin(Am i fancy yet) as “To the man” and by god the internet loves this one. It is when replying to a point we attack the person and not the argument they are trying to make. It is so widely used since it is the easiest of the lot. I do not need to tell you why you are wrong because you are a man/woman/bhakt/communist/capitalist/democrat/republican/bot/fan of tom cruise/user of crocs/white person/black person/sensitive person/snowflake/redneck. If I point out and trash the entire group that you identify with well then, your argument really does not stand right? Well, no. At the end of the entire affair you have not really told me what is wrong with what I said but rather merely shown me you are extremely well versed with third grade insults. This happens especially if you’re a woman(Ad Feminam). The internet is extra cruel if your chromosomes happen to be the same. (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Gamergate_controversy is a scary example of how awful the internet is).
This stems from the fact that online I can choose to be a nobody. Behind the mask of Guy Fawkes and the protection of anonymity, I can insult you however horribly I want. Internet threatens every ethical code we have since it isn’t really me who says and does these horrible things. It’s the fake account that took me a grand total of 18 seconds to create. Not only is it incredibly annoying to try and explain to someone called “lolcatz42” but this opens up a pandoras box of attacks that sometimes are not restricted to insults. Several online arguments have ended with someone going through incredible effort to release personal and sensitive information(Refer back to incidents that happened in Gamergate). It is easy to conclude that with the freedom we gain with anonymity we lose a ton of security(Are you proud of me Hobbes?) and sometimes makes us wonder if that is worth pointing out to someone that “No just because the beach near house is not curved it means the Earth is flat”. If your response to anything ever takes into account who the person making the argument, well you’re already on the wrong path. Stupid.
The second fallacy you find a lot is Ad Populum or the Appeal to Popularity. This is where I argue I am right because most people seem to think I am right. Yes resounding support to your opinion might go to show there is a good chance that what you say must be right. You did manage to convince all 37 people to up vote your answer. Social media builds a world where opinions are quantified and measured using votes, likes and retweets. The more support you garner the more right you can get. This yet again does not at any point explain to anybody the flaw in what they say or the logic in what you say. We can check how many others believe what we think but that by no means can be the reasoning to our point. We have been given a sandbox where echo chambers are the most attractive architectures. We get to challenge others but only after we’ve insulated ourselves with an army of like minders(Is that a real phrase, if not I take credit for it).
Cognitive Bias is an idea which says that once we believe in something our minds will use any and all information to strengthen and support that believe(Even if evidence goes to show otherwise). We don’t go to the internet to be proven wrong.(Unless you do in which case check out https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/). We are there to tell whoever listening that we are right. Then how do I get across a point? Why do I go through the entire set of comments most of which insult my family to several generations? We’ll see that next time in the Art of Conceding.
The writer builds content to teach debate and analysis to young students at Warhorse.
