I'd say that was a post which was convincing without being obnoxious.

You raise an interesting point. I think it's possible to be forceful and polite at the same time, but the rules for doing so are less obvious (at least to me) than the rules for being polite.

Anyone have ideas about how that combination works?

I've spent a lot of my internet posting career , years ago, being "nice" in arguments, which, yes, I'm capable of. I found that, rather than turn people on to my views, it simply legitimized, in their minds, the ridiculous positions they were taking, and allowed them to confidently go away believing it was just a case of "reasonable people disagreeing about a tough issue".

My experience is different. I used to post online in a more critical and uncompromising fashion. Yet over the years, I came around to a more pleasant and accommodating style, and I find that it works better. Even though I have to swallow things I would like to say on the spot, I often look back on the thread later and feel glad that I took the high road.

I can't convince everyone that I debate with, but I've managed to pull a bunch of people in my direction, which I don't think I could have accomplished with a more bombastic style. Furthermore, my view is that even if I can't convince a particular person I'm debating with, I can still convince the lurking fence-sitters.

Do I want to murder my karma to point out flaws in Alicorn's advice, or do I want to be "part of the tribe"?

In a top-level post that you will remember, I criticized Alicorn's advice in a way that only gained me karma. This sort of thing can be done.

Why do you want to change minds? Is there any chance that you could abandon that value? Because I believe, paradoxically, that it would help you achieve that same value :-)

I'm probably better than you at general social skills, but the first drafts of my comments sometimes sound disturbingly like yours. Then I notice that excessive subconscious desire to change minds interfered with my clarity of thought, and rethink/rewrite the comment. I want the "ideal commenter me" to never care who said what, who's right and who's wrong, etc. My perfect comment should make a clear, correct, context-free statement that improves the discussion, and do absolutely nothing else. I consciously try to avoid saying things like "you're wrong", saying instead "the statement you propose doesn't work because..." or even better "such-and-such idea doesn't work because...".

Ironically, people do often change their minds when talking to me about topics I understand well. But I'm not setting out to do it. Actually I have an explicit moral system, worked out from painful experience, that says it's immoral for me to try to convince anyone of anything. I try to think correct thoughts and express them clearly, and let other people make conclusions for themselves.

So therein lies the problem: do I want to change minds, or do I want to be liked? Do I want to murder my karma to point out flaws in Alicorn's advice, or do I want to be "part of the tribe"? I think you know what decision I've made, and why you haven't done the same.

Now I understand better! You're Gilbert and Sullivan's Disagreeable Man! ;)

If you give me your attention, I will tell you what I am:
I'm a genuine philanthropist - all other kinds are sham.
Each little fault of temper and each social defect
In my erring fellow-creatures, I endeavour to correct.
To all their little weaknesses I open people's eyes,
And little plans to snub the self-sufficient I devise;
I love my fellow-creatures - I do all the good I can -
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!
And I can't think why!

To compliments inflated I've a withering reply,
And vanity I always do my best to mortify;
A charitable action I can skilfully dissect;
And interested motives I'm delighted to detect.
I know everybody's income and what everybody earns,
And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;
But to benefit humanity, however much I plan,
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!
And I can't think why!

I'm sure I'm no ascetic; I'm as pleasant as can be;
You'll always find me ready with a crushing repartee;
I've an irritating chuckle, I've a celebrated sneer,
I've an entertaining snigger, I've a fascinating leer;
To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two;
I can tell a woman's age in half a minute - and I do -
But although I try to make myself as pleasant as I can,
Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!
And I can't think why!

I second cousin_it here. If your goal is to persuade (and especially if you care about persuading third parties), then your methods may be counterproductive even if they seem more effective to you.

(For a classical example, take the dialogues of Socrates: polite and deferential to a fault, never directly convincing the antagonist, but winning points in the eyes of observers until the antagonist is too shamed to continue. I don't find this to be the ideal of Internet argument, but it would be an improvement.)

It certainly feels better to berate a fool on the Internet than to be more detached, and you might indeed generate success stories from time to time; but you may actually be less effective at swaying the bulk of opinion. I find that I'm often hesitant to even read your long comments in the first place, due to their usual tone. It's your call how to behave on Less Wrong, but it's my call whether to downvote your comments, based on whether they represent the sort of discourse I want to see here.

In contrast, when I used my regular, "asshole-ish" tone, then yes, at the time they resisted my point with all the rationalization they could muster. But shortly afterward, they'd quietly accept it without admitting defeat, and argue in favor of it later.

Note that this does not automatically mean that it was you who changed their minds. I've had similar experiences to you, but I just assume that it means reality in the long run is more convincing than I am in the short run. It's really pretty narcissistic to assume that you're changing anybody's mind about anything, regardless of what voice you use. ;-)

Also, your assertion that you have only two modes of discourse (ineffectual-nice or effective-asshole) is a false dichotomy. Aside from the fact that there are more than two ways to speak, it leaves out any evaluation of who the target audience is -- which is likely to have as much or more impact on the effective/ineffective axis than whether you're nice!

I didn't give up after I found myself unemployed and living with my parents

Do you notice that you ooze aggression? Just look at the sentence above. It will clearly be interpreted as "intended to hurt" by 99% of observers. Update.

A general advice on being more civil: in any post (or a list of things) that you write, erase the last item before posting. It's usually the one you sneak aggression into. I think it will do wonders to your karma.

ETA: quickly edited to remove some of my own unproductive aggression

Or for an example here, does anyone remember Daniel_Burfoot's brilliant epiphany about how to do AI the right way, and my asshole-ish criticisms thereof?

Your criticisms there were firm but not all that asshole-ish and they generated good karma for you. But apropos of that:

there are grammatical errors that children never make in any language

Have you read Pullum's 2002 article Empirical assessment of stimulus poverty arguments? That seems to me to be a crushing refutation (asshole-ish refutation?) of the usual Chomskyan Poverty of Stimulus argument. Which is not to say that a good POS argument isn't possible but I haven't seen one yet.