The theory behind it is that one should expose themselves to counter-arguments allowing their claims to be attacked so they that have a chance to substantiate them or reject them upon realising they are mistaken.
Expecting someone else to falsify your claims, to your satisfaction, is to not take sufficient responsibility for your own opinions.
I argue with others primarily to clarify my own thoughts by writing them down. If I see something useful in what the other guy has to say, I'll follow up on it. Or if they seem to have a clue, I'll press the issue more diligently, and pay more attention.
I don't think that people ignore "good" arguments - people just have different criteria for "good" and different motivations. Epistemic rationality is much lower on the priority list for most people than people who give a high priority to it appreciate.
And poisoning the well, claiming intentional misunderstanding, doesn't help, and I don't think it's true either - people are wholly capable of unintentionally misunderstanding without having to expend the effort to intentionally misunderstand. Never attribute to dishonesty what can be explained by stupidity, and never attribute to stupidity what can be explained by disinterest.
If you want to expose yourself to the best arguments for something, read books by their best proponents, and make the best argument you can out of what you see there. Figure out the smallest delta to reality required to make their claims true. Then check on that delta.
A friend had an online alter ego where he argued for opinions diametrically opposed to his own. If you want to improve your own arguments, spending X percent of your energy arguing from the other side.
I wont be the only one here who "wastes time" arguing about things they care about online (note: I am referring to web forums and things like subreddits, I am not including Less Wrong whose dynamic is completely different). It seems like something that is worth optimising in some direction.
The theory behind it is that one should expose themselves to counter-arguments allowing their claims to be attacked so they that have a chance to substantiate them or reject them upon realising they are mistaken.
In practice they generally follow a pattern that starts with people pointing out what they believe are mistakes then ignoring or intentionally misunderstanding the other party when he refutes or backs up claims.. and ends up with insults, patronising sarcastic remarks and nobody changing their mind about anything.
I don't particularly care about changing other peoples minds to make them agree with me (well, it would be great but I think it's practically impossible) so one thing I would like is for both people to at least end up feeling good.
So I'm interested in three things: Do other LWers recognize this pattern now that I have mentioned it? What decision did those that were already aware of it make, in order to optimise this activity?