Related: I used to have a much bigger problem tabling arguments, even if I really needed to be doing something else. (Especially pernicious if you're part of a college debate group where people think nothing of staying up til 3am talking, even if you have glassblowing class at 8:30am).
I felt like saying "I really have to go to bed, or I'll burn myself in the morning" was tantamount to "You're so much better than I am, but I'm too much of a coward to admit I'm begging off." So, what I did was to visualize the worst thing that would happen as a result of leaving the fight. In one case, I imagined my interlocutor, D___, emailing all our friends to say "I was arguing with Leah about how well fleshed out the female characters in Assassins are and she ran away because she sucks!"
One I said that explicitly to myself, it was pretty obvious that D___ wouldn't do that, and, even if he did, our mutual friends would think it was the email, not my going to bed, that was weird. And then I went to bed.
It seems far too easy for a verbal argument to morph into a degenerate crossbreed of Chicken and Last Word.
One of the most remarkable social inventions I've discovered here at LW is explicit "tapping out." Real Life needs a custom for tapping out.
This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of December 10th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
Thanks to everyone who contributes!
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