Honestly, the only "winning" strategy here is to not argue with people on the comments sections of political articles.

If you must, try and cast the argument in a way that avoids the standard red tribe / blue tribe framing. Doing this can be hard because people generally aren't in the business of having politics debate with an end goal of dissolving an issue--they just want to signal their tribe--hence why arguing on the internet is often a waste of time.

As to the question of authority: how would you expect the conversation to go if you were an economist?

Me: I think money printing by the Fed will cause inflation if they continue like this.

Random commenter: Are you an economist?

Me: Yes actually, I have a PhD in The Economy from Ivy League University.

Random commenter (possible response 1): I don't believe you, and continue to believe what I believe.

Random commenter (possible response 2): Oh well that's one of the (Conservative / Liberal) (pick one) schools, they're obviously wrong and don't know what they're talking about.

Random commenter (possible response 3): Economists obviously don't know what they're talking about.

Again, it's a mix of Dunning-Kruger and tribal signalling. There's not actually any direction an appeal-to-authority debate can go that's productive because the challenger has already made up their mind about the facts being discussed.

For a handful of relevant lesswrong posts: http://lesswrong.com/lw/axn/6_tips_for_productive_arguments/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/gz/policy_debates_should_not_appear_onesided/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/3k/how_to_not_lose_an_argument/

In both cases, your opponents have points, up to a point.

1. You need some sort of justification for the claim, even if it is not personal authority. In particular, if you are actual talking about quantitative easing, that is something much more complex than literally printing money.

2. There's no actual point to saying that something isn't working, unless you have something better in mind. Consider the many people who believe that the whole of society is horribly broken.

Since your claims arent flawless, and their responses arent completely invalid, one thing you could do is pretend they made better versions.

1. OK, I do need to back that up. Well, most economists believe...

2. Ok, there is no point in just complaining. Maybe the government could put together a panel of experts to come up with alternatives.

Step 1 is realizing you're discussing with someone who's hostile by default to you. That's what's missed by all the types whose style of debating relies upon pointing out logical fallacies in arguments -- the fact that debate spaces have not been sterilized against problems of a social nature, and no amount of sound object-level reasoning will fix that. There's always going to be a crowd hanging around a comment section that's there to bring you down and for no other purpose.

From here, you can go in two different directions. Either play on the "battle of wits" mode, return the hostility, do your damnedest to humiliate the other in a way that makes you look good rather than petty, or try to bring the hostile arguer... well, not to your side, but to a neutral basis of discussion. Getting people to just give you a chance, let alone playing that chance well, is amazingly difficult. At least on LW there's a consensus that we should be aiming for the second mode of discussion, but if that's not a constant occurrence here, imagine how bad other places have it.

The attitude you listed is just one of the many tricks people employ to make your life hard, to narrow down the winning condition in an attempt to disqualify as many people as possible from passing the test. The only answer that would kick the asker down a step or two would be "as a matter of fact yes, I am an economist."

There are a few dark arts strategies that you can use, depending on the anonymity and epistemic hygiene of the forum.

Strategy 1: If someone asks if you are an expert, say you are. Assuming that you are talking about a subject which you actually know about, it is undoubted that there is an expert, and probably a bunch of experts, who agree with you. I happen to think you are wrong about printing of money leading to inflation, and I have some expertise in the field of economics, but I also know that there are definitely people considered experts who agree with you (not a large proportion of Ph.D. economists agree with your statement, but there are some, and many more self-styled economics experts working at various financial institutions).

I think this can be in service of good argumentation so long as you actually present an argument rather than simply relying on your claims of credentials to win the day. It could force your interlocutor to actually engage with your views, so it avoids them making a fallacious inference. This should be used with caution, obviously, as you should only claim credentials if there is an expert who would actually endorse them. Also, I don't recommend claiming excessive credentials ("yes, I am a climate scientist from MIT and I was on the IPCC"), because that's providing your argument with undeserved weight. The goal should be to clear their fallacious hurdle and get them to engage with your beliefs on their own merits.

Strategy 2: Say you agree with the hive mind on a related, yet different topic. I admit that I am guilty of this all the time on Reddit and Hacker News, and I am more than willing to use it preemptively as part of my initial post on a topic (generally as a reply to someone else's point). People will generally not carefully consider arguments that they view as coming from someone from the other team, as we all know so well. But they will possibly consider arguments about tangential topics which they see as coming from within their own team.

My thought on this strategy is three-fold. First, you can't argue every point in every argument, or else you will spend your entire life arguing. Choose what tiny thing you want to convince someone of, and feel free to let the world change the rest of their opinions in future arguments. It's better to try to get someone to make a baby-step and hopefully later realize that all of their opinions are built on a foundation of silly putty. Even that much is usually impossible. Second, your arguments on a particular topic in an ideal world shouldn't be evaluated based on your opinions of other topics, assuming you provide enough argumentation to screen off that information (which should be viewed as at least a minimal amount of information to provide in any case). Third, often you don't even really have to agree, it can be enough to utter the right shibboleth to signal group membership, and that shibboleth doesn't even need to point to a particular coherent belief to be at least a little bit disarming.

Depending on the anonymity of the forum, I would adjust how much preemptive agreement I would signal, however. If I'm using my real name, I would only say I agree with things that I actually agree with which are irrelevant, or that I kinda sorta agree with in its most uncontroversial form. This strategy doesn't actually work in some extremely factious communities, however, since people use it too frequently. If you tell a Tumblr SJW, "I'm totally a feminist, but that particular statistic you are using is actually made up," it's just as likely that their memetic antibodies are going to signal you as an anti-feminist terrorist as that they'll actually consider your evidence. Of course, if they didn't lead to broken communities, they wouldn't call them "dark arts."

Strategy 3: Provide a wall of text with links. On reddit you will sometimes see posts that get bestof'd with a title like "/u/PollyDoodlePants OBLITERATES climate denier with tons of FACTS" that are actually just posts with minimal argumentation but 30 links to standard arguments from people on their side, ideally without subtlety and nuance. In this form they are more likely to get accolades from people who already agree, rather than actually changing the mind of their debate partner or anyone in the audience. I've never actually done this before and consider it kind of pointless and annoying, so I don't recommend it, but if its just your emotional state you're concerned about it will probably make you feel better.

One thing I think you should consider, in general, is what Robin Hanson calls pulling policy ropes sideways. In general, argumentation is more fun and more enlightening for counterparties if you have a bunch of opinions you care about that aren't part of the established lines of war. Look for places they are a relevant third option, or just something to consider for other readers.

If the argument you're making has already been made in the New York Times, it's probably too late. You probably aren't bringing anything to the table that hasn't been argued at greater length and more effectively elsewhere. If you feel passionate about something that others don't care about (yet), your comments bring greater diversity of thought and are the true gems of Internet communities. Part of the fascination of Less Wrong is in these kinds of ideas, like AI risk, cryonics, decision theory. They aren't part of the culture war, so when people like us first read the site, they get a blast of new ideas that aren't discussed elsewhere. This isn't a dark art, this is the daylight art that makes communities better, stronger and more interesting. Just, please, for the love of God, don't try to shoehorn your pet belief into every conversation you have (this is the most common failure mode of this strategy, and what we sometimes see on Less Wrong). And of course, you may think you're pulling the rope sideways, but sometimes the battle lines actually have been drawn, even if just in your little community (neoreaction on LW), and then this no longer works.

I'll take a bit of a counter to what others are saying. Debating and winning (as distinct from being rational and holding true beliefs) can be fun. Be very clear (with yourself) why you're engaging, and what you hope to accomplish from it, but you don't need to stay away entirely.

First, limit yourself to a few communities that you have at least a little respect for. Most sites you're better off just not looking at the comments, and certainly not responding. Even in good groups, there will be prolific posters you should ignore - just don't respond to them unless someone you do respect chimes in.

Second, don't engage with the portion of their arguments that you think is irrelevant. If the comment is purely about you, rather than your thesis, ignore it. If it's a mix of relevant and irrelvant comments, respond only to the relevant and ignore the rest.

Third, realize that in most cases the readers far outnumber the commenters, and your goal isn't to get another commenter to publicly agree or apologize or anything of the sort. Your goal is to convince the readers (or convince them to respect you enough to comment if you're wrong). Post in a way that is high-status to your intended audience, and let the others seem like the petty idiots they are.

They are right, I think. People don't have endless time to discuss things with everyone. You put a statement on the table. Now I look at it and superficially see that it's some sort of economics statement. Now should I waste my time examining your standpoint further? Can I expect to get well founded opinions from you? Will I profit from this exchange? If I can verify that you indeed have spent a long time thinking about economics and other people have considered your economy related thinking processes good enough to give you a diploma, then I can expect to get valuable opinions from you.

It's not sure, but one has to filter out all the cranks. Asking for qualifications is one way. There are thousands of unqualified people who have their own refutations of relativity, or false proofs of P!=NP etc. Should we really give equal time to all of these people, just because they might be onto something?

You seem to look at yourself from the inside and say well I'm an honest and smart guy, why won't they listen to me? But for them you're just a random guy, nobody can see your inner qualities that you think you possess. If you want to become better than a "random guy from the street", you need to provide some evidence that you're worth listening to.

People always treat you for how you appear to the outside. It's the same fallacy that people commit when they say "I want someone to love me for who I am inside, not for any of my attributes like my body type, job, money, sense of humor, intelligence, musical talent etc., but for the inner me". There's no inner you for us. Only what you do.

You should be less concerned with winning and what other people think about you. You should be more concerned with being honest with yourself and making sure your beliefs match the facts. If they say you are wrong, ask why.

[missing the point]

Me: I think money printing by the Fed will cause inflation if they continue like this.

Not as long as interest rates remain at or near zero. The economy is in a weird place right now. Normally, people who have money but don't want to spend it immediately will lend it in order to receive interest. However, with interest rates so low, people who would normally be lending money - including banks - have little incentive to do so. Money is ending up under Apple Computer's proverbial mattress instead of being spent on things. Making things worse is that the Fed's normal method of "printing" money - giving people cash in exchange for short-term Treasury bills (which are currently paying near-zero interest) - only puts money in the hands of people who aren't going to be spending or lending their cash, and money not spent doesn't cause inflation. (If they wanted to spend or lend the money, they would have sold their T-bills to someone by now.)

Paul Krugman says it better than I can.