The value is in the feeling of euphoria you get when dominating the other person by being unequivocally right.
This isn’t philosophy. It’s biology. Every human feels good when this happens and millions of years of evolution has made most humans have feelings of euphoria when being right. The fact that this thread even exists speaks to the fact of the extremely high survival benefit this behavior confers onto a human.
So the question is why is there a survival benefit to humans almost universally having these emotions after taking the action of arguing (and winning)?
I think it’s more than just winning. You win in front of a crowd. And going in the technological direction you set and being more right then another heightens your value in the hierarchy. Your reputation in the crowd confers survival benefit to you and that is why arguing is in our genetics.
No philosophical analysis can beat one from a scientific and logical perspective.
But this begs the question why does this thread even exist? Why are there so many people against their own “programmed” nature of arguing? Because almost everyone who has “evolved” this trait also evolved the opposing trait of “agreeing” with that stoic philosophy.
If you lose an argument your survival benefit goes down because your reputation goes down. Being wrong all the time makes you look like an idiot.
So humans have dual opposing traits. We love to argue and we want to avoid it either. The push and pull between these two conflicts ultimately ends up in a singular decision that can go either way. That’s the ultimate meaning and reasoning behind all of this.
What is the best strategy? Find a system that wins arguments. Engage in arguments where you can win and dominate. It’s not as attractive as the stoic philosophy but I came to this analysis via raw logic using the biological universal mechanism that affects us all and I believe that makes my view point much stronger then stoicism which was arrived at via a less comprehensive mode of reasoning.
Boom.
> No philosophical analysis can beat one from a scientific and logical perspective.
I disagree, and offer the world of 2026 as anecdotal evidence lol. Most of what you wrote implies that every person participates in arguments honestly, with full faith, and are both cognitively capable of, and actively willing to, receive, evaluate and ultimately accept the argument as a zero-sum "winner". In reality, illogical appeals to emotion tend to win the day.
This also kind of refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people simply don't feel the need to be right; some people move in silence, others just don't care for the friction, or need the accolades. Still others don't enjoy the company of self-righteous, unbending, argumentative people, or have wildly different perspectives on a topic due to life experiences that are unfathomable to the rest.
I believe that multiple things can often be right simultaneously, and it's exactly that kind of positive sum philosophy that drives the most argumentative and need-to-be-right people completely insane haha. Different strokes for different folks man.
> In reality, illogical appeals to emotion tend to win the day
Not to a neutral party. Debates and arguments that can change the course of a project happen in front of a neutral committee (ideally) in that case logic can win.
> This also kind of refuses to acknowledge that a lot of people simply don't feel the need to be right; some people move in silence, others just don't care for the friction, or need the accolades. Still others don't enjoy the company of self-righteous, unbending, argumentative people, or have wildly different perspectives on a topic due to life experiences that are unfathomable to the rest.
I didn’t refuse to acknowledge. Did you even read my post? I said people feel both. The need to argue and the need to avoid it. Most people feel it on sort of an even 5050 ground but there are some people who of course swing one way or the other. If you describe the human condition in general and not get into specifics or edge cases. Overall the most apt description is a duality.
> I believe that multiple things can often be right simultaneously, and it's exactly that kind of positive sum philosophy that drives the most argumentative and need-to-be-right people completely insane haha. Different strokes for different folks man.
Did you read my post? I feel you read the first part and felt the need to argue your point without consideration to the topic at hand. My entire post is about a conflicting duality when it comes to arguing. You embody your own stereotype you describe.
I almost never reply to replies of something that I wrote in a public forum, because I stand by what I wrote as a complete statement and don't feel the need to defend it further. In this particular case, because the whole topic is about "argument", I found it funny enough to break my own rule.
For what it's worth, I did read your post twice before I replied, just to see if I didn't get it on the first pass. What I took from it, and maybe I'm thick as molasses, was that humans defacto love to argue due to biological imperative, we stratify social value based on the success of arguments, and ultimately promote argument as a contact sport that you can dominate in for personal gain and personal validation. Dominate instead of mediate, which I've found through life experience to come most often from people who are deeply insecure with themselves.
When I came back to the thread, I noticed that the submission title had been updated to Most arguments are about ego, not ideas and saw your replies to my post + siblings, and felt like that new title encapsulated your responses perfectly. You and I simply disagree on the purpose and value of argument.
Persuasive people rarely argue. Persuasive people do not need to be unequivocally right. The most persuasive people do get what they want in the end, but you often don't even realize you've been persuaded.
Argumentative people leverage power if they have it, and data, and sometimes "win", but rarely succeed in persuasion.
And that's just my opinion! Feel free to disagree, I've no interest in an argument LOL
> The value is in the feeling of euphoria you get when dominating the other person by being unequivocally right
Frequently accompanied by a feeling of despair when you are dominated by another.
> The fact that this thread even exists speaks to the fact of the extremely high survival benefit this behavior confers onto a human.
Dialog brings clarity. Clarity helps build tools. Tools help survival. So, if there is anything to seek, try clarity of understanding - not being right, and being right stands in the way of understanding.
> Frequently accompanied by a feeling of despair when you are dominated by another.
Take a few minutes to read the entire post. I talk about this. In fact the entire point of my post is about this. If you missed the point I can only assume you decided to respond without reading everything.
> Dialog brings clarity. Clarity helps build tools. Tools help survival. So, if there is anything to seek, try clarity of understanding - not being right, and being right stands in the way of understanding.
The dialog itself is not what I’m referring to. I’m referring to empathetic relation. This “dialog” or thread exists because participants in this thread relate to all the emotions described in said topic. Please finish reading my post before responding.
Ease off the adderall bud.
There's a lot of sloppy thinking in that post, starting with the pseudo-scientific framing in terms of evolutionary psychology... which is ironic given then ScIeNcE-bro tone... couched against an artificial and incorrect taxonomy of reason into "philosophical, logical and scientific"... in reality those are intersecting at times, orthogonal at others, and the devil is generally in the details... but it certainly doesn't make sense to impose some kind of juvenile "batman vs superman" power scaling hierarchy on top of them...
The reduction of the results of an argument to a binary win/loss between two people is probably the most humorously absurd bit. There are many outcomes of an argument. Sometimes it pivots research in a fruitful direction. Sometimes it leads to compromise. Sometimes parties talk past one another. Sometimes it serves to create an artifact for later analysis/reflection. Sometimes it causes us to pause and re-evaluate before acting. Sometimes it plants a seed that bears fruit later. Sometimes it strengthens both parties by refining their respective views. Sometimes it wastes everyone's time and nothing valuable comes of it.
Pursuit of knowledge or aligning action to truth isn't an arm-wrestling contest with winner-takes-all outcomes. That's just a silly framing that doesn't reflect reality, it's the kind of way you see the world of you aren't actually part of knowledge production and consume "debates" as influencer-slop from Ben Shapiro types.
I argue with people all the time. At work, with friends. It's generally a form of productive commerce. I see things one way and have knowledge/strengths that I bring to bear through my perspective. Others have their own knowledge/strengths. Working together, we might build a scalable data system, prioritize a road map, design a better game, make food decisions at a restaurant, have an enlightening political conversation, improve a speedrun. Whatever, the ends are various. The means are often spirited debate, in which, generally, everybody wins. That's just kind of the first principal of macro economic theory, if you need a bro-system to cash things out into.
> Ease off the adderall bud.
This is kind of rude, implying I’m on drugs. It’s a cheap way to win an argument to sort of degrade your opponent before even talking.
I prefer to keep what’s underneath my post is as a discussion rather then play games or engage in arguments like this. So I’m sorry to say, everything you wrote underneath that initial paragraph you can just throw it in the trash because I’m not reading it. Apologies and thank you.