If I think about what I like and dislike about the internet, contrasting what I find pleasant or productive with what I find unpleasant or unproductive, I can’t escape the conclusion that debating strangers stands out as the principal activity that makes me dislike, even hate the internet. A long internet debate with a stranger can drastically sour my mood, ruining a whole day. And I can’t recall a single long debate with a stranger that ever ended well, in my decades on the internet. Short debates are not so bad: when some internet rando pops up with an aggressively stupid reply on social media, I immediately block and forget them. These fools are naturally forgettable. The real “stranger danger” is the clever ones, especially the trolls. They can bait you into a long debate by sounding reasonable, at least at the beginning, often initiating a debate with a passive-aggressive question. When you attempt to answer the stranger’s question, they’ve hooked you. You bite, and now you’re locked in a fight you didn’t start.
In principle, the longer that two people talk, the better they should understand each other. However, this assumes the interlocutors want to understand each other. Debates with internet strangers typically follow the opposite pattern: the conversation degrades the longer it continues, accumulating confusion and condescension. Oddly, thoughts are put into the head of the other person who is there to state their own thoughts. The misinterpretations appear willful. The way these debates go was humorously illustrated by a famous internet meme:
Twitter the only place where well articulated sentences still get misinterpreted.
You can say “I like pancakes” and somebody will say “So you hate waffles?”
No bitch. Dats a whole new sentence. Wtf is you talkin about.
Of course this phenomenon is actually ubiquitous, but I’m not going to return to the place formerly known as Twitter to debate the author.
If it feels impossible to correct a stranger’s misinterpretation, that’s because the stranger is not listening to you. They’re talking at you rather than with you, so there’s literally nothing you could say in clarification. Anything you say can and will be used against you. The stranger wants only confirmation of their preconceived notions, hiding a lecture under the guise of a conversation.
Before I became a software developer, my profession was academic philosophy. I’m no stranger to debates. Although these philosophical debates are invariably interminable, professional philosophers customarily offer each other professional courtesy and respect as acknowledged peers, unlike strangers on the internet. There’s no need for “No bitch.” Philosophers do indeed understand each other better the longer they talk. This is not to say that philosophers eventually come to agreement, but when they say “good day” it’s not sarcastic. The context is entirely different from the internet, because philosophers intentionally gather among themselves to discuss issues, whereas an internet stranger comes to you unbidden, like a heckler. I’m sure that professional philosophers also get annoyed by “reply guys” on the internet.
Many of the academic books and articles I read were written by people who are now dead. To the extent that their writing was thought-provoking, I could not share my thoughts with the authors or directly challenge their thoughts. These people are unavailable for debates. The best place to debate, in my opinion, is in your own mind. There, you don’t have to suffer willful misrepresentation or disrespect. Or if you do suffer from those in your own mind, the remedy is not on the internet but in a therapist’s office. When you debate with yourself, the only goals are understanding and truth. You’re not putting on a show for an audience or reveling in the public humiliation of another person.
For most of human history—and prehistory—few opportunities were available to debate strangers. You could talk at length with family, friends, and other close associates, people with whom you have an ongoing relationship. The internet and the web, born after I was, are unprecedented. The ability to talk at length with anyone in the world brings new opportunities and new predicaments. I don’t think Homo sapiens has yet adapted to that environmental transformation, a sea change. On Mastodon, I’ve mostly managed to inoculate myself against the call of duty. I try to avoid seeking out strangers for debate, people whom I don’t follow and who don’t follow me. Nonetheless, strangers seek me out, and that’s how I get into trouble. They fish in my pond. Admittedly, ashamedly, I’ve acquired the bad habit of visiting some other ponds, such as Hacker News. Almost everyone on Hacker News is effectively a stranger, because there is no following of accounts, so the nature of the conversations differs significantly from social media services such as Mastodon and Twitter/X. My advice, which I’ve too often neglected to follow, is to read the linked articles but not the comments on the articles. I go through spells of wasting time commenting on HN, until I run into a troll who reminds me of why I hate the site so much. I should eat pancakes instead.