{"id":12697,"date":"2016-02-07T23:04:03","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T15:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=9579"},"modified":"2025-03-08T09:09:04","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T09:09:04","slug":"internet-arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2016\/02\/07\/internet-arguments\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do I argue with people on the internet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote this because I wanted to make sense of a habit that I have, and to modify it so it serves me better. I think the important thing is that my day-to-day behavior should serve my larger goals. My big-picture goal is to build good relationships with good people around the world. So if I’m arguing with somebody, it had better be in service with that. Also, I need to be thinking about the opportunity cost \u2013 ie what could I be doing with my time instead?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a habit of arguing with people on the Internet.<\/p>\n

There are pros and cons to this.<\/p>\n

Pro 1: is that I typically refine my own thinking and writing abilities.<\/p>\n

Pro 2: Sometimes (I wanted to say often, but that\u2019s BS) if I feel the urge to engage somebody, it means that there\u2019s something potentially pressing or interesting about that issue. I have occasionally written blogposts or status updates that have helped people, and I like helping people. Helping people makes me feel good.<\/p>\n

Though to be honest, more often than not, it isn\u2019t really the helping-people part that feels good, it\u2019s just getting positive feedback and validation. It makes my brain think \u201cah, everything is good and right and okay with me.\u201d This is a dangerous thought\u2013 it\u2019s a drug, like heroin or something, and it\u2019s probably why there are so many angry trolls etc on the internet. It\u2019s a sort of escapism. It gives us something that feels like validation. Or it feels like… Because very often, NOT all is right But not necessarily. I have often<\/p>\n

The con is that this is rarely the most fruitful use of my time. I usually have better things to do. Part of the problem here might be that it\u2019s not always clear to me in the heat of the moment what\u2019s the best thing for me to do. Do I, at any given moment, know what\u2019s the best thing for me to do? What\u2019s the single absolute most important thing for me to do? I do not, actually. I improvise my way through it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote this because I wanted to make sense of a habit that I have, and to modify it so it serves me better. I think the important thing is that my day-to-day behavior should serve my larger goals. My big-picture goal is to build good relationships with good people… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[603,583],"tags":[627],"class_list":["post-12697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-peopling","tag-revisit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3iN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14666,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12697\/revisions\/14666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}