Tópico: Wittgenstein explains why we always misunderstand one another on the Internet.

[Rocky Joe]

In this article from David Auerbach, he gives a brief account of the life and ideas of Wittgenstein. In particular, he uses it to explain the poor state of debate on internet:

Wittgenstein’s philosophy also accounts for the disastrous state of Internet discourse today. The shift to online communication, textual interactions separated from accompanying physical practices, has had a persistent and egregious warping effect on language, and one that most people don’t even understand. It has made linguistic practice more limited, more universal, and more ambiguous. More people interact with one another without even realizing they are following different rules for words’ usages. There is no time or space to clarify one’s self—especially on Twitter.

It is this phenomenon that has affected political and ethical discourse in particular. To take some hot-button issues, use of the words privilege and feminism and racism is so hopelessly contentious that it’s not even worth asking for a definition—even if you get one, no one else will agree with it. In situations where misuse can get you savaged on the Internet, I’ve simply stopped using a word. Let me know when everyone else has worked it out.

I'm dissatisfied with his "solution", but it's very interesting nonetheless.

[Eremita]

I'm also dissatisfied with his solution, but what else can we do?

If you annex the definition you're using, there is always a fucktard who will ignore it and the problem goes on; if you change your definition when you realize your opponent is using the same word for different shit, it looks like you're backpedalling; and if you ask people the definition, you're going to listen to a "DUH BUT EVRY1 NOWS WAT DIS WURD MEAN! U DUMMASS ".

There's a reason I call that the «definition Hell»...

[Sergiomgbr]

I was thinking about this obviousness, recently. I think written word doesn't have emotions enough.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

More often the willingness to deliberately misunderstand for the sake of sustaining disagreement is the real problem, not genuine confusions caused by real ambiguities in language.

But it seems that just as often the other side is hoping to be misunderstood, so I guess it's all fair in the end.

[Eremita]

More often the willingness to deliberately misunderstand for the sake of sustaining disagreement is the real problem, not genuine confusions caused by real ambiguities in language.

Hanlon's Razor says otherwise... and TBH my personal experiences agree with it - people are that stupid, to the point of simply not realizing you're saying X and they're saying Y.

[Sergiomgbr]

I was thinking about this obviousness, recently. I think written word doesn't have emotions enough.

I truly believe that the tone of voice make a difference, and it is not quite possible in written word.

[MarcoPolo]

By the other rand, communication have reached a scale that we could not imagine or reproduce without the internet.

Although I agree with you that most of times to discuss online will be a pain in the ass due to the very point the author have made, several important issues are being discussed right now which we wouldn't be doing had internet not existed.

For instance, atheism and religion have never been so debated and atheism is growing in the younger tear of the population.

Eventually debates will get more mature and we will maybe discover that internet is the ultimate tool for that. Again, nothing is perfect.

[Eremita]

-snip-

Debates reaching wider demographics are a good thing indeed, but most stuff is still immature crap with bare argumentation. I hope you're right and it gets maturer over time, but I feel like it won't.

[MarcoPolo]

Have you read Quora?

Definitively it is not crap. There are so much useful debates there with so many outstanding people that you would be surprised.

I picked up a topic that might draw your attention (I´ve just read a post of yours stating Eu sou um comuna or something similar)

https://www.quora.com/What-is-socialism-and-what-is-communism  *

Sometimes you can find a specialist answering a question, Elon Musk, people who write books and so on.

* Unfortunately to my surprise there are not a lot of discussion on communism. Maybe all the world have just forgot about it. 

[Eremita]

Quora is interesting. But still, check how many people contribute to a Quora of sorts and how many to Yahoo! Answers or crap like that...
[Reddit might be a better example, due to the relatively free-of-moderation environment.]