How to have a constructive argument

Interesting perspective...It does make sense to ensure you understand what you're being told, rather than jump to conclusions, before commenting or attempting rebuttal.

forceuser wrote: I definitely don't know much when it comes to
Expressing myself.
But just my 2 cents
For me even just hearing the words constructive argument
Places thoughts in my mind of a winner and a loser........ And I think for most people they would like to be on the winning side so they begin to prepare for defense A victory


Maybe when we talk to people if we changed the name of the game.
To say maybe

Enlightenment topic
Listening and learning time.

Sharing thoughts and ideas
Growth and prosperity ideas


The challenge now is the true puppet masters have given us all a choice the right side the left side
heads or tails
But in a bigger picture most people can't see that in of itself it is really 2 sides of but the same coin. that you were given to look at.

And really there are thousands of other coins and thousands of other things to look at instead of the few things the puppet master has our attention go to.

From the last of the crazy men
Peace & Love and good studies

Could you please post a video of you using your Force powers?

I liked the OP

Active listening, or in our case, Active reading is key

forceuser wrote: I definitely don't know much when it comes to
Expressing myself.
But just my 2 cents
For me even just hearing the words constructive argument
Places thoughts in my mind of a winner and a loser........ And I think for most people they would like to be on the winning side so they begin to prepare for defense A victory


Maybe when we talk to people if we changed the name of the game.
To say maybe

Enlightenment topic
Listening and learning time.

Sharing thoughts and ideas
Growth and prosperity ideas


The challenge now is the true puppet masters have given us all a choice the right side the left side
heads or tails
But in a bigger picture most people can't see that in of itself it is really 2 sides of but the same coin. that you were given to look at.

And really there are thousands of other coins and thousands of other things to look at instead of the few things the puppet master has our attention go to.

From the last of the crazy men
Peace & Love and good studies

Semantics are important and they can influence the tone of an interaction but sometimes you have to call a spade - a spade! The nature of forum interactions between people who are often essentially strangers (without the nuance of tone, body language, inflection and so on) can start with the best of intentions but all too often descend into an argument. Maybe I'm old and jaded but the I don't have much hope of a utopia where all interactions inevitably lead to synthesis, in the Hegelian Dialectic sense. How to retrieve an intelligent discourse when it goes south is part of what these guidelines can help with. More importantly, they might help prevent the discourse going south in the first place!

littlerickie wrote: "Was that not constructive?" ?

You're describing intelligent discourse which can degrade to argument but rise up to intelligence again. .Of course how one defines argument may be subjective.

I disagree. I believe I'm using the word perfectly fine.

I also believe there's an attitude that there are "bad words" and "good words" and wankers have decided that "Argument" is a "bad word" and "intelligent discourse" is a "Good Word"

It sounds political.

I'm an Australian. I know I use this as a crutch a lot, but I love my "down to earth"* culture, and in my culture, politicians are wankers.


*Some would say "hayseed, ignorant, and quite racist"

I suppose one of the greatest impediments to communication is giving the words themselves some kind of alignment, as if they give a shit which side uses them.

A great degree of the cultural dialogue is taking place online. In my country, a buffoon from a reality TV show was even elected to the presidency because he and the people behind him were good at winning Internet Points. I dont think theyre trivial, anymore.

This isn't the place to ponder that line of thought - but yeah, there is something deeply unsettling to me about what is going on. In the long term, I might be proven wrong - but for now I firmly believe every second you spend on "Social Media", you may as well be loading bullets in the revolver to pass to civilisation.

Proteus wrote: I believe one of the reasons people approach this as a war in the first place is because of the fact that everyone on all sides think what you just said above about one another, instead of breaking the chain of "battling". In a war, nobody really wins. This is why it stays perpetual, and the more your "opponent" faces battle, the more you make them simply double down on their position. It's self-fulfilling perpetuation. You're keeping your own enemy propped up and feeding them opportunity to continue convincing others of what you believe is wrong.

Apologies if this is getting a touch off topic (but I'm going to say it anyway ). I agree with what Proteus is saying and would be interested to know if anyone has a solution to this? I think Loudzoo's OP works very well in a one-on-one argument/debate) and probably even in small groups) however, how do we go about solving this 'battling' Proteus speaks of on a national/global level? How do we as a society move away from this 'us vs them' mentality? And, for that matter, should we actually strive to move away from that? What makes one mentality 'better' (for want of a better phrase) than another?

Some might argue 'give conflict a chance'

Perhaps it is simply the way of things that it is not always smooth..

Two imperfect surfaces meet....they can be made to fit together nicely, but there may be a little noise and heat as a byproduct

JamesSand wrote: This isn't the place to ponder that line of thought - but yeah, there is something deeply unsettling to me about what is going on. In the long term, I might be proven wrong - but for now I firmly believe every second you spend on "Social Media", you may as well be loading bullets in the revolver to pass to civilisation.

I also have to admit i may be wrong but i keep coming back the social media manipulation of our 2016 election and i cant help but think that it tipped the scales in who won. In my original comment in this thread i mentioned that we are in a POST-TRUTH era, right now. A part of me wants to scour up a collection of articles and quotes as examples and evidence of how genuinely dangerous this is but i just don't have the time or energy atm. What i will say is that Trump’s “Fake News” is one of the signs and symptoms of post truth. The basic notion is that everything is propaganda. There are no facts, anymore. Its a battle of who is going to shape whose perceptions. My propaganda has to defeat your propaganda and because propaganda is fundamentally deceptive and manipulative, the actual truth and facts will get in the way of winning the war. Its impossible for a society to be rational or functional in these conditions. I'm sure many of you think im jumping at shadows but i think i just described the actual, real-life political landscape of America to a tee.

Anyway, the short version is that I see something that i believe is a threat to my society and it appears that social media is the front-lines of it.