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Bungle in the Jungle: I’m a tiger if you want love, I’m a snake if we disagree

I think this diagram and discussion by Paul Graham sums up why TWITTER SNIPING is bad form.

How to Disagree by Paul Graham. Here’s a taste:

But the greatest benefit of disagreeing well is not just that it will make conversations better, but that it will make the people who have them happier. If you study conversations, you find there is a lot more meanness down in DH1 than up in DH6. You don’t have to be mean when you have a real point to make. In fact, you don’t want to. If you have something real to say, being mean just gets in the way.

If moving up the disagreement hierarchy makes people less mean, that will make most of them happier. Most people don’t really enjoy being mean; they do it because they can’t help it.

Graham has even built a hierarchy of disagreement that is a good tool for understanding your own stance. (see image above)

I work to keep my discussions in the higher realms of the disagreement hierarchy.

My hat off to Paul Graham for building such a useful diagram and giving us a well-defined framework for arguing. We must disagree to move forward on things where we have misunderstandings. It is best if we can keep the discussion in the higher realms of the hierarchy.