From the pyramid diagram I feel like the destructive argument tactics of “isolated demands for rigor” and “disputing definitions” sums up the vast majority of arguments I see around Hacker News. One step up from social shaming and gotchas that you see on many other social message boards, but not much better in all honesty.

I think that’s probably OK for the most part though. It’s easy enough to ignore bad faith demands for evidence or “citation needed” commentary. Disputing definitions can be hard to break free from, but both of these failure modes are less likely to lead to toxic behavior or social shaming like “did you even read the article?”

I think it’s way too much to expect message forum discussions will ever consist of good faith survey of evidence. Even if you have pure motives, it’s just not going to happen. You have really little time, you’re going to rattle off comments that come from your deep seated pre-baked opinions and areas where you believe you already completed a good faith survey of the evidence and already are bringing the most well-rounded opinion to the table. You have exactly enough time to unload it and then go take care of your kids or go to the gym or something.