[houseplant]

what I've noticed is that many arguments have little to do with you, the "opponent", or the topic argued about or even which of you is right.

it's more about the arguer re-enforcing their beliefs of being correct, and therefore morally righteous and powerful, to themselves. If you can argue your point successfully or at least cause your opponent to secede or give up and ragequit or block you, you won, because it isn't about correctness but power to remove or eliminate their influence from the argument, and if taken to the farthest conclusion, society at large.

you begin noticing that all these conversations are about power over the opponent and if they could humiliate them enough- either with numbers by ratioing them with chatgpt bot replies or reddit downvotes or whatever- they will be silenced and you can pretend it was your power that did it.

It reminds me of catcalling on the street. The guy catcalling a girl knows very well they won't turn her on, she isn't going to be receptive, she isn't going to fuck him. She might just shoot him an angry look. But it doesn't matter because that wasn't the goal, the goal was to get a temporary sexual power trip- you just made that girl think about you against her will!! you were powerful enough to occupy her mind for that moment. You win!

you also see it in the sort of cultish thinking of all kinds of ideological things like wild flat earthers or MRAs or pickup artists or pizzagaters or whatever stupid shit. It's never about the thing they say they're all about, they don't really care about the earth being flat, or men's rights, or manipulating girls, or child abuse- they care about feeling like heroes to themselves and their peers- culturally righteous and powerful.