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There\u2019s a tradition on Reddit that when somebody repeats some cliche in a tone that makes it sound like she believes she is bringing some brilliant and heretical insight \u2013 like \u201cI know I\u2019m going to get downvoted for this, but believe we should have\xa0less\xa0government waste!\u201d \u2013 people respond \u201cSO BRAVE\u201d in the comments. That\u2019s what I mean by bravery debates. Discussions over who is bravely holding a nonconformist position in the face of persecution, and who is a coward defending the popular status quo and trying to silence dissenters.

These are\xa0frickin\u2019 toxic. I don\u2019t have a great explanation for why. It could be a status thing \u2013 saying that you\u2019re the original thinker who has cast off the Matrix of omnipresent conformity and your opponent is a sheeple (sherson?) too fearful to realize your insight. Or it could be that, as the saying goes, \u201ceveryone is fighting a hard battle\u201d, and telling someone else they\u2019ve got it easy compared to you is just about the most demeaning thing you can do, especially when you\u2019re wrong.

But the possible explanations aren\u2019t the point. The point is that, empirically, starting a bravery debate is the quickest way to make sure that a conversation becomes horrible and infuriating. I\u2019m generalizing from my own experience here, but one of the least pleasant philosophical experiences is thinking you\u2019re bravely defending an unpopular but correct position, facing the constant persecution and prejudice from your more numerous and extremely smug opponents day in and day out without being worn-down \u2026 only to have one of your opponents offhandedly refer to how brave they are for resisting the monolithic machine that you and the rest of the unfairly-biased-toward-you culture have set up against them. You just want to scream NO YOU\u2019RE WRONG SEFSEFILASDJO:IALJAOI:JA:O>ILFJASL:KFJ