u/Any_Can_7878

Ok, yes I might seem that I lived under a rock but until recently I didn't really care of commenting actively on socials... but I’ve been noticing something lately across Reddit, Instagram, and basically every other platform where people are supposed to be having conversations.

Someone says something you disagree with and there are roughly five possible responses:

“You’re an idiot.”

“Get a job.”

“Who asked?”

😂

🤮

And apparently that counts as winning an argument?

I don't mean this as a complaint about people being “too mean” online. Disagreement is fine. Strong disagreement is fine. Calling out bad arguments is fine. Sometimes someone genuinely is talking nonsense. AND PLEASE, I love a good debate or argument.

What I find interesting is how rarely people seem interested in engaging with the actual argument.

I’ve had this happen recently in completely different contexts.

I commented on a discussion about AI and historical representations, raising a fairly specific question: when we use AI to visually reconstruct people from the past, at what point does “illustration” become interpretation? Someone disagreed with my position. Fine. But rather than addressing the question, the response eventually became essentially “I don’t care about the opinion of anyone who uses AI,” followed by a vomiting emoji.

Okay. But that's not really disagreement. That's just deciding that the person speaking has become disqualified from having an opinion.

I've seen the same thing on political posts. I recently commented on immigration and the treatment of vulnerable minors, making what I thought was a fairly straightforward argument: protecting children who are already here and addressing the conditions that make them vulnerable in the first place aren't mutually exclusive policies.

The response wasn't really an argument against that. It became mockery about “tertulianos,” sarcasm about sending psychologists to the beach, and eventually the framing of the entire issue as an “invasion.”

Again, people are absolutely entitled to disagree with me. Maybe my position is naïve. Maybe it's impractical. Maybe there are serious policy arguments against it.

But tell me those arguments.

And then there’s Reddit, where I’ve watched people ask questions about careers, speaking, expertise, etc., and receive responses along the lines of:

“Get a job.”

“Speaker of what? 😂”

“Snake oil merchant.”

“Who wants to hear some rando speak?”

You can disagree with someone's ambition, think their business idea is terrible, or believe they're completely delusional.

But “you're stupid” doesn't actually establish any of those things.

And I think there's something particularly strange about this because engaging with an argument is harder than mocking the person making it.

You have to understand what they actually said.

You have to formulate a counterargument.

You have to accept that they might have a point somewhere, even if you ultimately disagree.

You have to risk changing your mind.

Mockery requires none of that.

And I'm not pretending I'm above this. I've definitely had moments online where I've written the snarky response because it was more satisfying than writing the thoughtful one.

But lately I'm wondering whether we've collectively forgotten what disagreement is supposed to look like.

You don't have to respect every opinion.

You don't have to be polite to everyone.

You don't even have to engage.

But if you do choose to respond, wouldn't it be more interesting to actually respond to what the person said?

Maybe the most impressive online comeback isn't making someone look stupid.

Maybe it's demonstrating that you understood their argument well enough to disagree with it.

IDK... but seriously people, WHO HURT YOU? Do you really don't enjoy a good debate?

I’ve been thinking about this after reading a few discussions about hiring and career progression.
We tend to look at someone who is already confident, experienced and articulate and assume those qualities explain why they got good opportunities.

But there seems to be a possible circular process:
Someone is perceived as capable → they get better opportunities, mentoring, autonomy and more room to make decisions → they gain experience and confidence → we then point to that experience and confidence as evidence that we were right about them in the first place.

Meanwhile, someone who is perceived as less capable might get less challenging work, less autonomy, less useful feedback and fewer opportunities to demonstrate what they can actually do.

Eventually their CV or experience looks weaker, which then appears to confirm the original judgement.
I’m not saying ability doesn’t matter. Obviously it does.

I’m wondering how much of what we call “merit” is actually a mixture of ability and accumulated opportunity.

How often are we evaluating someone’s actual capability, and how often are we evaluating the opportunities they’ve previously been given?

I’ve been thinking seriously about developing a speaking career in Spain, starting around Valencia, and I’m curious about how this actually works here.
Not motivational speaking or corporate “inspirational” talks necessarily; I’m more interested in speaking about leadership, careers, identity, reinvention, modern work and the things we learn from culture and everyday life. Things I used to speak about in Uk and during my time working at Amazon and Adobe. Now tho, I’m not anymore in a big corporation and I’m back in my hometown.

I’ve worked internationally and spent years outside Spain, but I’m finding that becoming known as a speaker is a completely different game from simply being good at your subject.

So for people who have actually organised conferences, panels, talks, TEDx events, university events, business events etc.:
How did you get your first real speaking opportunities?

Was it:
•knowing the right people?
• LinkedIn?
• networking at events?
• volunteering to speak?
• publishing consistently?
• having a strong personal brand?
• being an expert in a very specific niche?
• getting introduced by someone?
or simply being persistent until someone said yes?
And specifically for Valencia/Spain, where do people actually find speakers or speaking opportunities?

I’m particularly interested in the things that aren’t obvious from Google.

If you’ve organised events or spoken professionally yourself, I’d genuinely love to hear what worked — and what was a complete waste of time.

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