depends. one cannot spend the whole life dissecting and acquiring all facts, sometimes we just delegate thinking, but the result is that it leaves us unable to defend the opinion because it wasn't our to begin with, regardless of how much the case built by the third party was compelling and fact based
so for example I've read an interesting opinion about game of thrones and why the latter season were less interesting, and it made the case that the story shifted from sociological to psychological drama and it set a completely different tone - some day later there was a similar debate on a forum but while the position was interesting I didn't had the ability to articulate it because a) it isn't my field of expertise and b) I didn't spent time dissecting the issue myself building an opinion, it was delegated.
and so I just wrote down two lines - hey guys check out what this author wrote on the subject - because it was interesting and it seemed well checked and I wanted to see if somebody was able to point out faults in the reasoning I didn't catch because of my limited expertise in the matter
sometimes who arguments by linking doesn't want to convince anyone, but wants to proxy debate an opinion piece by collecting and contrasting other opinion on the subject
If you cant articulate it, why is it important for you to argue? If it really means that much that you will spend time looking for proof, why not just learn the proof? And if you cant be bothered learning why have the argument to begin with?
not everything is about winning arguments. sometimes it's about sharing pleasant experiences, and reading interesting opinions might be pleasant on it's own, and yes even if the opinion is wrong it might be interesting to share it to get a discussion rolling, heck there are so many reasons, and sometimes there's not even a definite proof to learn or conclusion to reach, say, ever talked about films?
Thats different kind of discussions than debates. Of course you should share links that delight. I am talking about arguments not sharing a graph or a specific piece of data. I am referring to when the argument is the link, not when the link offers facts :)
True. However, relating this back to the software industry, I have often found myself in conversations where somebody says "according to so-and-so / this blog / this author, we should be doing this" - I feel like we don't really know what we are doing with software in the grand scheme of things (although things are getting better) thus many in the industry fall back on the ol' argument from authority. It seems to hold its weight in conversation in my experience. This is bad, everyone's opinion should be questioned and doubted.
