I've been arguing with people on the Internet for nearly a decade, and it's my personal experience that, if the argument comes to any sort of resolution whatsoever, it usually turns out that my opposition and I were both arguing on the same page, and we agreed on a lot, if not most, if not all the things we were fighting about.

The problem was, the words we were using, our methods of argumentation, clashed. Maybe I took a more logical approach, whereas they took a more emotional approach. Maybe my arguments were based on pure reason alone, and they preferred to pull up research, data, and statistics (which I still think is a waste of time).

I had this a lot with people like Meta--I can push Meta to the point where he's inches away from conceding that capitalism is dogshit, but there are various things that we get hung up on before we come to that point. He'll talk about how capitalism innovates, and how competition is a good thing--whereas my position has always been, "It's not the worst thing in the world, but it could be a fuck of a lot better."

If you read between the lines, you'll see that referring to economic competition as "a good thing" is kinda the same exact thing as saying "it's not the worst but it could be way better." The latter is phrased in a completely different way, yet they're both, essentially, the same sentiment. The difference lies with our personalities. I'm less satisfied with the system of capitalism than Meta is, because it's fucked me and those I care about so often, whereas Meta may not have had the same experience.

Meta is just one example--I see this kind of thing a lot. Two people agreeing on a subject, but their personalities clash, making it look like they disagree, when they're actually pretty much on the same page.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? Is there any truth to the question in the title?

I think most of our disagreements about capitalism are to do with how you frame your argument. Your normative position is anti-capitalist, mine is not, so we tend to view each other's arguments as coming from opposite ends of the spectrum.

We probably agree on a lot of the problems with capitalism indeed being problems, and arguments around these issues likely do come down to semantics. Arguments about solutions, however, are much more to do with substance. At least in the case of you and I on capitalism.

I haven't had too many semantics arguments on the net, personally. I try to recognize and avoid them when at all possible.

I do notice them a fair bit but not every argument I observe seems to boil down to them.

I would say most of the time that's true

don't you mean semetics?

man, I hate those.