lol at people who say 'no one can be rational. everything is about dominance'

[MysteriousWeeb420]

also, im assuming non-dominance-contest arguments can be had between two individuals of relatively rational predispositions. obviously with someone like yourself it is impossible and you will always drag the conversation into one of these dominance contests (even if you are only dragging it into one within your own mind, leading to embarrassing 'i win the argument, you lose' moments when no arguments were even taking place)

I'm not saying that's impossible - these are generalizations

but you need to understand that this is all happening far beneath the conscious level. so most of the time these people will both be thinking they are being objective and civil but in reality they are trying to get under each other's skin more than reach the truth (short-term) without realising themselves