The 'prove me wrong' ethos of the internet engenders

4chan was never the place for in depth and thoughtful discussion. I'm not sure it even exists outside high society and academia.
And with all the religious/atheistic or catholic/protestant shitposting there isn't going to be good discussions about it. People are deathly afraid of being wrong, and will stick to their guns no matter what.

Prove me wrong

Everything on 4chan evolves to garner a response, hence posts speciate into provocative and eye catching appeals that feature a prompt.

Alternatively they tap into a latent enthusiasm such as late night porn threads

This board is essentially a comedy board for people with a genuine interest in history sling insults at each other and make shitposts that would only be funny to people who also enjoy history

if you think of it like that it's a pretty good board

if you want real discussion why are you here

It's not just 4chan. Or if it is, it's 4chans influence on the rest of social media (which it has now become part of).

People are too proud to admit when they're wrong, or admit when they don't know something (or had to google it before typing their response). The "prove me wrong" approach pre-supposes that OP is "right" and therefore his decision, in his own mind, was never ACTUALLY up for debate. Any of the "proof" you could possibly provide in the thread will fall on deaf ears, because he's not asking you for legitimate proof that he's incorrect. He's asking for you to set 'em up so he can knock 'em down and "prove" why HES right and everyone else is wrong. Most people trust scientific fact to be "true", but even if you post those OP will ask for "source plz" and when you post source, OP will attack the source itself and not the information it presents (via the scientific method). It's a lose lose, no matter which website you're shitposting on.

I dont believe it's a 4chan issue, you can still have good discussion and arguments here even if most of them aren't, i've already done threads that had really good discussions in /his/ about philosophy. Most people believe they are completely right, that limits arguments and discussions a lot, that's why they will most likely give short answers and never discuss. The idea that you're wrong is correct because they're right.
A simple example of what you mentioned could be like this:
"2+2=4 Prove me wrong."
"2+2=22"
I'm not sure if you noticed the problem here, but neither of them is wrong (in this scenario), it depends where you're going to use those equations , when calculating math you will be going for 2+2=4 but numbers and letters can be used to represent more stuff than math, when you think about the number 22, the symbol utilized is 2 repeated 2 times, with that in mind you just picked the number 2 and added another one, that way 2+2=22.
When someone writes the "Prove me wrong", it's literally saying that "This is the only answer/argument about X, everything else that you say means that you're against this answer/argument"

>>2580311

I did have the impression that in the early days of /his/ there was more opportunity for dialogue.

It was almost unchanlike for a short while.