[HN Gopher] A gentler, better way to change minds ___________________________________________________________________ A gentler, better way to change minds Author : yamrzou Score : 108 points Date : 2022-10-13 11:21 UTC (2 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com) | bee_rider wrote: | Honestly, I do not really think most online commenters want to | convince anybody of anything. For most of history, discussion of | current events by normal people has just been venting to your | likeminded friends in the pub. The problem I think is on the part | of people who expect convincing rhetoric in online conversations. | [deleted] | zopa wrote: | Debates are about convincing onlookers, not the person you're | arguing with. Online, in the pub, everywhere. | bee_rider wrote: | Sure, but I don't think many people are really looking for | debates. I think most people are more interested in getting | something off their chest and indicating in-group status | (we're social animals after all). | bmacho wrote: | Debates are about checking that your own views are indeed | correct. | RealityVoid wrote: | Both are correct. If you indeed know your views are | correct, dangerous ones _need_ to be challenged, onlookers | need to see that bad ideas have opposition and there are | other ways of approaching an issue. | | At the same time, you also need to acknowledge if someone | has a point and have honest discussion. If you always | debate and never ever think... "Huh, this guy has a point" | then you most likely are not intellectually honest. | oceanplexian wrote: | I fundamentally don't agree that ideas can be dangerous | (Ironically, I guess this is an argument). However | actions are dangerous and people should be held to | account by their actions. If you disagree with someone's | ideas you should debate them, or articulate your point of | view, not challenge them. | phailhaus wrote: | They're not, because they're framed as zero-sum games. Both | parties are attempting to convince the other (more likely, | onlookers), and have no incentive to concede. | tsol wrote: | Debates are about saying ridiculous things to make people | on the internet really mad /s | Shugarl wrote: | I disagree, you can win debates regardless of whether or | not your views are correct. A good debater with a wrong | view will "win" against a bad debater with a correct view. | seydor wrote: | ... or maybe consider that if people consistently reject your | claim, you re the one who s in the wrong | andsoitis wrote: | Not paywalled: | https://archive.ph/2022.04.22-170337/https://www.theatlantic... | civilized wrote: | Offering your values as a gift still seems way too presumptuous. | | I think you can express how you feel about things and why if | someone's interested, or if they express their feelings first. | Anything more than that is unwelcome to the vast majority of | people. | Giorgi wrote: | Ok, now try that on invading Russians. | nuc1e0n wrote: | The idea of even trying to force or 'encourage' others to change | their minds is horrid. Let people make up their own minds. Do | people ever think that maybe their ideas are the ones that are | stupid? Only giving advice or recommendations when they are | sought is the genuinely gentler approach. | Ztynovovk wrote: | HN and being contrary---name a better duo. | [deleted] | blondin wrote: | why should we try to persuade or change minds? | | are we happier now that we can reach millions of minds? or were | we happier with smaller circles of family and friends? is there a | great injustice that needs each and every one of us to play the | persuasion game? | elefanten wrote: | Well, terminally the alternative is always violence | somenameforme wrote: | Or acceptance of difference. The underlying notion many seem | to believe is that they are inherently right and so all they | need to do is express their "mind-space" to somebody else, | and that other person will come to feel the same. | | But the thing one forgets is that the other person also often | feels exactly the same. And it's not even a matter of one | person being right and another person being wrong. | | In any sort of reasonably complex topic, people can see the | same data and make informed conclusions that are mutually | exclusive. Seeing successful persuasion or violence as the | only ends largely simplifies down to violence being the only | end. Or, "The History of Humanity." | woojoo666 wrote: | Except certain resources are exclusive. For example, global | human effort. How much global effort should be expended | towards fighting climate change? In cases like these, | people can't just accept their differences, a choice has to | be made. | int_19h wrote: | > Or acceptance of difference. | | That only works if both sides do it. The problem is that | there are many political ideologies across the entire | spectrum that are unwilling to accept the difference to the | point of resorting to violence to remove it. | notacoward wrote: | > is there a great injustice that needs each and every one of | us to play the persuasion game? | | How about yes? Some might say there are a few universal issues | that qualify. Others might say that the issues aren't universal | but there are so many that everyone should take up some set. | Either way, they might agree that peer to peer persuasion is | ultimately more effective than top-down edicts. They persuade | to avert harm, just as you are attempting to do right here and | now in a more meta kind of way, and there's nothing inherently | wrong with that. Identifying methods of persuasion that are | more effective and/or less harmful themselves is something | worthy of our curiosity. | echelon wrote: | > Stop wielding your values as a weapon and start offering them | as a gift. | | It's about time this was put forth. | | I've been screaming from the bottom of my lungs for ages that | woke virtue signalling only makes enemies. | | If you tell your opponent you're better than them, you're | engaging in high school football rivalry. You'll never come to a | meeting of the minds. It only makes the disagreement more bitter. | | The left and the right, at the end of the day, really aren't that | much different at all. There are only a few concepts we disagree | upon. Yet we're engaging in petty team squabbles and letting the | lizard parts of our brains turn it into tribalistic "us vs them". | | An analogy, probably incorrect, is the hygiene hypothesis. An | under-exposed immune system in a clean room learns to attack its | host instead. Similarly, since we're not regularly engaging in | tribe vs tribe, fighting off assailants that would throttle us in | the night, or staying by the fire to stay away lions and bears, | we turn that defense mechanism against those with different | ideals. | | At the end of the day, we're all suffering and dying together. | ajross wrote: | > woke virtue signalling only makes enemies | | I'm not following. The very term "woke virtue signaling" is | itself a loaded, aggressive frame that is _designed_ to "make | enemies". | | You don't think, to pick an example, that vegans eat vegan | because they want to and not to signal to you? What's your | solution for them to change your mind except to... eat meat | with you in solidarity I guess? | | The point being that what you're picking up as "virtue | signaling" is largely in _your own interpretation_. Most of the | hippies are just living their lives. But yeah, sometimes that | involves being trans or gay or whatever in a way that isn 't | invisible to you. | ok_dad wrote: | You have a great point. I think you could agree your point | would have been made better without the cheap shot to score | points against woke bogeymen. | | To your point though, we need to stick together as humans, from | every country, because the common person from China has more in | common with the common person in America than either common | person has with those in power trying to split us up by race | and ideology. Divide and conquer doesn't work if you don't buy | in to the divisions! | boplicity wrote: | > I've been screaming from the bottom of my lungs for ages that | [insert opinion] only makes sense | | There you go. | bee_rider wrote: | The idea that one side of the political discourse is engaging | in "virtual signaling" and "wielding their values as weapons" | is not a new one. Surprisingly enough, it is always the side | that the disagrees with the author, that is totally | disingenuous in the expression values, go figure. | tchaffee wrote: | > woke virtue signaling | | > tell your opponent you're better than them. | | You just did the latter. By assuming your opponents are not | sincere in the former. | BolexNOLA wrote: | > I've been screaming from the bottom of my lungs for ages that | woke virtue signaling only makes enemies | | That sentence right there makes me seriously skeptical of how | well your conversations turn out, as well as how open minded | you are when talking with people you disagree with. | tdeck wrote: | > I've been screaming from the bottom of my lungs for ages that | woke virtue signalling only makes enemies. | | Is it possible that people don't think you're sincere about | sharing their values but advocating a "kinder, gentler" style | of persuasion, when you're screaming at them about their "woke | virtue signaling"? | zzzeek wrote: | let's posit two historical events that every American knows | about, which represented pretty fierce disagreement: | | 1. the Civil War and Slavery | | 2. the Holocaust | | each event featured "sides" that disagreed pretty strongly. They | were life-or-death conflicts involving millions of people. Do we | try to apply these "lets find our shared morals" / "present our | side with the joy (of a missionary)" practices in these | situations? Probably not. They were wars. Kind of the ultimate | "disagreement". | | If you are open to the view that conflicts happening today are | fast approaching the scale / seriousness of the above two events, | things like, one political party trying to overthrow the US | government by force, widespread corruption of the rule of law and | police, draconian rules meant to terrorize or imprison whole | populations of women and immigrants, destruction of democratic | norms, kids living their lives in terror of school schootings, | then it's hard to take this article seriously. | | If the above paragraph OTOH sounds ridiculous and one is of the | view that things are pretty normal except for a little messiness | on this social media thing, then by all means, present your view | to that reality as a gift given with joy. | patientplatypus wrote: | wnscooke wrote: | "screaming at the top of my lungs", and "from the bottom of my | heart". Seems two idioms were mixed up here. | saghm wrote: | I assume that this was meant to reply to | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33217608 rather than a | top-level comment? Either way, this just makes me think of the | Strongbad Email about how to be a metal singer (i.e. to sing | not from the top of your lungs, but from the bowels): | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V72NKRyX1NA | goethes_kind wrote: | Shouldn't different people in different circumstances of life, | have different opinions/philosophies/ideologies anyway? How about | this: if you want to change people's minds, work on changing | their circumstances first. | woojoo666 wrote: | If certain values are circumstantial, couldn't that just be | combined into a higher-level formulation? Eg if a lower-class | person values family, and a higher-class person values | fulfillment, then you simply say "fulfillment is valuable when | monetary and social needs are met" (aka Maslow's hierarchy of | needs [1]), and that's something both people can agree on. No | need to change anybody's circumstances. | | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs | rufus_foreman wrote: | That's not what this is about. It's not about opinions or | philosophies or ideologies. | | It's about reality. | | I'm reading the things people write, I'm looking at the | arguments they make, and they make no sense. None. | | That's what this is about. | | Am I going insane? Or is it "them"? | 2devnull wrote: | An interesting idea related to this: the pedagogical benefits | of esotericism. | | Melzer writes: "Just as education must begin by addressing the | student where he is, so, as he learns and changes, it must stay | with him. The internal or dialectical critique of received | opinion takes place not in a single stroke but in a series of | successive approximations to the truth, each of which will seem | in its time to be the final one." | swayvil wrote: | That's a damn good point. Philosophy is merely perspective's | shadow (moral philosophy included!). If you want to change the | way they think then change what they see. | | Our #1 tool for that is drugs. So cheap and convenient. #2 is | video entertainment, but that's a bit shallow and ephemeral. #3 | is what... raucous demonstrations? | | And speaking of demonstrations, you can't beat "scientific | culture" for having a pre-existing setup for managing the | "changing philosophies by changing perspectives" process. But | most of us aren't scientists. (Or squishy, openminded | experimentalists, even) | mikepurvis wrote: | This is Michael Shellenberger's philosophy around saving the | planet/climate. Basically, that economic justice _has_ to come | first because only people who are comfortable and middle class | can afford the mental and emotional costs associated with | caring about that stuff. | | And yes, achieving that result on a global scale may well | involve the construction of a bunch of new oil and gas | infrastructure in places like Africa and South America-- well | meaning westerners should focus on what can be done at home to | reduce, and stop protesting exactly the kind of thing that | helps more people enter the middle class. | tarakat wrote: | > economic justice* has to come first | | So shall we put the ongoing ecological and climate | catastrophes on hold while we take 200 years to reach an | egalitarian utopia? On the other hand, we're told that these | catastrophes affect the poorest countries the most. From that | point of view, environmentalism _is_ "economic justice". | | *Interesting term. Does that mean the economically better off | have committed a crime, and must be punished? | nuancebydefault wrote: | I understand economic justice not as a justice system but | as fairness. Everyone has the right be part of a good | economy. When that is achieved, on such a level field, it | is more easy to tackle important things like efficient use | of resources. | simonh wrote: | Well fortunately we recently passed a tipping point. Over | half the population of the world are now middle class. This | is largely due to a few hundred million Chinese, and more in | SE Asia generally, entering the urban middle income bracket | over the last few decades. The next few years are probably | going to be rough, but global incomes have been going in the | right direction for quite a while. | | As for fossil fuels, utility scale solar is now cheaper than | coal. Global development definitely means more CO2, but we're | right at an inflection point towards renewables. | nuancebydefault wrote: | If half of people are middle class, the rest is either poor | or belongs to the few percent of people who happen to own | half the world's assets. Would you describe such a | situation as 'fortunate'? | petermcneeley wrote: | I wonder if there is a group of people that is even more | comfortable than the "middle class" that could afford this | cost. | mikepurvis wrote: | Sure, but that's a much smaller group. The historical | argument is that the rise of the environmental movement in | the US coincided with the postwar boom. Yes, some people | became very wealthy during that time, but millions of | people became _wealthy enough_ that they started wanting | things like national parks, clean rivers, breathable air, | and so on. | | The strength in numbers is worth a lot more that asking a | few zillionaires to make it happen single-handedly. | ethanbond wrote: | Not when the few zillionaires are in command of zillions | of dollars of capital, which is by far a more effective | lever to do just about anything these days than any lever | available to middle class and below. | jmeister wrote: | This is totally wrong. Public opinion is by far the | biggest roadblock. Believing that only some evil rich | people are in the way is a coping mechanism. Read David | Shor or Matt Yglesias on this. | ethanbond wrote: | Public opinion doesn't develop technologies and materials | and techniques. Huge, huge, huge amounts of capital does. | | Also note: I didn't ascribe evil to them at all, please | don't put words in my mouth. | User23 wrote: | You're straw-manning. There is a solid argument with | plenty of supporting evidence that a small minority | observably has virtually all the political power in the | United States[1]. | | That's not to say public opinion is completely | irrelevant, but when it can't be directly controlled | through mass media persuasion techniques it can be | neutralized in various ways. Isn't it interesting how the | US is somehow evenly divided on so many "controversial" | issues? One explanation is that those who are | manipulating the public intentionally play up issues with | that property. | | [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives- | on-poli... | CptFribble wrote: | "Middle-class-ness" in this context shouldn't be the | _primary_ goal, because it 's only a proxy for "have enough | time and space to care." I assure you, poor people care about | the environment, but we've structured our society to prevent | the working poor from having enough free time and energy to | advocate for things like the environment. Poor people | generally don't even have enough time and energy to advocate | for themselves for things like affordable housing and the end | of food deserts. | | Instead of just being like "lets burn more carbon to generate | wealth first," we should skip the middle steps and go | directly to giving people of all classes, especially the | working poor that make up the majority of the human race, a | voice and access to voting rights. Give the lower economic | classes a larger voice in government and I think you'd be | surprised how many would vote for things like investment in | clean energy. | | Respectfully, saying that you have to be rich enough to have | time to care is missing the forest for the trees. | int_19h wrote: | One of the informal definitions of "middle class" that I've | heard is "people who have enough wealth and power that they | don't have to constantly think about survival, but not | enough to have to worry about being a target in the | political game of thrones". | carapace wrote: | FWIW, the middle class of Africa is larger than the middle | class of North America. | | https://qz.com/africa/1486764/how-big-is-africas-middle- | clas... | | (I don't know what that means, it's just a fact I picked up | along the way. Like how more people know English in China | than in North America. Just one of those weird thoughts that | seems obvious in hindsight. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_education_in_China ) | | - - - - | | > economic justice has to come first | | Ecologically harmonious living is economical as well: your | expenses are reduced, your health is improved, etc. In other | words, ecologically harmonious living _is_ economic justice. | That 's what that looks like in the real world: abundant | (cheap) food, medicine, clothing, housing, etc. | | The only downside to living in harmony with nature is for | people who are committed to making money from waste (in the | ultimate analysis.) E.g. GMO's are touted as solving world | hunger, but really in practice they are used to lock-in | corporate profits. The same company that sells you the poison | sells you the seeds that resist the poison, seeds that you | must buy each year: the contract states you can't save your | own seed. | | If you grow food in harmony with nature you don't need | fertilizer ($$$) pesticide ($$$) GMO patented crop species | ($$$) etc... | | It's more profitable _for the farmer_ and the product is | healthier (reducing medical expenses, eh?) | | Compare with, e.g.: Grow BIOINTENSIVE ( | http://growbiointensive.org/ ) a system that uses around | 5000f2 (~450m2) per adult, produces a balanced complete diet, | and increases soil volume and fertility year-on-year, while | requiring no external inputs and little labor. | | I have lots of other examples, poke me for more... | | Anyway, the point is, "economic justice" _is_ living in | harmony with nature: they are the same thing. | nuancebydefault wrote: | Economic justice would be benificial for the world as a | whole. Also, poorer countries have to go through economic | growth more or less the same way as the steps the richer | countries took. There are very few shortcuts possible since | the growth is gradual. | midislack wrote: | After years of shouting at Trump voters, calling them names, | racists, fascists, and Nazis, and that not working. Why not try | some sanctimonious nose peeping? | | At this point I simply don't dialogue with people on political | subjects. I nod, smile, agree, then pull the farthest right lever | in the voting booth I can. | tynol wrote: | jondeval wrote: | I do think there are a subset of people who are genuinely open | minded. These people are actively curious and looking to iterate | toward a more accurate view of reality. | | When you meet people like this there are no 'tactics' ... it's | just about presenting the truth in good faith as you see it and | listening actively to understand their point of view. | | The problem I encounter is that many people posture as 'open- | minded', but in reality they want to hear your opinion for the | same reason an opponent wants you to show your cards after | they've folded to a successful poker bluff. In this case it | simply tells them "what side you're on" or "which tribe you | belong to". | | As a heuristic, I've found it's very difficult to formulate | thoughtful questions if you're not genuinely curious about a | topic. Therefore, I tend to use the 'questioning level of | thoughtfulness' (QLOT) of my discussion partner as the signal of | whether or not I'm dealing with someone who desires a good faith | discussion. | oceanplexian wrote: | > When you meet people like this there are no 'tactics' ... | it's just about presenting the truth in good faith | | I will argue with tactics, but it's not necessarily out of bad | faith. Usually people are terrible at having an open-minded | conversation, and you need to peel back the layers because most | individuals won't tell you why they believe something. | | You'll get all these canned responses and talking points from | mainstream media (Or, if we're talking about technology, the | analog would be taking points from a particular corporation or | vendor). But people won't outright say "I don't agree with that | policy because I don't trust that person" or "I got screwed | over by a traumatic experience with X therefore I'm against X". | Most people aren't capable of engaging on that level without a | great deal of emotional maturity; of course, we're far away | from reality and facts at this point but humans are emotional | creatures and emotion drives our decision making. | jondeval wrote: | That's right. Having a conversation is an art and there is | absolutely a role for good faith tactics to help bring out | the truth of things. | raydiatian wrote: | > conversation is an art | | It's interesting how it totally is an art, but is largely | taught completely informally by peers and parents. | didibus wrote: | I've found that being more like a therapist and discussing | not what it is they think but trying to get to the bottom of | why it is they feel as such a really good approach. | | Even ignoring the issue and trying to ask them more about | their values. And then going deeper and figuring out why they | value those things. | | And sharing the same about you to them. | | A lot of disagreement I find surprisingly come from similar | values but just different weights applied to how events | impact those values. Or sometimes it's just different value | sets, and then you have to discuss why it is we value | different things. | | Even if you walk away still in disagreement, because you | might still just end up where you have differing values, or | where you've got different weights to those values, at least | you'll have an understanding of each other and why it is you | don't agree on those things. | | The problem is online discussions are just not conductive to | this at all. You can't engage someone and really work through | this process of shared understanding. Relationships online | are too superficial and short lived. | raydiatian wrote: | > Stop wielding your values as a weapon and start offering them | as a gift. | | This is incredibly spot on. I might even say it differently as | | "Stop treating your values as an indication of your superiority, | and start treating them as a relatable story of growth." | | A lot (I mean a lot) of people I talk with are constantly trying | to put on a display of how what they are is some kind of superior | way of being. And it's impossible to listen to them because | they're speaking with a childish "I'm this and your not" way of | thinking. | kypro wrote: | I find it odd that people seek to change minds to be honest. | | For some reason I'm a hard-core libertarian so I kind of hate my | own core values. I'd even go so far as to acknowledge that my | ideal world would be close to hell for most people. I don't want | to be this way. I just seem to have a preference for it. | | I realised several years ago that if I ever got my own way it | would make the world objectively a worse place for the average | person to live and therefore I have an ethical duty to vote | against my own self interest and instead try to vote for what I | believe is in the interest of the collective good. | | I think a lot of political division we see today just stems of a | lack of empathy and understanding. Instead of trying to find ways | we can compromise and share this Earth together we seek to force | our own values on to others. And this seems to be true at all | levels of society, from Twitter debates about trans rights, to | democracy vs autocracy debates at the level of nation states. | | Plus I think most disagreements we have can generally be solved | with more localism and secessionism. Here in the UK for example I | don't know why I don't just let Muslim communities practise | Sharia law if they wish and allow communities who dislike | immigration set their own rules on who is and isn't allowed to | live there. But like I say, I know people disagree with me on | these things. | akomtu wrote: | I'll take the opportunity to insert some thoughts from | metaphysics here. It says that the evolution of humanity begins | with total unity, and just as total lack of reason: if one was | to lose a finger, others would feel the pain, but wouldn't | understand why. In order to develop reason, humanity descends | into individualism. The extreme social division today is the | sign of passing the midpoint of evolution when mind is fully | developed, but the sense of unity is lost. After that the | course of evolution will take us back, but we'll get to keep | the skill of reasoning. Returning to the origin will be forced | by shared hardships: the divisiveness will die off under their | pressure. | [deleted] | dr_dshiv wrote: | This is hilarious! I have never heard a perspective like this | before. However, I don't believe you. Let me see if I can | persuade you... | jondeval wrote: | > For some reason I'm a hard-core libertarian so I kind of hate | my own core values. I'd even go so far as to acknowledge that | my ideal world would be close to hell for most people. I don't | want to be this way. I just seem to have a preference for it. | | Honest question, have you ever considered this to be a | legitimate data point that would act to falsify your hard-core | libertarian values? | gnramires wrote: | > I don't want to be this way. I just seem to have a preference | for it. | | Aren't you being a sort of "preference fatalist"? Do you think | it's impossible to change preferences? | | Maybe a good place to start would be to research people who | have changed preferences. I think motivation is not the | mythical black box that oms people ascribe to. We're motivated | by cognitive processes and experiences. If we expose ourselves | to different experiences and try to see value in different | things, our brain can adapt and start saying "Okay, this thing | I didn't find motivating is getting motivating!" -- motivation | is built by yourself. I call this concept "freedom of utility" | -- you're free to choose what to care about; although of course | there are limits to the flexibility of some of our instincts | for various reasons related to just being limited, finite | beings overall. | | (I'm speaking of the general issue of changing values and | changing your mind -- hopefully not too personal) | | In your case, I think at a level you've already adopted | different values (which I think is admirable and necessary for | humans to achieve a good existence), but you're finding it hard | reconciling your various intuitions and various rational | thoughts. I think it's a slow process, but we should let the | truth and what we ultimately find genuinely best win -- discuss | it with other people, think about it, test its consequences (in | real life or thought), this is how you change your mind. | cgrealy wrote: | People seek to change the minds of others because their | opinions (and subsequent actions) often affect the people | themselves. | | A simple example of this would be abortion. | clairity wrote: | abortion itself, being a personal decision/action, doesn't | seek to affect the thoughts and behaviors of other people. | perhaps you mean anti-abortion, since that attempts to be | positively coercive of others? | xboxnolifes wrote: | Abortion can only seen as a personal decision if you don't | consider it murder. From the view point that "life" starts | at conception, it cannot be seen as a personal decision. | Thus, pro-abortion seeks to change the minds of people such | that "life" does not start at conception. | coldtea wrote: | They mean the issue of abortion (whether pro or against). | "Change the mind" they mean from its current position | (whether pro- or anti- abortion). | | Even if we assume that "it's a personal choice" is some | kind of natural/god-given/obvious default (which | historically it hasn't been), we'd still to work to change | the minds of people who think otherwise... | bee_rider wrote: | I'm a pretty liberal person in a very liberal area, but | nobody has ever tried to convince me to change my mind to | be pro-abortion. I'm in favor of letting people make | their own healthcare decisions of course but to be | actively pro-abortion seems like some hyper niche | position. | peacefulhat wrote: | How do you determine who is in the community and subject to the | community law? | rickdicker wrote: | I find it strange that this article presumes that you have all | the right answers and that there isn't the possibility that _you_ | are the one who needs their mind changed. It points out that | listening is valuable, but not because there 's a possibility | that the person you're talking to is in the right, no, you should | listen to other people because studies show that listening to | other people will manipulate them into seeing things your way. I | feel like if you really wanted to live in a world of open-minded | people, you should probably start by being open-minded yourself. | | Here's a good trick I picked up for discussing contentious things | - if you're ever tempted to dish out a sick burn, try to rephrase | the point into a genuine question. Then the other person will | have to walk through the logic of it, and if it turns out there | is a real logic to their side of things, you don't get your ego | bruised, cause you just asked a genuine question. | kyleyeats wrote: | It helps if you understand whether the person is defending | their own values, or their group's values. | | If you talk someone out of their group's values, you might | _destroy their entire life_. Talking someone out of their | religion is a "win" until they get shunned and lose everything | they have. Are you still in the right then? What does the | "objective truth" matter if you're just ruining peoples lives? | | Change someone's mind on guns or abortion and you hurt them! It | doesn't matter which side they start on or which side you | convince them to. You're ripping and tearing at the very fabric | of their social life. | | Some people are unable to change their minds, but some people | _can 't_ change their minds due to circumstance. It's really | important to understand this before convincing anyone of | anything. | nuancebydefault wrote: | Even if you persuaded them into changing their mind on a | topic intertwined with their identity or the group they are | part of, can it not be that it is for the better and, | ultimately for their own benifit? | RobertoG wrote: | Great comment. I suspect that we all are vulnerable to | Stockholm syndrome and doing the calculation of what price we | will pay for changing our mind. After all, surviving is more | important than being right. | coffeeblack wrote: | Or they may even lose their job at WaPo or the Atlantic! ;) | rybosome wrote: | We are all, regardless of the direction of our political | leaning, suspended in our beliefs by the community we are | part of. | | If you don't believe me, I encourage you to try walking | down Main Street in small town America with a BLM flag. | It'll be received about as well as parading a Trump 2024 | flag around a coastal city. | Swizec wrote: | I visited a small town recently - Ithaca. As someone from | San Francisco I was _shocked_ by the amount of LGBTQ and | BLM imagery. | | Feels like everyone in SF kinda takes it as the default | position, no need to show off. | nuancebydefault wrote: | > listening... will manipulate them... | | I also read in the article that you should listen in a genuine | way. Would it be possible that this act could change your own | mind? Would that fit your definition of being open-minded? | xani_ wrote: | > Here's a good trick I picked up for discussing contentious | things - if you're ever tempted to dish out a sick burn, try to | rephrase the point into a genuine question. Then the other | person will have to walk through the logic of it, and if it | turns out there is a real logic to their side of things, you | don't get your ego bruised, cause you just asked a genuine | question. | | And if it doesn't they can figure it out and have a way to fuck | off without losing face too much | dr_dshiv wrote: | > if you're ever tempted to dish out a sick burn, try to | rephrase the point into a genuine question | | Can you give an example? | phailhaus wrote: | Great example! | dr_dshiv wrote: | Ok, but now I want the sick burn | rickdicker wrote: | Something like instead of saying "well more people die of | the flu every year than die of COVID!" you would ask "how | do you think the severity of this disease compares to | other things we deal with, like the flu?" | Nition wrote: | "The government's using COVID as a means of population | control." | | "Why does the government want a lower population - don't they | usually want more people to grow the economy?" | danhak wrote: | On the contrary, the article concludes on this note: | | > But if I truly have the good of the world at heart, then I | must not fall prey to the conceit of perfect knowledge, and | must be willing to entertain new and better ways to serve my | ultimate goal: creating a happier world. | andrewflnr wrote: | That means a lot less as a postscript than as the starting | point. Whereas the framing of your values as a "gift" doesn't | absolutely imply they're correct, but does imply they're | somehow a good thing. | | There's a phrase we use for saying the right words about an | important idea but not actually incorporating it into your | methods: "lip service". ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-15 23:00 UTC)