Wether it’s on the internet or at a bar counter, I like to engage in debate to better myself. If your goal is to turn every fanatic that crosses your path, you’re gonna be depressed real soon.
Never give up
Submitted 9 months ago by The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8131175d-d51d-4307-a008-ab0743b9cedc.jpeg
Comments
MrMobius@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
If your goal in an argument is to change the other person’s mind, then changing your mind (by taking in new information, learning, and understanding a different point of view) is seen as losing. That’s a terrible way to look at what is ultimately personal growth.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
As I’ve just said in two other comments, “changing someone’s mind” is just a return to barbarism and Middle Ages. When a few literate theology doctors would publicly “defeat” their opponents, the barely literate mass of their audience (monks, nobles and such) would watch and approve, and the illiterate mass would kinda get that those pesky heretics\infidels got totally owned by facts and logic.
So any person arguing with that emotion and visible goal should just be left to eat other such ignorami. Nobody worth arguing with has those.
Legendsofanus@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Love this, thank you.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
There’s no hope in changing the mind of every fanatic you come across.
But we generally don’t have internet debates in DMs, we do it in public forums. The goal isn’t to sway the fanatics, it’s to publicly quash their arguments. To sway curious onlookers away from fanaticism before they become fanatics themselves.
Thunderbird4@lemmy.world 9 months ago
People always forget about the lurkers. Most people with less-informed, more impressionable views on a given topic aren’t posting and debating, they’re reading and learning (despite the unfortunate exceptions). Seeing some wacko extremist nonsense or voter suppression tactic go unchallenged by a more reasonable argument may be enough to sway a not-yet-fanatic in the wrong direction.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
The goal isn’t to sway the fanatics, it’s to publicly quash their arguments. To sway curious onlookers away from fanaticism before they become fanatics themselves.
As I’ve said in another comment, this is return to Middle Ages. Debating skills have not much in common with reasoning skills.
rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
But - debates don’t better yourself. Only your debating skills in particular get better. It’s a return to Middle Ages with theologists publicly “defeating” heretic and Jewish and Muslim philosophy.
And “turn” is an interesting word, making the association even stronger.
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
If you’re debating in good faith you are bettering yourself by improving your understanding of a different view point, and letting your own views be challenged so you can reassess if you still hold them.
lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
One of the most refreshing things I’ve seen since joining Lemmy is people actually apologizing in comment threads like this.
ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m sorry to hear that! Don’t worry, it’ll get better as more people join, just you wait!
lemmy_nightmare@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Sorry
JackbyDev@programming.dev 9 months ago
Sorry
ICastFist@programming.dev 9 months ago
Wait, you mean internet arguments aren’t a game of chicken where the winner is whoever gets the last reply?
Wogi@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Challenge accepted.
No you’re wrong. It’s a game of votes, whoever gets the most votes is the most correct.
Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 9 months ago
So, if I just wait for the argument to cool off, then start replying, over and over, to anyone but the person I am directly disagreeing with, but still in the same thread, until the automatic votes accumulate to my favor, I will always be right?
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
You don’t realize that you’re wrong in the moment. The idea bounces around in your head long enough for your brain to decide it was your own conclusion. We can become less biased, but make no mistake: our brains are a total mess.
This is what happens when evolution throws hardware at a problem, succeeds, and it’s still poorly optimized.
Wogi@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Realizing you’re wrong while you’re still tilted is the weirdest feeling.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 9 months ago
I’ve definitely changed my mind on a few things as a result of online discussions. I can’t remember specifically what the topics were, unfortunately. What I do remember is that it didn’t happen the moment of the disagreement. It was a few days later when the topic came back up for unrated reasons and I realized I had the other opinion.
son_named_bort@lemmy.world 9 months ago
No they don’t
VaalaVasaVarde@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
PenisWenisGenius@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
Nuh-uh
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
👋 Me. I clicked it.
Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
I’m not reading that.
son_named_bort@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Your facts are meaningless to me, a guy with an opinion.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m in 10 levels of clicking it, when will I finally be able to read the details of it?
pancakes@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
That sounds like the words of someone who quits right before they change the other person’s mind
ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Hey, i think that lady by the license plate stand was talking to you…
splonglo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The trick is to argue with the voices in your own head and simply project them on to other people’s comments.
shneancy@lemmy.world 9 months ago
i cannot express how much i hate that, why must people keep imagining points and opinions i never said or made
Fallofturkey@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Gabagool was the most important story arc in the Sopranos, change my view.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Was gabagool behind the camera in the final scene?
Fallofturkey@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That is one of my favorite theories. Meadow walks in and frisbee throws a full stack of gabagool to Tony. It’s covers the camera, and that was the last of the film for the day. They liked it so much they kept it.
HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
I don’t argue to make them change their mind, I argue to make them angry >:)
GladiusB@lemmy.world 9 months ago
So you’re a troll?
HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
Haven’t thought about it like that, but I guess you’re right. Though, I can comfort myself in thinking I only “troll” bad people.
Sidhean@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Oh goodness, I should hope not! I love arguing on the internet, and I would hate to think that I’m actually changing peoples minds.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 9 months ago
No, you actually don’t like it.
EatATaco@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I know this is just a joke, but I’m reading a book on quitting right now and one of the points she is driving home is that if you quit at the right time, it tends to feel too early to quit.
yum@lemmy.eco.br 9 months ago
How to differentiate it from actually quitting too early?
EatATaco@lemm.ee 9 months ago
It feels too early. The idea is that you have to recognize your own cognitive and social biases that make us want to persist and objectively determine whether it makes sense to go on.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
That sounds interesting, what’s the book?
EatATaco@lemm.ee 9 months ago
[Quit. The power of learning when to walk away. By Annie Duke](Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away g.co/kgs/qFszxvC)
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The last few years had made me lose all respect for debates as a field of study. Remembering shit like logos and pathos and all that nonsense for nothing.
Cosmicomical@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Sir, this is the internet, nobody is allowed to quit
PenisWenisGenius@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
Fine then. Xbox 360 is better than ps3
lowleveldata@programming.dev 9 months ago
People don’t change their mind so easily…
kionite231@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
I do, I really do. If the argument is logical and coherent.
TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Me too. I want someone to tell me when I’m wrong. What’s wrong with us?
ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Master Tang, is that you?!
Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Nuh-uh, not me. I stop long before they change their mind.
TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 9 months ago
90% of statistics on the internet are made up on the spot. Just because people stop replying to you doesn’t mean you’ve “changed their views”, but that’s the only thing you will encounter if you never stop before they do. A big hint that they won’t be convinced is how they will just try to nitpick the most irrelevant points in your replies, ignoring the crux of the argument.
Acting like that is a good way to get stuck wasting your time, just give them a chance to know the facts and correct themselves with actual evidence and citations, and then move on. You help more people “change their views” that way, nobody is going to your shitpost deeply nested reply threads anyway. Nobody worth considering, anyway.
Alsjemenou@lemy.nl 9 months ago
Instructions unclear, am jerking off to political debates on brazzers
lugal@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
Remindes me of the tweet that said something like “My favorite moment on the internet was when someone said, they believe that people will changed their mind when given evidence. Then I linked TWO SOURCES that said otherwise and they were like I still believe it.”
Or when a hexbearian explained to me that hexbear isn’t toxic at all, it’s just when people refuse to read sources but than it’s their fault for not engaging with the material. Later they refused to open my sources.
Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.com 9 months ago
Ya got a source for that?
/s
pumpkinseedoil@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Good that they didn’t change their mind. If they had, you’d have been in trouble because your sources said otherwise.
splonglo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The person you’re talking to is unlikely to be pursuaded but there’s usually silent, invisible lurkers who can be.
I know I’ve changed my mind on things because of arguments I’ve read on the internet.
It is proven that people do double down on their views when confronted with opposing evidence, but IMO this is more about the psychology of trust and confrontation between individuals, rather than proof of the futility of argument as a concept. Hell, Vsauce made a video called ‘The Future of Reasoning’, where he makes the case that argument might have been selected for as an essential part of human psychology and necessary for our survivial.
lugal@sopuli.xyz 9 months ago
True. Sometimes it takes more than one random person on the internet to convince you but they might be part of starting a thought process.
Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Evidence shows that arguments are really only conducive to changing opinions when the person has a set of primers to find the person they disagree with otherwise agreeable. They refer to it as being in alignment with socio-epistemic conditions. Basically, people within a group identity can change opinions with others in the group, as long as the difference in opinion is not one that would be diametrically opposed to their group’s underlying identity. So, arguments between people from two different groups, like left v right, don’t really change minds towards the group they do not identify with. Those watching the debate will agree with the people who are in the same socio-epistemic group. This arguably makes public debate a bad thing. This is because those third party on-lookers will side with the person in the debate they most identify with for reasons outside of the debate. So you are simply platforming the person you disagree with, and possibly exposing people more in alignment with them, to an argument for a more extreme version of their position, rather than exposing them to a counter-opinion argument, to be considered.
Here is a good starting point on this subject, it links to a number of supporting papers early in the paper.
academic.oup.com/aristotelian/article/…/7207975