Discussing politics and other contentious sunjects online feels to me like it’s counterproductive these days and even though I try not to get suckered in, I often can’t help myself. Usually though I just end up feeling frustrated and sometimes angry at the other person either missing my points or refusing to accept them.
Thinking back to conversations I’ve had here and previously on Reddit, not only can I not remember an example of me “winning” the discussion and the other person changing their mind or conceding the point, I also cannot think of a time where my mind was changed either.
So have you ever begun a discussion online with someone with a different view point to yours and either you, or they, changed the others mind?
No but I have been the other party who was convinced. Not in a big philosophical way but convinced that I didnt know what the hell I was talking about and that I had drank the proverbial kool aid.
yes, a lot. but it was a decade or two ago.
there were a few subreddits long time ago where I was popular precisely for debating people and ideas and regularly got messages about how interesting my comments were and how they made people re-evaluate things they believed or thought. after I left there were some posts about ‘where did he go?’
but post 2016 or so anytime I do that it just results in name calling and being labeled and demonized. open and civil discussion in general is just harder to facilitate online or in real life… because more and more people perceives it as an existential threat. i have noticed especially the past few years all the toxic online attitudes are filtering into the real world.
I think it depends on the tone. I’ve had my mind changed and view adjusted many times in online discussions. Does the other person come at me in a “debate” mindset, very aggressive, dismissive, hostile, or calling me names? Bye, I’m probably going to block them and move on with my life. But if they come at me with a spirit of discussion, education, and kindness as a fellow human with a differing opinion, I’ll consider what they say. I may not agree with it, but many times I have adjusted my views or even completely changed them.
I remember years ago I was completely against legalization/decriminalization of drugs. I thought that it would never be a good thing and didn’t understand why people would support it; why would you want to give people MORE access to heroin? I had commented on a website making a statement along those lines, and someone responded with a well educated comment about how a certain country (was it Brazil? I can’t remember, it was so long ago) had either legalized or decriminalized drugs and how not only did it allow them to put in place systems to help addicts, but the crime rate dropped substantially because the cartels no longer had a market to operate. I ended up doing some research and realized that this person was right, and ever since then I’ve been firmly on the side of decriminalizing drugs and putting efforts towards healthcare and helping addicts rather than punishment.
I don’t debate or argue to win. I debate and argue just to get my points across and to be heard.
Have we not learned as to what you look like when winning is your top priority in online arguments?
Early Gen X here, been on line since 1992.
I’ve had the interwebthingies change so many bad ways of thinking of mine. And I was (relative to the normal Lemmy/Piefed user) already a pretty lefty liberal. And I used to adore a defending my “point” in a good internet argument.
I don’t participate much in online debates, so I don’t know if I’ve ever convinced someone with my words. However, what I can tell you is that sometimes a person writes something interesting, and then it gets stuck in my head for some time until I have to read something about that topic, finally causing a change of opinion in me.
I forced Ben Shapiro to change his views on gender with well-thought-out counterpoints.
He was literally saying sex and gender were the same. After a spelled out comment on why they weren’t, he changed his tune on the next show.
Brother take it easy, are you trying to get the man shot or something? Not being radical enough is literally life threatening for the Turning Point guys.
I have a conspiracy theorist at work that (I think) I got to shut up a bit.
He started going on about how leftists are getting chips implanted and that that’s the mark of the beast. I basically told him no one knows what the fuck he’s talking about with these chips, but a real, visible, example of the mark of the beast is the MAGA hat. I think I cracked him a bit with that one.
I also told him that I’m down to hear his thoughts about Bigfoot because I think cryptozoology is fascinating even though I’m not a believer.
So now he tells me about his camping trips looking for Bigfoot.
I’m ok with that. It’s harmless. 🤷♂️
Talk Bigfoot vs. talk politics?
❤️🤣
Yes, I believe I have and recently too.
A post came up about sexism and someone mentioned the wage gap. Men always go to the talking point of “well women don’t want the hard and dirty jobs, men do all that work”. So I mentioned my experience as a woman trying to become an electrician:
I overheard another electrician and the foreman talking about my body in a way that made me know I was unsafe around those men. Speaking about how I’m not “woman enough” because I have short hair or the things they would do to my body without my permission to make me a “real womantm”.
I received a direct message from someone saying that they reached out to women they knew in the trades who confirmed my experience was not unique. It was just not something they thought about and it’s not talked about enough or pushed back on when talking about the gender wage gap.
Women enjoy working in trades but we are sexually harassed and assaulted out of these spaces and it has nothing to do with “men do all the hard work”.
I used to be pro death penalty, but I have been convinced that the state really isn’t up to the responsibility much of the time. So many cases have been proven to be wrong over the years, there are lawyers that just go through old murder cases and prove innocence with DNA.
I can think of a view times I that have changed my position through conversations online, but always with accompanying facts, an article or study, footage from multiple angles, and so on.
I generally don’t argue long enough to “convince” people, that’s just banter really to pass the time like if I am stuck in a line.
To me, the other side of the death penalty discussion is the Batman and Joker thought experiment, as described in detail by Jason Todd (Red Hood), but it’s perhaps a strawman because it’s taken to some extremes.
It’s easy to look at “The State” as an evil mammoth organization that can rarely apply fair sentencing - but that’s a bit doomer to the entire idea of a justice system. I do think standards of certainty should be much greater than what they are, but as with the Joker, there has to be a reasonable limit.
Hundreds of people have been proven innocent, and it’s not as if all cases have been reviewed by this small group of pro bono lawyers fighting for justice. How many thousands of falsely-convicted people are serving time right now?
There is no Joker, there is no supervillain killing scores of people every time that they escape maximum security; and there never has been such a criminal mastermind. If a Joker does appear, we can change the law then, certainly. But until then, we should stop our rather incompetent and frequently malicious state from murdering innocents
It’s rare to straight up change someone’s mind. But most change is about planting a seed that will grow over time as they remember what you said and start seeing patterns that align with it. I’ve had a few more of those, and they are still productive.
Don’t know about changing my opinion while actively arguing with someone, but I have had opinions that formed for the first time when I read through comments of other people arguing. So, there’s still some value in arguing your own points for a third person observer. :)
You’ve got to figure out your audience. You can’t change people unwilling to change. Since most people online prefer an echo chamber to reasonable discussion, you’ll overwhelmingly encounter those that won’t change their mind.
That said, I still find it mostly worthwhile to have SOME back and forth with those people because others will read it. I feed some trolls a few scraps in hopes that lurkers will be able to discern the better argument from it. Don’t go in too deep, and once the ad hominems come nonstop from them, or you can’t keep your next reply from containing them, stop.
I’ve had my mind changed plenty of times, but I’m also open to the idea I can be wrong. If you are talking with people that can’t manage that much, you won’t feel like you’ve “won” any arguments because it’s coming down to two people saying the other is wrong without allowing themselves to be the one in the wrong.
All that said, I’ve had way better discussion here than reddit.
You’re right about knowing your audience. That’s when I do my best work.
You literally have to know what thought is going to pop into their heads before they do. Then, you kind of steer the conversation like a tour guide in a car. Your goal isn’t to be right, but to give them the best experience. And, the best experience is having a reason to live in a world without their fantasy. For most people, fantasy is the only thing they have left – especially in this world. And crushing that without giving them something equally sustainable (for their mental state) makes one an asshole. It isn’t that you can’t convince a lot of people. It’s that you have to crush them to do it sometimes.
Great point on knowing when to stop as well.
Debates aren’t always about changing the mind of the person you’re debating, they are about presenting your ideas to an audience.
Follow up question: Have you ever read a thread where a bunch of people are arguing and changed your opinion because of it?
Personally, I’ve never changed my mind because of an online post. I’ve changed my mind from articles, papers, documentaries, video essays, discussions with friends and family, but never from a comment section.
Yes. The Lindsey Clancy case.
My opinion on it changed wildly the more I learned about it, and as I learned about it from difference sources, some of which were online comments. I used those comments to investigate further, look up references, precedents, laws, etc. So i could start developing more of my own opinion and understand why the case was such a lightning rod for so many for so many different reasons.
And it made me distrust a podcast I listen to because the hosts initial take on the trial was so heavily biased in her favor, and they didn’t acknowledge several facts about the case that were acknowledge by people online and in other commentary about the case… and many media sources presented heavily biased reporting on the case.
And now all this argumentation has me questioning how our legal system can ever be fair in a media environment that is so toxic and wants to doxx and assault jurors for doing their job. The amount of truly awful journalism surrounding the case was alarming.
Yes: Reddit threads planted the seeds for veganism because all the counter arguments were so easily disputed
wow. totally opposite thing happened for me.
I bet you have if you’ve been using the internet for any substantial amount of time. It might not have been a moment of clarity where you can say that moment that your mind has changed, but you’ve almost certainly been shifted one way or another over time on different topics. That’s normally how it works. We don’t usually suddenly change our minds. We change a few pieces of our opinion, or decrease our certainty of a specific thing. Eventually that leads to larger changes, but rarely all at once.
I have. But, they did have facts to back it up and sources. That helped a lot.
I did. Not from a single thread, but many-many accumulating over the years, combined with other sources.
It is especially true with new topics which I don’t have a pre-existing knowledge.
Personally, no.
But I think that I’ve become more knowledgeable because of arguments I’ve read.
Bingo.
You don’t even need cover the debate subject to win, if you can convince the audience your opponent is an idiot.
In highschool (which is a very long time ago), I was woefully underprepared for a debate. My opponent not so much. He made some very good arguments. Unfortunately, he made a fatal mistake with his opening, “Good morning”. It was the first period after lunch.
That allowed me to eviscerate him. If you don’t even know what time of day it is, how can you possibly know anything about the subject of the debate.
I won the debate handily. I barely touched on the actual debate subject.
That’s like 90% of political debates.
Who/what decided you won the debate (handily)?
A show of hands. A couple of my opponent’s friends voted against me, but the rest of the class voted for me.
One of the friends complained that I hadn’t stuck to the topic, but the teacher sided with me. It helped that I’d been on the debating team in lower school and had seen other debaters treat mistakes in a similar manner. Having a drama teacher that loved theatre sports (which was relatively new at the time - at least where I lived) also probably helped my improv skills.
Have you ever perused a thread on a subject and had your mind changed without engaging? Maybe you had the wrong perspective and changed your mind or didn’t know enough to have an opinion going in but came out with a more informed stance?
That’s why I do it. And I’ve had that happen numerous times.
yep. especially if you go and look up the facts somewhere else and see what evidence supports which side and to what extent.
