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?
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.