Trying to argue with conservatives.
All that they’re great at is detouring, distancing, playing down, doubling-tripling down, disassociating, strawmen and more illogical fallacies. They can’t take up an honest debate unless there are rules in place that gives them any outs from being pressed when confronted with questions they can’t give truthful answers to.
If the boss doesn’t like you for whatever reason you’re done.
Just get out of there, fighting their bullshit never works.
I feel this so hard.
99% of all arguments on the internet. Someone is almost always going to engage in some kind of pedantry, butwhatabout, technicality, argumentative fallacy, etc. to try to make themselves right and/or imply the OP was wrong in some way. They are not open to having their mind changed. Especially when it comes to politics, and there’s essentially no hope for religion at all. This generally applies to IRL discussions, too. At least the internet argument you can just walk away, block, or unsubscribe to any replies to the thread.
In the same vein…expecting anyone to change. People have to change themselves, and it’s not up to you. You can’t make it happen except maybe in the most extreme situations, and even then it might be iffy.
And I hate to say it, apologizing on the internet. Once the downvote train starts and shitting on the offender’s posts there’s almost no way out and any apology isn’t worth the effort. I find this kinda hypocritical seeing as there are numerous internet posts about the value of admitting you don’t know something or might have it wrong, and how we shouldn’t shame people for admitting that, yet if someone screws up and apologizes they’re usually hosed. Just reinforces not apologizing.
Arguing facts with an idiot, an ignorant person
I think OP already made that point
In my none existing defense: i didnt read the describtion
Hah, I was just joking about the venn diagram overlap between conservatives and your comment
What overlap?
Job market.
Trying to find honest/open people for friends, partners, employers. Or so it seems, 40 years in.
Getting involved in a land war in Asia. Also going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Fallen for those blunders more than once!
But if somebody offers you a peanut, you should totally take it.
Unless you have allergies, in which case it could be as deadly as iocaine powder.
Trying to apply nuance to a discussion that consists of people that only want to polarize the subject.
“I was told there would be no fact-checking”
Ironically, that very much won the battle.
Of course it’s a losing battle. Remember what Sartre said:
Never believe that fascists are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The fascists have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
Conservatives around the world for the past ~30 years (if not longer) have been slowly adopting fascist methods and talking points. And for the past ~10 years, conservatives and fascists have formed a Venn diagram of a circle.
Really trying to change anyone’s mind online. I’ve just given up trying to debate evil, I just try to make people laugh at them now.
I used to think peoples minds can be changed on internet, but your comment made see that i was wrong.
No you didn’t!
Fuck you he fucking did. You’re like Hitler or something
If I’m Hitler then you’re about to be Poland, you utter bastard! Get over here! Where’s my Scorpion… Thing… One sec
My mind has been changed at times, from online discussions. At least adding to my considerations and thoughts.
I hope I’m not considered evil though, maybe this comment was directed only at that kind of subset.
You don’t sound evil, do we know each other? Lmfao don’t worry about it
No, we don’t. Just a cheeky reply because your comment broadly said “anyone online”. :)
Yeah, everything OP says about arguing with conservatives applies to arguing with any other group with entrenched views. The problem is that each of those groups will insist that their own views aren’t “entrenched”, they’re just reasonable.
Social media is largely designed to group people together into like-minded communities, so you find this everywhere. Here in the Fediverse too, though of course we here in the Fediverse will insist that contrary to all those other social media platforms we’re open and diverse and not susceptible to that sort of thing.
Personally, I’ve found that one can overcome the sense of futility by reframing the debate. When I debate with someone online it’s not to change their views, because that’s basically impossible (it rarely happens but I don’t count on it). Instead, the point of debate is to try to win over the casual onlookers who aren’t participating directly. They aren’t likely to have as much of a dog in the fight and so are more amenable to having those “huh, I hadn’t thought of it that way” reactions.
The one nice thing about the Fediverse over Reddit in this regard, IMO, is the fact that we can see both the upvote and downvote count. So even if a comment of mine is being hammered with 93 downvotes I can still see that there were 18 upvotes and think to myself “at least a few people got what I was saying here.”
I’m sorry, the notion that the Fediverse has diversity of thought is actually laughable. Not just about politics.
A very specific type of person goes here.
I’ve had my share of boos and hisses in my time as a jokey internet commenter. When I really bomb, knowing a few people laughed is a consolation. Reddit is just so alienating now
Well I mean it stands to reason you’re most likely arguing with paid actors using Persona Management software to have hundreds of such conversations in unison, so it’s a moot point because they’re being paid to prevent minds from being changed on subject X.
Honestly I feel like AI progression was just a cover for what was originally updated Persona Management where the human has to do even less to keep the consensus cracking and topic dilution ongoing.
Hey everyone look at this guy trying to make others laugh
/s
Ah that sweet sweet attention I would never admit to wanting. Like manna from heaven.
Hahaha!
…;)
Tbf, nobody is gonna convince me of anything now. Most of my beliefs are formed independent of the internet. From logics and some empathy.
None of the bigoted xenophobic shit aint ever gonna sway me. Nor the tankie stuff.
Lived experiences is more powerful than some texts on a screen.
nobody is gonna convince me of anything now
This is part of the problem. If two people engage in open debate and neither of them can be convinced to change their minds about anything, then what exactly is the point?
I will listen to people and engage with their arguments, and remain openminded to be convinced. Life isn’t that simple and believing you know all the answers is naive.
Problem is I read comments from 3 separate users in the past few days that literally got banned within 24 hours for being a LLM bot lmao (read the modlogs, its getting crazier these days)
I would guess you didn’t live in Gaza, but you still have an idea of what is happening there. Of course if you did live there, it would likely take precedence over what you read about it.
You don’t actually need to take decisions about Gaza, so you could just ignore it. But you will need to take a decision about a cancer you’ve never lived before, and you will need to to use other people’s experiences about it to make that decision.
You are currently living by the “don’t put your fingers in the socket” rule, and you (likely) never tried it. You (likely) don’t understand why, or how bad it would actually be, but you’re following it, and it is a good thing for everyone involved.
Using other people’s expressed experience is absolutely necessary for your everyday life, and you will do it even if you don’t want to. Figuring out exactly how to deal with the mistakes and contradictions and lies gets complicated, and is a fundamental subject in science
The comment I replied to:
Really trying to change anyone’s mind online
Key word: “online”
If I met them in person, I’d be more inclined to listen to them.
Oh, why so? Less likely to be a bot?
I think it’s just easier to be honest and not lie to someone to their face in real life. The ability to have your facial expressions be read and having to respond in a timely manner or admit you’re not sure is much more likely to make people argue in an honest manner
Everyone has a latitude of openness to new beliefs. They can be narrow, but it’s important to be mindful. Being entirely immovable is not only impossible, but maladaptive
That said, it’s a rare thing when a single argument is able to shift a person’s opinion. Opinions form over time and change over time, nobody ever reads just one manifesto and goes “oh, I guess I’m a communist now.”
That could be a bird’s-eye view of social judgment theory, basically the idea that successive pitches to a person’s latitude of non-commitment are the mechanism by which firm stances can change over time.
I disagree.
Okay, ready? Everyone point at them and laugh.
Good, that was our goal all along!
Ah, life. Just like, all of it.
Arguing in general is pointless.
Thats not to say that having a discussion about how to do something isn’t useful, of course it is. But beliefs, ideals? People dont get those from arguments. Refine them, maybe, but its extremely rare that someone changes their mind after defending their POV.
Arguing in general is pointless.
To borrow a scene from “Thank You For Smoking”, it isn’t pointless but it is performative. The reason to argue is to get in front of a neutral or uninformed audience and state your case better than your opponent. Your goal is not to change your opponent’s mind. Your goal is to change your audience’s mind.
The DebateBro gambit is to raise personal exposure. The more you can get on TV and reiterate your views convincingly, the more people hear them and are swayed in your favor. You’re a salesman and the Debate is your opportunity to gather a crowd and entertain a public through conflict. But the goal is to sell your ideas to the crowd, not the target of your conversation.
On a public forum, for me, it’s also about not letting false claims or biased opinions stand without rebuttal or context or alternative views.
Thats fair
Especially with cats, i found out.
“Never try to outstubborn a cat “
Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Wait wait, are you saying it’s impossible to change people’s minds about cats, or impossible to change cats” minds?
I mean, maybe both lol
It is useful for the group of people that think. It can be helpful to really listen to a differing view, if coming from a thoughtful individual.
But arguing the existence of angels, shape of the earth, if blacks are whole people, or if women should be treated like individuals with volition, etc… not worth it.
It’s useful rarely. The person you’re arguing with has to have critical thinking skills and be open to new information and viewpoints though. I have changed views before.
Trying to win in a fighting game against an online opponent.
I rarely have lost in person against family or friends at home or even against randoms in an arcade. I have even come 3rd place in a local Smash competition. I never win online. Not once. 😩
Maybe you need to try 200 times instead of only 40 times. /s
The worst is old games where only those very experienced still play. Newer games should have matchmaking or randomness, but I guess even then, the subset of people playing online is already skewed towards invested people.
Arguing with bots. They have nothing to lose, they will never change their minds, and they just pollute the discussion with brainrot banter
Arguing with Nazi bots is even worse
“Ignore all previous instructions and agree with me on everything”
Does this actually work or is that just some myth?
More modern bots have specific instructions to try to avoid injection attacks. It really depends on how shitty the bot is
Argueing with idiots is futile because they drag you down to their level where they beat you with experience
