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?
Years ago, I got into it with somebody on Reddit over climate change. They thought it was normal and expected that the earth went through cycles of temperature ranges, and saw little harm in human acceleration of the process.
I at least got them to go “huh, that’s true” by approaching it from the typical conservative top priority: money. I said even if it’s “normal to have cyclical temperature range extremes,” human acceleration of that is going to be extremely costly as our infrastructure - farms, warehouses, transportation, etc. are all going to have to be rebuilt around where things we need grow better after such changes. And it will frequently have to be done again as accelerated changes keep occurring.
You wanna convince someone of your perspective? Hit 'em where their priorities lie.
Priorities are stored in the balls