Nephtys wrote:It's impossible to convince another person they're wrong.
This is, of course, not true. If it was people would never change their minds about anything, ever.
It would be more accurate to say that convincing another person their deeply held beliefs are wrong is very difficult. Especially if they're of the stubborn sort (in which case it often is pretty close to impossible, yeah).
While the basic point of convincing onlookers not opponents holds, I'd note that 'SDN style' is peppered with swear words, personal insults and extremely confrontational language, plus of course the more elaborate 'mockery of stupid people'. Obviously most of the people who read and post on this board find it entertaining, which is fine when applied here, but in most real-world contexts it just makes you look like an asshole.
Brutal honesty as a rule doesn't work nearly as well as it should. I think a lot of young rationalists latch onto the idea that being completely honest about everything will eventually gain them respect and trust and keep them out of the kind of problems the people telling white (and not so white) lies all the time get into. I certainly did. Unfortunately this is not true for most human interaction - in fact after seeing where this has gotten various people I know I'd have to class this behaviour as slightly autistic.
You /can/ bring quite hostile people around to your point of view, but if you want to win you have to do the work. Specifically you have to understand their point of view, convert your arguments into terms they are familiar with, then gradually redefine what they know to bring them progressively closer to your position (the 'boiling a frog by steadily heating the water' analogy applies). Few humans will readily admitt that they're wrong about matters of consequence, and you have to work around that by giving them a way to represent it to themselves as something else (at least at first). Persuading hostile opponents takes time, effort and manipulation skills - unfortunately you can't bypass that simply by virtue of being objectively right.
I don't see why people find it so difficult to comprehend the notion of tailoring your debating style to the venue you're in. Here, we have a "free flame zone", so naturally, people use it. But honestly, if you literally find yourself incapable of modifying your style for a different venue, I have to wonder if you're just a very inflexible person. Don't you have an entirely different way of talking to (for example) your boss, as compared to some asshole who cut you off in traffic? If you're having an argument with some jackass who came to your door handing out Watchtower magazines, don't you adopt a different tone than you would in an argument with your father or your mother?
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Another thing; before you begin bitching about this, ask yourself honestly, 'how often have I personally changed my views and admitted I'm wrong based on a well-reasoned logical argument'? I don't care how many fields you're an expert in or how intelligent or logical you are, you are a human being and you will get stuff wrong regularly (unless you're extremely cautious about taking positions in the first place). If the answer to this question is less than about 'once a month', then your basis for complaint is extremely dubious.
Reasonable people should modify their views on the basis of new information all the time. In fact, even unreasonable people do so: if they bring their car or TV or computer to a technician, they're generally willing to accept the technician's explanation for what's going on even if it's different from their preconception of the problem. The difference is that they don't usually have any emotional attachment to that preconception, and that they can readily admit that an expert is much more likely to know more than they do. However, unreasonable people don't react the same way to discussions about science or politics or religion.
