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.
Argueing with idiots is futile because they drag you down to their level where they beat you with experience
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. 😩
I just don’t argue with anyone anymore. At all. I say what I have to say once, and if they continue to restate their option at me like a fact I just can’t seem to comprehend the infinite wisdom of…I just waddle away.
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.
Your mistake is letting it be framed as an argument at all. When trying to change the minds of the hard-headed, it’s much more in your favor to begin not with “this is what I think”, but “what do you think about…?” because the moment they feel like their values or ideas are being threatened is the moment they dig their heels in and start defending the same.
It’s a skill that takes a lot of time and effort to get right, but guiding them through challenging their own ideas on their own terms is just a lot easier to sell than telling them they’re wrong and explaining why. It doesn’t matter how well you know the subject you’re explaining or how effectively you present your information; if the person on the other end has identified you and your ideas as threats, then you have already almost certainly failed at challenging their beliefs.
Every job has a tool or tools that best get it done. I’m sure it depends on the where and when, but we don’t generally tend to bring weapons along while we’re building bridges because they’re simply not the tools needed for the job. Picking fights where you could otherwise have conversations is a rough and disappointing path if your intended destination is changing minds.
Trying to clarify someone who misunderstood words, especially ones that are clear and concise. Either they have poor reading comprehension are responding to ‘what I really meant’ and in either case they will continue to do it over and over. I still try because of holding out hope that someone will realize they misread something as simple as ‘I like dogs’ to mean ‘I hate cats’ but I don’t think it has ever been successful.
“I was told there would be no fact-checking”
Ironically, that very much won the battle.
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.
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’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.
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.
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!
Conservatives are actually partakers in Catholicism and its forks of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
In fact, the biggest losing battle is any mainstream religion, as that’s obeying (right hand) and revering (forehead) the Bishop of Rome, the Antichrist Beast Pope (which you simply don’t do under any circumstances). This is what historicists (like myself) believe to be the Mark of the Beast.
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.
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.
It’s a case to case thing but, at times, trying to convince people to act right and be moral simply because it’s our duty (and don’t get me started on trying to do the same but approaching it from a monotheistic angle, lol). Some people just simply don’t care and will always prioritise their whims over everyone else’s wellbeing, and knowing when to stop trying is necessary not to get too frustrated. 🤷😔
Trying to not get injured while cycling.
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
Trying to fight the “ghosts” of my past. These ghosts that haunts me and give me depression and CPTSD.
I sometimes just revisit happy memories and just try to keep that image of the loving mother in my head, and try to ignore the bad things. Using good memoires to hide away the trauma, to cover up the darkest memories.
Doesn’t work well. No matter how much I try to remember the happiness… the moments of me crying, being scared, inside what’s supposed to be my own home, supposed to be a safe space, yet those memoies keep coming back, seeping in to my head as I daydream and fantasize in nostalgia… of just being a normal kid and loved by parents… and not have a hostile older brother always fighting with me…
this “battle” still ongoing… :/
Mine is like you, but much more general: trying to argue. Period. Doesn’t matter with whom. People of all kinds don’t like to have their views challenged.
Backfire effect
