The problem is people are taught from an early age that it's good to be an activist which means to focus on convincing people of a certain policy or viewpoint,

The problem is people are taught from an early age that it's good to be an activist which means to focus on convincing people of a certain policy or viewpoint, instead of stating one's own reasoning. You'll often see "10 reasons to support X" which is unlikely to be intellectually honest since usually people will support X for 1 or 2 reasons, and might agree with certain arguments against X. E.g. I support something like basic income, but I notice two contradictory arguments are used. The first says that basic income increases the incentive to work for the poor. The second says that basic income releases the poor from being forced into low pay work, and allows them to use their free time on positive things. These are contradictory, but you never see basic income advocates arguing this point among themselves. Instead of encouraging people to be activists, we should be encouraging them to be intellectually honest. Very few issues are so important that they justify using marketing techniques that ultimately corrode the effectiveness of public debate.