4 ms·
Daryl Davis has converted a lot of KKK members away from racism by risking his life to befriend them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis https://en.m.
by NateEag 6y ago
Daryl Davis has converted a lot of KKK members away from racism by risking his life to befriend them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis
How many people have you seen converted from dangerous beliefs by isolating them away from dissimilar thinkers?
- sagichmal 6y agoThat's a nice story and I'm sure he's a great guy but it's not an effective policy at the macro scale and that's what matters.
- NateEag 6y agoDaryl's approach works, at least for him. I suspect others can learn to do it, too. I have seen no evidence whatsoever that refusing to interact with people deradicalizes them. The filter bubble phenomenon suggests the opposite. I'll take a strategy that's known to work with unclear scalability over a scalable one with no evidence it works, every time.
- sagichmal 6y agoI don't really care so much about the individual voter, I care about how far their voice reaches on the Internet, I care about the people they influence, I care about their children, I care about higher-level things.
- NateEag 6y agoI don't understand how that relates to what I said. Would you mind explaining further?
- sagichmal 6y agobuilding personal relationships with individuals in order to deradicalize them one by one is not a viable strategy at the macro level. It's efficacy is irrelevant to me.
- esja 6y agoHow is it not viable? If every person who went to a BLM protest also made friends with one police officer, don't you think that might be extremely effective?
- sagichmal 6y agoHaha, obviously not?
- NateEag 6y agoBegging the question is not going to convince people you're right.
- sagichmal 6y agoI'm not really begging the question, because I'm not trying to convince anyone that a general policy of individual empathetic outreach isn't effective at a macro scale. For one thing, it's self-evident, and I'm not really interested in "debating" anyone who would challenge that. For another thing, it's a tangent from the main point of the thread.
- sagichmal 6y agoWhat do you think is a more effective way to deradicalize white nationalists as measured on a societal level: engaging them on the merits of their arguments and having a good-faith debate, or deplatforming them?
- NateEag 6y agoI missed your response days ago, but happened to see it just now scrolling through my comment history. It seems obvious to me that deplatforming them will further radicalize them. It fits perfectly into their narrative as I understand it. Engaging them as (deeply flawed, very wrong) humans and having a good-faith debate seems to have worked shockingly well for Daryl. I suspect it could for others, too (though Daryl is obviously a rare breed).
- anjbe 6y agoWhen has it ever been tried at the macro scale?
- landryraccoon 6y agoYou seem pretty confident, why do you think it would not work at macro scale? If you are saying that empathy doesn’t scale, that’s a pretty dark view that requires some evidence. Are people born racist? Does education an outreach not work? I really don’t see why you’d be so certain.
- lawnchair_larry 6y agoDavis is a brilliant man that understands something about humans that far too many people don’t. He came to that understanding by engaging and asking questions. This strategy single handedly abolished more KKK members than anything else. Contrast to the extremists of today like BLM who are having the opposite effect and pushing more people to racism. We’re going backwards. Then again, it’s not like BLM is actually motivated by their clever branding, so this is unsurprising.
- sagichmal 6y ago> This strategy single handedly abolished more KKK members than anything else. Obviously this is not true.
- NateEag 6y agoOP's claim is quite bold and they did not offer evidence. I would describe it as 'unsubstantiated'. To correctly say it is untrue, you must show another strategy actually converted at least hundreds of KKK members (perhaps more, as it's possible people beyond just Daryl got results from this strategy).