...shared experience makes it possible for to hear another viewpoint. That's specifically why personal experience is a persuasion tool and an effective one - w

...shared experience makes it possible for to hear another viewpoint. That's specifically why personal experience is a persuasion tool and an effective one - which isn't an absolute bad thing but also doesn't make it an inherently good thing. The average person, debating on the Internet or off, tends to start in an intensely emotional state. Giving your own personal experience backs them down from that intense emotional state. Once the person has backed-down a bit you can give your pitch and your pitch can be anything, either a plea for rational inquiry into the situation or your own intensely manipulative, emotional and off-kilter claims. I personally try to go from polarized emotional shouting matches to "let's make a model of the world and consider what makes sense in it" approaches. I think if you can get someone to start thinking about things that way, you have given them thinking-tools and not simply openness. Something to think about is that simple openness is by no means an inherently good thing. A lot of New Age ideologies talk about the need to stay open with upshot that people open themselves to all sorts of poisonous and delusional crap. Being open but selective in what you let in is much better.