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> Verbalize when you change your mind I find that a lot of people aren't used to changing their mind. For these people, conversation is to convince others rath

> Verbalize when you change your mind I find that a lot of people aren't used to changing their mind. For these people, conversation is to convince others rather than engage in exchanging and synthesis of ideas. To take this further, in general people are very attached to their own ideas, and if presented with viewpoints contrary to them, will fight as though backed into a corner. I think this comes from attaching their ego to their opinion, so if they're wrong, then they're "worse" of a person, so they really don't want to be wrong. Perhaps it's also a form of sunk cost fallacy. Part of "gauging the conversation" is to understand if your conversation partners are in such a mode - and if so, then to adjust appropriately.

nuclearnice1 4y ago
I encounter that mode of conversation often. I would say it is the overwhelming majority of people’s approach. They have a point of view and are emotionally committed to it. They have this commitment almost equally across opinions even if they only arrived at it by first gut reaction moments ago. They also project this mode onto their conversation partners. For example, if you offer a counter point or drawback to a proposal, they assume you are strongly opposed to the proposal. Rather than discuss the drawback, they will launch into a stream of defenses of the proposal. I haven’t found any reliable ways to steer people out of this. The most useful adjustment is to expect it and know that most people are just giving you depth on one intuitively appealing solution. Simply put most people can’t think straight and therefore can’t converse logically either.
- borski 4y ago
  My typical method of helping with this is to find common ground. Find something you both agree on, even if it’s only tangentially related, and then pose an argument and phrase it as such. For example, when discussing if the Earth is flat or round, you might both find agreement in that nobody has ever fallen off the edge of the Earth. Then you might try to pose an argument as to why - which is more likely, that nobody has ever traveled far enough to fall off, or that the earth is actually a continuous plane? I find assigning probabilities to topics often helps. But sometimes you can’t, and that’s when you agree to disagree and politely exit the discourse.
  - goostavos 4y ago
    >you might both find agreement in that nobody has ever fallen off the edge of the Earth. You've revealed yourself as not having actually found common ground with flat earthers. Evvvvverybody knows that it's not about travel distance. You can't fall off the edge of the earth because of the ice walls. It's not like it just ends. That'd be silly. The oceans would drain out into flat space.
    - borski 4y ago
      lol I knew that analogy was going to lead nowhere good. But the point still stands :)
      - nullsense 4y ago
        As do the ice walls
    - itronitron 4y ago
      I expected since we're on HN that someone would explain it away as survivorship bias.
  - noibl 4y ago
    The first part of this sounds very closely related to something called Rogerian argument [1] which aims to find new opportunities for consensus by building on views already held in common. The bit about assigning probabilities is interesting, precisely because I can think of very few contexts in which it would be of use to me. People seem to have little tolerance for shades of uncertainty when expressing views, whereas privately we think in probabilities all the time. It's as though we play a kind of poker where our need to conserve our 'stack' of reputational authority makes us relegate the actual ideas in contention to mere 'hands' to be represented, bluffed, and trivially discarded when a more amenable certainty presents itself. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogerian_argument#Rapoport's_rules https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogerian_argument#Rapoport's...
  - ifyoubuildit 4y ago
    > For example, when discussing if the Earth is flat or round, you might both find agreement in that nobody has ever fallen off the edge of the Earth. So I'm not trying to argue that the earth is flat, but how do you respond if they ask for proof that nobody has fallen off the edge of the earth? It's not like you can point to some record of all history and show that the event doesn't exist within it. You might try to explain that there is no edge to fall off of, but if you can convince them of that, then the conversation never needed to happen in the first place.
- maroonblazer 4y ago
  I think that interpersonal relatedness or 'connection' relates to the degree to which people are willing to have their minds changed, or perhaps more accurately, admit to having their mind changed. Being open to admitting a change of mind requires a certain amount of vulnerability that can be difficult or impossible, depending on how well you know the other person. Anecdotally, I've noticed that in group interactions where time is invested up front in 'ice breakers' (the non-cringey kind) or other exercises where the objective is not about the topic at hand but rather to better get to know the group participants, this can help build interpersonal relations. Seeing others as more 3-dimensional helps with social bonding and thus makes us more open to being more vulnerable.
- jxramos 4y ago
  You ask people “how did you arrive at this conclusion”. That’s a good invitation to extract a walkthrough of how that conclusion was arrived at, what observations, data, evidence, references, whatever informed their conclusion about whatever subject.
- somethingreen 4y ago
  This mode is essentially universal. Our brain is a world modelling and outcome prediction machine. It being wrong would be an existential threat in the environment it evolved to function. This is why being fundamentally wrong is extremely uncomfortable for us. The difference is in the level of abstraction an individual takes their stand at and becomes uncomfortable when challenged. Which, I think, depends on how grounded their beliefs, knowledge or opinions are - how many layers and columns of "I'm still right" they can fall back to.
lumb63 4y ago
Even worse than this, sometimes I find myself changing my mind internally but feeling compelled to defend my initial opinion, as if being convinced is having lost. That’s definitely detrimental to a conversation.
- jackmott 4y ago
  At least you are aware it is happening! That is a huge first step, the last bit should only require you to harden up a bit.
- catach 4y ago
  Knowing of that inclination, there's three complementary principles that I try to follow: 1. Leaving room for your debate partner to save face is about as important as crafting a convincing argument. 2. Become comfortable with the condition of your debate partner never explicitly conceding the argument. 3. Explicitly conceding points that you agree with helps the other person save face to do the same back.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- _dain_ 4y ago
  Yes. This can happen when the person you're talking to is in the right but is being arrogant/obnoxious/smug about it. Publicly agreeing would be rewarding rudeness. I don't think that's even such a bad thing; they might only be right once, but they'll probably be rude forever, so why ever give them the satisfaction? Effective arguing doesn't have to look like "arguing". You have to leave people an off-ramp so they can change their minds without feeling like they are losing a status contest.
  - TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
    Most people are emotional, not rational. Even people who are supposed to be rational are rarely unemotional about their beliefs. It's why facts and evidence are so unpersuasive. If you don't make them emotionally and personally relatable most of the population won't understand what you're trying to say. Which is why the rule is "People won't remember what you said, but they'll remember how you made them feel."
BurningFrog 4y ago
I try to frame conversations about disagreements more about getting to know the other person and why they have that opinion. Both because that's less adversarial, and getting to know people is always interesting.
- everybodyknows 4y ago
  One way to keep the conversation non-adversarial is to open topics on which you yourself are undecided. Responses to this are often highly revealing.
sarabad2021 4y ago
What are institutions doing to fix this? How can they encourage diversity of thought and opinion, even controversial opinions?
- everybodyknows 4y ago
  It must come from outside pressure. Internal dynamics of institutions work in the retrograde direction: Individuals most easily rise to power by flattering prevailing opinions.
- st00 4y ago
  I'm curious about why you would want (or, expect) an institution to resolve a cultural or interpersonal phenomenon. Maybe I've misunderstood your meaning or intent. It strikes me that this is a behavior, and if it's common, the best way to address it is by changing the norm through positive examples and gentle feedback. Off the cuff, looking to an institution to shape some behaviors has not generally gone well for humanity. I'm sure that we can think of counter-examples, but this seems to be contrary to what makes Western culture successful.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago
Isn’t it hypocritical to criticize people, though, for having their egos attached to their opinions? I mean, who hasn’t? It’s likely that we only think better of ourselves when we are disagreeing with others on topics that do not matter to us deeply (and which does to them—so really, who’s being the bad person here?), but everyone has something that they deeply believe in and upon which they anchor their identity. Otherwise, why would we bother arguing with others if we didn’t believe that our beliefs are the correct guiding principles for our day-to-day actions that define our identities?
- Timon3 4y ago
  I think there is a worthwhile distinction between the values you hold, and specific ways of implementing those values. When disagreeing with another person you're far more likely to differ on the exact road you want to take, but not actually the destination - presumably because a lot of individual assumptions play into the implementation you deem ideal. To give an example, I do attach my ego to a lot of my values. But at the same time I know that I am fallible, and more likely to be wrong than right on any given topic, even if I do my best to research it. So if I really hold true to my values, I can't stomp my feet and say "But we have to do it this way!" if someone else can reasonably argue for a different (and potentially better) road to take.
danielmarkbruce 4y ago
Most points of contention are complex and there isn't a water tight argument one way or the other. Most people aren't very convincing in the best of circumstances. Thus, most people don't change their mind because they don't get presented a sufficiently good explanation that would move them from one not-water-tight position to another not water-tight-position.
roenxi 4y ago
> I think this comes from attaching their ego to their opinion, so if they're wrong, then they're "worse" of a person, so they really don't want to be wrong. Perhaps it's also a form of sunk cost fallacy. Mmm. I've seen similar things but I interpret it differently. People literally can't think that quickly - it takes a few days (!) ideally involving a some good sleep to really synthesize new ideas. That time required to think implies that even if someone is convincing it still makes sense to plow ahead with disagreeing with them in the here and now. 1) It is possible that their certainty is convincing but not their argument. In my early days on HN that happened to me a few times - I got convinced in conversation because someone seemed confident despite having clearly understood what I'd said. Later I swung back to my initial opinion later after reviewing the arguments carefully and deciding that the compelling part was flawed. 2) Even if the argument is compelling, it still makes some sense to just throw out all the arguments you have, shotgun style, to find out what the appropriate counters to them are in the future. Regardless, I'm pretty sure people do change their minds, it just happens a bit slower than people expect so nobody notices it happening. Of course, there is a particular style needed to achieve that - if they get threatened or attacked while changing their mind they will not do it.
- notshift 4y ago
  For synthesizing new ideas maybe it takes that long. But if you hold any serious views that you expect to have challenged by others (relating to politics or otherwise), you should have clear rules for why you believe those things and exactly what evidence it would take to cause you to change your mind. Then, you can change your beliefs the exact moment that new information is provided to you. I try to start all of my conversations about politics or sensitive issues with the question "What would you have to be shown, or what evidence would it take for you to change your position on X?". If the person doesn't have a good answer to that, then they are usually either an ideologue or have not actually seriously thought about the issue in any depth, and it's probably going to be fruitless to try and have a conversation about that subject. I abide by this rule and can change my views at the drop of a hat when presented with new evidence.
  - watwut 4y ago
mistermann 4y ago
It'd be funny if it's similar to when changing which side of the road people drive on: everyone has to make the change simultaneously. It'd also be funny to live in a world that doesn't consider possibilities like this.
alvah 4y ago
Paul Graham wrote an essay about this: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html Though he primarily talked about religion and politics (it's an old essay), I see people attaching other concepts to their identity, and then verbally fighting to the death if you point out the slightest flaw in any of these concepts.
bilsbie 4y ago
Not even ego though. It’s more identify. I heard a woman say “I work in theatre so I have to be far left”.

nuclearnice1 4y ago

I encounter that mode of conversation often. I would say it is the overwhelming majority of people’s approach. They have a point of view and are emotionally committed to it. They have this commitment almost equally across opinions even if they only arrived at it by first gut reaction moments ago. They also project this mode onto their conversation partners. For example, if you offer a counter point or drawback to a proposal, they assume you are strongly opposed to the proposal. Rather than discuss the drawback, they will launch into a stream of defenses of the proposal. I haven’t found any reliable ways to steer people out of this. The most useful adjustment is to expect it and know that most people are just giving you depth on one intuitively appealing solution. Simply put most people can’t think straight and therefore can’t converse logically either.

borski 4y ago
My typical method of helping with this is to find common ground. Find something you both agree on, even if it’s only tangentially related, and then pose an argument and phrase it as such. For example, when discussing if the Earth is flat or round, you might both find agreement in that nobody has ever fallen off the edge of the Earth. Then you might try to pose an argument as to why - which is more likely, that nobody has ever traveled far enough to fall off, or that the earth is actually a continuous plane? I find assigning probabilities to topics often helps. But sometimes you can’t, and that’s when you agree to disagree and politely exit the discourse.
- goostavos 4y ago
  >you might both find agreement in that nobody has ever fallen off the edge of the Earth. You've revealed yourself as not having actually found common ground with flat earthers. Evvvvverybody knows that it's not about travel distance. You can't fall off the edge of the earth because of the ice walls. It's not like it just ends. That'd be silly. The oceans would drain out into flat space.
  - borski 4y ago
    lol I knew that analogy was going to lead nowhere good. But the point still stands :)
    - nullsense 4y ago
      As do the ice walls
  - itronitron 4y ago
    I expected since we're on HN that someone would explain it away as survivorship bias.
- noibl 4y ago
  The first part of this sounds very closely related to something called Rogerian argument [1] which aims to find new opportunities for consensus by building on views already held in common. The bit about assigning probabilities is interesting, precisely because I can think of very few contexts in which it would be of use to me. People seem to have little tolerance for shades of uncertainty when expressing views, whereas privately we think in probabilities all the time. It's as though we play a kind of poker where our need to conserve our 'stack' of reputational authority makes us relegate the actual ideas in contention to mere 'hands' to be represented, bluffed, and trivially discarded when a more amenable certainty presents itself. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogerian_argument#Rapoport's_rules https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogerian_argument#Rapoport's...
- ifyoubuildit 4y ago
  > For example, when discussing if the Earth is flat or round, you might both find agreement in that nobody has ever fallen off the edge of the Earth. So I'm not trying to argue that the earth is flat, but how do you respond if they ask for proof that nobody has fallen off the edge of the earth? It's not like you can point to some record of all history and show that the event doesn't exist within it. You might try to explain that there is no edge to fall off of, but if you can convince them of that, then the conversation never needed to happen in the first place.
maroonblazer 4y ago
I think that interpersonal relatedness or 'connection' relates to the degree to which people are willing to have their minds changed, or perhaps more accurately, admit to having their mind changed. Being open to admitting a change of mind requires a certain amount of vulnerability that can be difficult or impossible, depending on how well you know the other person. Anecdotally, I've noticed that in group interactions where time is invested up front in 'ice breakers' (the non-cringey kind) or other exercises where the objective is not about the topic at hand but rather to better get to know the group participants, this can help build interpersonal relations. Seeing others as more 3-dimensional helps with social bonding and thus makes us more open to being more vulnerable.
jxramos 4y ago
You ask people “how did you arrive at this conclusion”. That’s a good invitation to extract a walkthrough of how that conclusion was arrived at, what observations, data, evidence, references, whatever informed their conclusion about whatever subject.
somethingreen 4y ago
This mode is essentially universal. Our brain is a world modelling and outcome prediction machine. It being wrong would be an existential threat in the environment it evolved to function. This is why being fundamentally wrong is extremely uncomfortable for us. The difference is in the level of abstraction an individual takes their stand at and becomes uncomfortable when challenged. Which, I think, depends on how grounded their beliefs, knowledge or opinions are - how many layers and columns of "I'm still right" they can fall back to.

lumb63 4y ago

Even worse than this, sometimes I find myself changing my mind internally but feeling compelled to defend my initial opinion, as if being convinced is having lost. That’s definitely detrimental to a conversation.

jackmott 4y ago
At least you are aware it is happening! That is a huge first step, the last bit should only require you to harden up a bit.
catach 4y ago
Knowing of that inclination, there's three complementary principles that I try to follow: 1. Leaving room for your debate partner to save face is about as important as crafting a convincing argument. 2. Become comfortable with the condition of your debate partner never explicitly conceding the argument. 3. Explicitly conceding points that you agree with helps the other person save face to do the same back.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
_dain_ 4y ago
Yes. This can happen when the person you're talking to is in the right but is being arrogant/obnoxious/smug about it. Publicly agreeing would be rewarding rudeness. I don't think that's even such a bad thing; they might only be right once, but they'll probably be rude forever, so why ever give them the satisfaction? Effective arguing doesn't have to look like "arguing". You have to leave people an off-ramp so they can change their minds without feeling like they are losing a status contest.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
  Most people are emotional, not rational. Even people who are supposed to be rational are rarely unemotional about their beliefs. It's why facts and evidence are so unpersuasive. If you don't make them emotionally and personally relatable most of the population won't understand what you're trying to say. Which is why the rule is "People won't remember what you said, but they'll remember how you made them feel."

BurningFrog 4y ago

I try to frame conversations about disagreements more about getting to know the other person and why they have that opinion. Both because that's less adversarial, and getting to know people is always interesting.

everybodyknows 4y ago
One way to keep the conversation non-adversarial is to open topics on which you yourself are undecided. Responses to this are often highly revealing.

sarabad2021 4y ago

What are institutions doing to fix this? How can they encourage diversity of thought and opinion, even controversial opinions?

everybodyknows 4y ago
It must come from outside pressure. Internal dynamics of institutions work in the retrograde direction: Individuals most easily rise to power by flattering prevailing opinions.
st00 4y ago
I'm curious about why you would want (or, expect) an institution to resolve a cultural or interpersonal phenomenon. Maybe I've misunderstood your meaning or intent. It strikes me that this is a behavior, and if it's common, the best way to address it is by changing the norm through positive examples and gentle feedback. Off the cuff, looking to an institution to shape some behaviors has not generally gone well for humanity. I'm sure that we can think of counter-examples, but this seems to be contrary to what makes Western culture successful.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y ago

Isn’t it hypocritical to criticize people, though, for having their egos attached to their opinions? I mean, who hasn’t? It’s likely that we only think better of ourselves when we are disagreeing with others on topics that do not matter to us deeply (and which does to them—so really, who’s being the bad person here?), but everyone has something that they deeply believe in and upon which they anchor their identity. Otherwise, why would we bother arguing with others if we didn’t believe that our beliefs are the correct guiding principles for our day-to-day actions that define our identities?

Timon3 4y ago
I think there is a worthwhile distinction between the values you hold, and specific ways of implementing those values. When disagreeing with another person you're far more likely to differ on the exact road you want to take, but not actually the destination - presumably because a lot of individual assumptions play into the implementation you deem ideal. To give an example, I do attach my ego to a lot of my values. But at the same time I know that I am fallible, and more likely to be wrong than right on any given topic, even if I do my best to research it. So if I really hold true to my values, I can't stomp my feet and say "But we have to do it this way!" if someone else can reasonably argue for a different (and potentially better) road to take.

danielmarkbruce 4y ago

Most points of contention are complex and there isn't a water tight argument one way or the other. Most people aren't very convincing in the best of circumstances. Thus, most people don't change their mind because they don't get presented a sufficiently good explanation that would move them from one not-water-tight position to another not water-tight-position.

roenxi 4y ago

> I think this comes from attaching their ego to their opinion, so if they're wrong, then they're "worse" of a person, so they really don't want to be wrong. Perhaps it's also a form of sunk cost fallacy. Mmm. I've seen similar things but I interpret it differently. People literally can't think that quickly - it takes a few days (!) ideally involving a some good sleep to really synthesize new ideas. That time required to think implies that even if someone is convincing it still makes sense to plow ahead with disagreeing with them in the here and now. 1) It is possible that their certainty is convincing but not their argument. In my early days on HN that happened to me a few times - I got convinced in conversation because someone seemed confident despite having clearly understood what I'd said. Later I swung back to my initial opinion later after reviewing the arguments carefully and deciding that the compelling part was flawed. 2) Even if the argument is compelling, it still makes some sense to just throw out all the arguments you have, shotgun style, to find out what the appropriate counters to them are in the future. Regardless, I'm pretty sure people do change their minds, it just happens a bit slower than people expect so nobody notices it happening. Of course, there is a particular style needed to achieve that - if they get threatened or attacked while changing their mind they will not do it.

notshift 4y ago
For synthesizing new ideas maybe it takes that long. But if you hold any serious views that you expect to have challenged by others (relating to politics or otherwise), you should have clear rules for why you believe those things and exactly what evidence it would take to cause you to change your mind. Then, you can change your beliefs the exact moment that new information is provided to you. I try to start all of my conversations about politics or sensitive issues with the question "What would you have to be shown, or what evidence would it take for you to change your position on X?". If the person doesn't have a good answer to that, then they are usually either an ideologue or have not actually seriously thought about the issue in any depth, and it's probably going to be fruitless to try and have a conversation about that subject. I abide by this rule and can change my views at the drop of a hat when presented with new evidence.
- watwut 4y ago

mistermann 4y ago

It'd be funny if it's similar to when changing which side of the road people drive on: everyone has to make the change simultaneously. It'd also be funny to live in a world that doesn't consider possibilities like this.

alvah 4y ago

Paul Graham wrote an essay about this: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html Though he primarily talked about religion and politics (it's an old essay), I see people attaching other concepts to their identity, and then verbally fighting to the death if you point out the slightest flaw in any of these concepts.

bilsbie 4y ago

Not even ego though. It’s more identify. I heard a woman say “I work in theatre so I have to be far left”.