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I tend to agree, but the flip perspective, which I am continually trying yet failing to achieve, is radical empathy towards the goal of maximum effectiveness in

I tend to agree, but the flip perspective, which I am continually trying yet failing to achieve, is radical empathy towards the goal of maximum effectiveness in action. We need a critical mass of people to accept reality to make progress together. So if our goal is to achieve action, we need to find out the best way to get more people on board with reality. And the best psychological research shows that a focus on being right, morally or technically or factually, actually gets in the way of convincing people to abandon delusions. Radical empathy is the best way to make progress, putting aside that these people are being obtuse, selfish, and threats to us all. Like I said, I am not yet to the point of being able to practice this effectively. But it achieves greater efficacy in many parts of life, not just climate change

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
I often try to take a position of asking questions and avoiding presenting my own opinion. This works better face to face. Sometimes on the internet people are just looking for a fight no matter how cordial you are. The trick is to let them reason their way out of it themselves. You have to remember, political beliefs are a much worse predictor of someone's intelligence or amount of information consumed on a subject, than you might expect. Usually people are biased by their immediate surroundings and have incomplete or inaccurate information. It's tempting to score easy points with rhetoric, but that only serves to insult their intelligence, and they'll get defensive. The more time you spend listening to someone, the more "socially indebted" they are to you, the more leeway you get to poke some small holes. Nothing too big. You don't want to destroy their whole position, because that feels like an attack on their intelligence again. You just wanna plant some seeds of doubt, so that they can figure it out on their own, away from the embarassment of being proven wrong in front of everyone. And yeah, it ain't easy. Sometimes you end up hearing some rather vile stuff, and it's really hard to resist the urge to make a visceral response. Not saying I successfully do this all the time. But it is the only strategy that has ever made any progress at all.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I agree that's probably a good approach. It's very time/effort intensive though. I imagine it's much better when dealing when real life people you know because internet randos may even have been hired to spread disinformation and waste the time of people trying to educate others on the facts.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago

I often try to take a position of asking questions and avoiding presenting my own opinion. This works better face to face. Sometimes on the internet people are just looking for a fight no matter how cordial you are. The trick is to let them reason their way out of it themselves. You have to remember, political beliefs are a much worse predictor of someone's intelligence or amount of information consumed on a subject, than you might expect. Usually people are biased by their immediate surroundings and have incomplete or inaccurate information. It's tempting to score easy points with rhetoric, but that only serves to insult their intelligence, and they'll get defensive. The more time you spend listening to someone, the more "socially indebted" they are to you, the more leeway you get to poke some small holes. Nothing too big. You don't want to destroy their whole position, because that feels like an attack on their intelligence again. You just wanna plant some seeds of doubt, so that they can figure it out on their own, away from the embarassment of being proven wrong in front of everyone. And yeah, it ain't easy. Sometimes you end up hearing some rather vile stuff, and it's really hard to resist the urge to make a visceral response. Not saying I successfully do this all the time. But it is the only strategy that has ever made any progress at all.

autoexec 3y ago
I agree that's probably a good approach. It's very time/effort intensive though. I imagine it's much better when dealing when real life people you know because internet randos may even have been hired to spread disinformation and waste the time of people trying to educate others on the facts.