Wasting your intellect and time Derek. The people you are trying to convince…
The reality is that I’m just here to ruminate on issues. I’d like to debate, but this is an unrealistic expectation:
I used to have this mental illness where I thought logical arguments would change someone’s mind
The problem is that Extremely Few people nowadays are genuinely interested in the truth of what they are pretending to discuss – their real major priorities are quite otherwise, usually covert, and sometimes denied.
I concluded a long time (15 years?) ago, that argument nowadays is futile, as a very strong generalization; and I have always regretted it when I neglected my own advice!
So, instead, I am here just to spend time thinking deeply about issues, mulling them over. There is good reason for this. Consider the short essay here:
Debating people online outside of a restricted community of good faith actors is a waste of time. It’s why I use QT threads instead of replying. I am not trying to change people’s minds or debate, I am either demonstrating an idea or registering disapproval.
Nobody who doesn’t want to is going to change their mind because of the beauty of your argument or your impressive display of facts or even being proven objectively wrong.
Those who are open to an idea or argument will look further themselves.
Mostly, people change their mind because their social environment changes.
Repetition and reputation not quality.
Your argument matters less for changing minds than the fact that you make it.
People will unconsciously shift their opinions if they perceive a larger social shift.
When I was a moderator for a debate forum long, long ago…over the course of a decade I can think of very few cases where someone changed their mind over a debate.
I changed my mind about some things (conceded over time), but that was very rare.
I agree with Free Northerner there, for the most part…
I would add, though, people will change their mind far more easily about issues that aren’t important to them (which I guess is obvious). A debate on Depleted Uranium causing birth defects is pretty easily refuted, for example, compared to more contentious topics.
Often life experience comes into play too (which I guess is also pretty self evident)…when I was at that forum, I personally saw our sons discriminated against for being boys, and I saw their friends forced to take medications for “ADHD” and witnessed the changes in them.
Overall, debate (and reading it over time) helped to keep my mind active, and also helped me organize my thoughts…explaining why I believed what I did was important to me. I likened it to “sharpening my axe”.
Parable below:
(There were two woodcutters, one old and one young, who decided to hold a competition to determine who could produce the most wood in a day.
Initially, both of them started chopping away in their fastest possible speed. But after an hour, the older man stopped. The younger one continued to cut down his trees.
A quarter of an hour passed, and the older man started chopping again.
This went on all afternoon, the older man taking fifteen minutes out of each hour while the other kept going. Until the competition was over.
To the younger man’s astonishment, his competitor had chopped down more wood. How did this even happen, he want to know?
The older man responded, “Every time I stopped work, while you were still chopping down trees, I was sharpening my axe.”)
I would say, however, overall (in contrast to Churchill’s quote about alcohol, online debate took more from me than I took from it…mostly when I didn’t realize I was even debating with adversaries, just thought I was having a conversation. Wow was I wrong. Guess life lessons are like that. It helps to know the rules when you engage in what you thought was a good faith discussion)
Just looking at Eternity Now’s post at Jacks, for example, and he mentions dancing.
Our son actually took up swing dancing (along with other hobbies) specifically for the purpose of meeting young women. He went with a friend and it worked…very few young men take swing dancing lessons, so the odds were in their favor, bigly.
And now he has a girlfriend (and so does the guy who took up lessons with him).
At any rate, in the past I might have thought that was a good anecdote to add to EN’s anecdote. I now know this would lead to excoriation from a certain percentage of the posting audience who would take offense, somehow.
I can think of some worse ways to waste one’s time than engagement in that, but not many.
I can think of some worse ways to waste one’s time than engagement in that, but not many.
I observe that your comment is akin to Elspeth’s comment from yesterday:
Not only online, but movies, shows, books, all of it. I have become incredibly strident and narrow. And yet…I still find that my gaze is far too often on what is not true, not good, and objectively ugly.
We live in a fallen, sin-soaked world, so some of that cannot be helped, but to intentionally gaze upon it under the guise of “seeing the world as it is” (as if that’s ALL it is) is to deny that God is at work in the world even now.
So I had to stop it.
This is where I will disagree.
I took dancing lesson in the 1990’s because it was great exercise, and it was a “good way” (according to the experts) to meet women, gain confidence and all the other lies I believed back then.
This is how it worked. Now I wasnt some “dirty old man” at the time, mouth breathing with a bad haircut and thick glasses. I was 26? 27?
Swing became VERY popular as the 1990’s waned (Sinatra ready to die, a new found love for the “rat pack” and some of the style and trappings of that period got some tracking again as we all said goodbye to the WW II generation)
A cool lounge in San Jose offered lessons on Thursday night. A few fellow IBMers went for about a month. We quit when:
*The place for lessons was filled with women. All our age at the time
*Women would rather dance with each other than the “deemed ugly / creepy guys” who showed up (me and friends, and the few other men that came)
*The women all would share ONE or TWO of the hot or more conventionally attractive men
*The instructor, a woman would smile at us and say “keep coming back, the women here will warm up to you” (they didnt)
*We were paying 40.00 for the lessons per hour and we would have to take time and turns with the instructor.
The last time I went, the instructor grabbed a pretty gal, made her partner with me……and she “suddenly” was sore, tired, or just didnt want to dance right now.
My friends from IBM in a rare form of unity got up and left with me after this happened. We were not missed, and never went beck.
It was at this time I decided to master 1960’s style dancing with soul step and the like because you didnt need a partner. Im excellent to this day, even danced all nighters in England (where this style of dancing is still very popular). I cant go all night anymore but I still love it.
Your son is above average looking obviously
Not swing dancing, but still the same outcome and despite the hilarious scene. Its one of the few things from a TV show that actually men relate to. Most are left out sadly. As a younger man…boy did it hurt. really hurt. Now? Not really. I sadly wasted a TON of time letting it bother me as a younger man. No, the ladies are not all over me because I dont care. I was just born average.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN08ZIIlLYs
Oh man, that sucks Jason. 🙁
I cannot dance at all (wanted to for years, but juggling work and family stuff we never had time to take a class together).
It seems like it would be fun. 40 dollars is steep even now….1990s wow.
I hope that place with the rude women lost some customers forever that day.
Liz,
I’ve noticed that I have a much higher tolerance for dissent and negativity—including personal attacks and bullying—than most people. I’m willing and able to stick with it, holding my ground long after others would have given up and walked away. Much of the negativity that bothers others does not bother me (as much).
I noticed this especially last year when I and another commenter went back-and-forth on a certain “image of God” topic over a number of months. It really put other commenters on edge, even though no one else was participating.
This is a tough balance for me, because a lot of commenters read here because this is “an ideas blog.” It is by no means neutral or even fair, but it isn’t a hostile, negative place. In fact, I often genuinely care about the people I disagree with. I try to keep it positively focused.
More recently, in the midst of my series on the Pseudonymous Commenter’s comments regarding hypergamy, I had to shift the focus away from personal responses and pure analysis, because readers were getting restless.
I take this feedback seriously. I’m not shy about addressing controversial or difficult topics, exposing the dark to the light. But, whenever I start crossing the line, the comments start pulling me back.
Peace,
DR
You lied regarding me. We’ve been over this before. Don’t play the victim, unrepentant liar.