Cross-posting this from the Science Communication community over on mander.
It’s not directly politics, of course, but anyone political will probably immediately recognize its value, and even necessity.
Love how concisely he put everything down though, this is a quick read.
Of course… your debate partner is not an agent of evil
This is just not always true in political debates, there are some straight up evil people out there.
The strategies articulated here are great ones for engaging in a debate if your goal is simply to learn more as an individual (a worthy and important thing we should all do sometimes), but they’re not necessarily the right approach to enacting political change and bettering society as a whole.
This should be re-titled, “how to argue when both people are coming at it in good faith.”
For trolls:
- Leave one clarifying statement and then almost always leave the conversation and move on. This is for later people to see the other side. They combat this by burying your statement and/or answering someone else to light them on fire. They are also getting really good at not being as obvious a troll as they used to be.
- Don’t comment at all if someone did the clarifying statement or it’s incredibly obvious it’s a troll.
That’s all we’ve got that I know of.
This should be re-titled, “how to argue when both people are coming at it in good faith.”
Precisely.
I also like to jump on those clarifying statements when I see them with supporting information/links and to just try to get a conversation going with the clarifier that buries the troll’s comments down thread.
I don’t think any singular approach will achieve universal results, and this one is no exception. That is fair. I would counter though, by saying the vast majority of people are not agents of any kind of evil, on purpose at least, and are simply misled.
This method can be effective in those situations.
I would counter though, by saying the vast majority of people are not agents of any kind of evil, on purpose at least, and are simply misled.
Yeah, I definitely think this is right, and for the vast majority of people/conversations this is all great advice and the mindset you should start a discussion with. But if/when the other person shows they’re not going to be reasoned with, it’s time to stop talking and either start looking for enough allies that you no longer need the unreasonable person’s votes/support or looking for ways to make the unreasonable person’s life difficult to the point where they want to compromise with you to make whatever you’re doing stop (I’m not saying to break any laws, I’m thinking litigation, investigations, leaking information to journalists, organizing press conferences and protests etc., things like that).
