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To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

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Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#181

Post by zouhair »

johngalt wrote: post #25
rayiner wrote: post #16

Learning how to do this is an essential skill. Most people are not idiots. If they disagree with you, it's probably not because they are being irrational, but because they're starting from a different premise, making different assumptions, or assigning different values to different aspects of the problem. Only when you understand their argument well enough to articulate it in your own words can you effectively presen…

Someone could also disagree with me because they are correct and I am in error. They may have knowledge or perspective that I lack. My first step is to try and find something they know that I don't before crafting persuasive arguments. Maximize for total knowledge not winning arguments.

What I really dislike is when I calmly convince them that I am correct to just check later and find out that I was completely wrong.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#182

Post by pjc50 »

PakG1 wrote: post #74
jaywunder wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this is an important skill to have, I've also learned over time that there are certain types of people where it's easier to let them "be right" and accommodate the consequences Generally when that happens to me I've come across what I like to call a "fundamental argument." Where neither party is correct and neither party is wrong. A good example of this is "do you believe in religion" because nobody can prove…

The type of people I am discussing don't have these "fundamental arguments" as you describe them. They have diametric arguments like: "the reason you chose the system you did is because you hate me" or "you're trying to sell me this product because you want to see me suffer", etc. I am the center of the world, the world revolves around me, and anyone who disagrees with me about anything is out to get me, and every si…

When it's that strong it could be called narcissistic personality disorder. Sadly it tends to be prevalent in domestic abuse.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#183

Post by pjc50 »

Xcelerate wrote: post #53

It would be incredibly difficult, but I've always wished we could develop a (formal) axiomatic system of morality, such that with independent axioms that each person takes as true by default, all of that person's positions on the major issues would be immediately derivable from the axioms and would essentially be indisputable. Heated emotional debates that last for hours would instead turn into each party running a s…

> (formal) axiomatic system of morality

See the entire history of philosophy and ethics.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#184

Post by crististm »

crististm wrote: post #136
Artoemius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, most people are indeed not idiots, but that doesn't apply to creationists. It's one thing to go to a church (there even might be purely social reasons), and it's another thing to discard overwhelming scientific evidence and believe something based on the principle of not needing any evidence at all. I become especially sad when I think of the confused minds of the poor children of these people. On the topic, I…

There is a particular video of Feynman about scientific method where he describes the dual slit experiment. He notes that the "scientific method" should have been able to reproduce exactly where the electrons will go, in different experiments. The experiments are not reproducible in that sense, but only "statistically" which is a completely different thing. Feynman beliefs are irrelevant. There is also the argument t…

Too late to edit...

That would be The Incompleteness Theorem of Gödel - not Goldbach

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#185

Post by jahnu »

vintermann wrote: post #156
jahnu wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the essence of Pascal's Wager. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

I'm all too used to my argument being put in a box and dismissed with a standard argument for that box. But please don't do that, OK? Hell is nowhere in this chain of argument. God arguably is, but that's in step 2. It's step 3 which may kinda, sorta remind you of Pascal's Wager, but it's only an argument against nihilism, not even for theism. Yes, conceding step 3 leaves wide open the question of what to believe in…

I'm not dismissing anything. Just pointing people to a relevant interesting page. Try not to be too hasty to read arguments into comments where there are none :)

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#186

Post by Nursie »

crististm wrote: post #179
Nursie wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific problem with creationism and "ID" is that they claim to have objective facts but are actually faith. They do not embrace the irrational as you seem to be encouraging. Quite the opposite - they dress up in the clothes of scientific argument whilst actually rejecting the method, yet claim to have objective truth. And personally, yeah, I think anyone that can't cope with reality as it is, that needs comfort…

You might want to remember that while scientific method is pretty useful, it does has a weakness. It has all the bases covered except for the hypothesis. Where do hypothesis come from?

From hunches, partial observations, suggestions from prior research, various other sources of questions about what may or may not be correct that warrants further investigation.

I'm not sure how that's a weakness?

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#187

Post by morbidhawk »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #69

Pascal was using this method: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method Really Bad article by the way.

I was just about to point this same thing out. Asking good questions works so much better than trying to tell them how they are wrong, so after validating them start questioning their logic (or lack of logic). I actually learned about this in therapy to assist in communicating better with my wife (who has a personality disorder) and then later realized it's the Socratic method. Validating the things you agree with is still important too, but this article is missing the second part where you question their claims.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#188

Post by scardine »

vintermann wrote: post #102
alsetmusic wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only when you understand their argument... I couldn't agree more. As a lifelong believer in science, raised in the Midwest among creationists, I have come into many conversations with intelligent people who somehow place faith in front of evidence. It's demoralizing to realize the frequency that this phenomenon occurs. I've recently scheduled a trip to the Creation Museum to observe the message at its core (half fo…

Imagine that there's a meteor heading towards earth. All evidence suggests that it will hit in three days, and wipe out all multicellular life - it's a big one. What do you do? How do you live your life your last three days? One school of thought says, disregard the evidence. Assert, against it all, that the meteor is going to miss. Or if that's hard, decide to trust someone who asserts it (this is usually easier). T…

Existence IS meaningless, this is the very beauty of it: you can give it any meaning you want.

You can even give your superego a face and think there is a big guy in the sky that loves you and cares about what you do.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#189

Post by aninhumer »

h4nkoslo wrote: post #56

This is also known as the "shit sandwich" (when leavened with another helping of praise on the other end), and is instantly recognizable once you see the pattern. The risk is that your initial praise is seen as disingenuous by its recipients, or that it goes too far and reifies their underlying value system when it actually is contradictory to yours. Incidentally, Barack Obama was particularly good at this constructi…

>The risk is that your initial praise is seen as disingenuous by its recipients

Because if you're concocting praise to implement something you call a "shit sandwich", it probably is disingenuous.

Re: To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right

#190

Post by morbidhawk »

espeed wrote: post #20

Empathy and perspective. Empathy [1] (cognitive empathy) is the ability to put yourself in someone's shoes and see things from their perspective. Not everyone has the ability to empathize -- we often believe our level of empathy is like that of everyone else, but this is not the case. Cluster B personality types [2], those with Asperger's [3] or on the autistic spectrum, and some with ADHD lack the ability to empathi…

My wife is literally the DSM definition of borderline personality disorder (one of the cluster b personality types) and she does have empathy, a lot of it actually. I'm not sure about the other cluster-B types though. Everything is about feelings for her, because her emotions are extreme and hard to regulate. She's the friend that gets called when their life is falling apart because she knows what that feels like almost 100% of the time. Her decisions are always based on emotions. Naturally, because of her lack of emotional health she has unrealistic expectations of me but it's not because she can't empathize with me, it's because she has the emotional health of a child and is afraid of abandonment.
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