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How can I influence others without manipulating them?

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Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#201

Post by twodave »

jjk166 wrote: post #199
twodave wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fine when the question is, “What’s for dinner?” However, there is nothing wrong with having core principles that aren’t able to be swayed. This is called having integrity. It’s important to understand where these lines fall within yourself and those you are speaking with. Some arguments aren’t worth having in an effort to persuade, but rather they should be discussions aimed at understanding, being vulnerable…

If your principles don't stand up to scrutiny, you shouldn't hold them. Some of the greatest evils ever committed were done by people certain they were acting according to upstanding principles. There is a middle ground between forcing all people to adopt your viewpoints and accepting all viewpoints as equally valid. Oftentimes you can agree to disagree, but there are certainly times you can't.

Yeah, I think we agree here.

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#202

Post by [deleted] »

tbirdny wrote: post #164
Sammi wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a lot of whitewashing of Charlie Kirk on social media at the moment that this quote reminds me of. The guy made a killing from speaking hate and then he got killed by hate himself. Like the guy that's always in the jurassic park movies, that doesn't think letting the t-rex out will be much of a problem, and then he get's killed by the t-rex and everyone else needs to deal with the t-rex of hate and far wingism…

I didn't know Charlie Krik before. After watching these videos, I don't believe he was such a hateful person: Amir Odom: https://youtu.be/N14ywRyTWVI Bill Maher: https://youtu.be/OblCcO7-Alg Jordan Peterson: https://youtu.be/dP0TagcNvCg

[deleted]

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#203

Post by lukan »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #197
lukan wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was defensive about the accusation of never having engaged with a real flat earther, despite saying so. And this part of the debate actually reminds me of engaging with them, so I rather stop that.

If this thread is any indication of what it’s like to debate flat earthers, I absolutely never want to engage with them. :D

Occasionally it can be fun.

Have you ever watched a we-have-never-been-on-the-moon conspiracy freak engage a flat earther?

With both trying to top each other who has the most superior knowledge and who is the real sheep?

But yes. All that borderlines on the dangerous mental crazy side, so I cannot really recommend it, unless you have a fascination with the abyss of the human mind.

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#204

Post by immibis »

simonask wrote: post #100
immibis wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most significant evidence that the earth is flat is that you can just look out your window and it's obviously flat, but all the round-earth evidence is complicated sciencey stuff. If someone doesn't believe in complicated sciencey stuff, they just won't believe you, and they'll conclude they have evidence and you don't. At what point do you just walk away from the argument?

Go to the shore. Watch the ships. It's not complicated sciencey stuff.

Atmospheric refraction. (See? The flat earther knows complicated sciencey stuff too. You won't accept their complicated sciencey stuff, so why should they accept your complicated sciencey stuff?)

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#205

Post by Sammi »

tbirdny wrote: post #164
Sammi wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a lot of whitewashing of Charlie Kirk on social media at the moment that this quote reminds me of. The guy made a killing from speaking hate and then he got killed by hate himself. Like the guy that's always in the jurassic park movies, that doesn't think letting the t-rex out will be much of a problem, and then he get's killed by the t-rex and everyone else needs to deal with the t-rex of hate and far wingism…

I didn't know Charlie Krik before. After watching these videos, I don't believe he was such a hateful person: Amir Odom: https://youtu.be/N14ywRyTWVI Bill Maher: https://youtu.be/OblCcO7-Alg Jordan Peterson: https://youtu.be/dP0TagcNvCg

Did you watch all the videos where he says all the hateful things? Why wouldn't you link to all those videos? Cause for being such a supposedly kind man he sure did say a lot of hateful stuff. We have 10 years of backlog to go though.

Like how he dehumanized women by saying they should submit to their husbands. Or when he said Joe Biden should be killed. Or all the times he used slurs for lgbt. Or the time he joked that it would be funny if the Pelosi attacker would be let loose. Or all the many times he called women and black people dumb. He can't help himself, he goes on and on with his explicit hate and racism. I've had they misfortune of watching the full length videos of these clips, and they just make it clear that he really means these things. He just keeps speaking his hateful heart.

He wished death on his political opponents. That alone should make him someone you wouldn't want to associate with for fear of how it reflects on you.

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#206

Post by red-iron-pine »

quackqquack wrote: post #119
vdqtp3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rape is wrong. It doesn't matter what your evidence or positions or logic are, you will not sway me on that point. I suspect that sort of thing is what GP meant.

What if you're a duck

based duckposting

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#207

Post by wizzwizz4 »

jhanschoo wrote: post #195
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing to say on the "nuanced ethics": as far as I'm concerned, rape is bad and murder is bad. Sufficiently-advanced pedantry always circles back to that. There's no nuance to be had. If you asked any (non-bloodthirsty) soldier, officer or general whether they'd press a button to magically achieve their military objectives without bloodshed, they'd certainly take that option. Killing enemy combatants is prais…

If the legal system calls certain morally bad killings in peacetime manslaughter that does not rise to the severity of murder, then I think that murder as is commonly used is a specific kind of killing that does not include your example of a wartime killing. Even outside of the courtroom itself, many are also very careful when using the word "murder" when discussing actual killings, because of its severity, and respo…

Murder is when you kill someone on purpose, when you had the option of not. Voluntary manslaughter is when you do a violence on purpose, and the target dies, but your intent was not to kill. Constructive involuntary manslaughter is when you take an action that's against the rules, and someone dies as a result, but you didn't realise you were doing violence. Negligence involuntary manslaughter is when you take an action that's not against the rules, and someone dies as a result, but you could've averted it.

Wartime killing of the enemy could be any of these (except probably not the last one), but it's probably going to meet the requirements for murder. The main reason it's not considered murder is that in war, we use a different classification system for violent acts, because the social context of violence in wartime is very different to the social context of violence in peacetime.

If you're taking the perspective that the social context is bundled up in the definition of the word (Later Wittgenstein's "use" theory of language), then killing an enemy soldier in war is not murder. If you're taking the perspective that a word refers to a meaningful proposition, i.e. a family of states of affairs (Early Wittgenstein's "picture" theory of language), then killing an enemy soldier in war is a non-central member of the 'murder' category, and just nobody calls it that. Personally, I'm a "use" theory proponent, so, uh… hm. Guess I was inaccurate.

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#208

Post by Nevermark »

naasking wrote: post #182
Nevermark wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you role playing in a fictional world? Where you can make up whatever ideals you want, and make them happen. Then I am for nobody ever suffering injustice. That would be good and right, indeed. Or, making actual choices in reality? Where there are limits to what we can do, but making hard choices well has positive impact. I am speaking to the latter.

> Or, making actual choices in reality? Where there are limits to what we can do, but making hard choices well has positive impact. Impact is irrelevant in Kantian ethics, deontological ethics [1] and virtue ethics [2]. A choice is good and right because it the nature of the choice itself in deontology, or because of how it defines one character in virtue ethics, not because of what effects it may or may not have on…

> Impact is irrelevant in Kantian ethics

From an arm chair perspective, this is a wonderful shortcut isn't it! Roughly, treat everyone how we would want to be treated - or some other limited formulation, with no horizon of thought about downstream impact past that.

Presumably, inflexible pacifism would get a sympathetic response from Kantians.

A kind of intellectual purity, at the relative cost to others' lives.

Interesting as an idea. Not so great for actual humans.

What exactly is the imagined benefit, that outweighs the well being of others and ourselves? A circular form of philosophical purity? A view that is better because it deems itself better?

EDIT: Just saw this:

> Not unless you can present some proof of this. Your implicit assumption that we should care about outcomes over principles has its own set of moral failures, like the repugnant conclusion.

Well, most people start by caring about other people and themselves. Not as an assumption but as a real status.

Doing so has a particularly interesting and meaningful consequence. By prioritizing better results for human beings, positive impact can better produce more positive impact. Creating a positive spiral where benefits of the ethics of prioritizing impact compound, and compound.

So for those that care about our fellow beings, and nontrivial non-limiting implications of choices, there is solid ground for ethics. Nothing arbitrary or foundationally circular.

Need to make up assumptions.

In contrast, what is the assumption or principle that values principles over people. What is the actual point? How is that deemed better than prioritizing a better world. How is that better or richer than ethics that achieve a higher bar, by continually re-incorporating, navigating and producing an ever more complex enabling future?

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#209

Post by ranger_danger »

latexr wrote: post #110
zmgsabst wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one is easy because it’s directly refuted by lived experience — eg: There’s mountains outside my window, so… not flat. Do you have evidence that it’s flat? — what do you even mean by “flat” when I can see ripples in it?

They mean “flat” in the sense of “straight” (i.e. not curved), the same way a sheet of sandpaper is flat despite being rugged. There are plenty of simple ways to disprove Flat Earth theories, but you’ll never be able to convince anyone by refuting their arguments with something which clearly misunderstands what they’re trying to say.

Instead of refuting their arguments, ask them to prove it to you. Whenever they say something you don't understand, ask them to explain it. Eventually they will get stuck.

Re: How can I influence others without manipulating them?

#210

Post by txrx0000 »

steve1977 wrote: post #66

Every effective communication is manipulation to a degree. There is no influence without manipulation. A baby smiling at you is manipulation. This is nothing bad in itself.

When people say or hear "manipulation", it usually implies deception: someone is tricking someone else into a position that's against the former's goals and interests.

It's possible to communicate without manipulating if all you aspire to do is describe reality as you see it, and make an effort to separate your own aesthetic judgements from mere observations of what exists.

People may change their actions without changing their goals when their model of reality becomes more accurate.

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