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Thinking that there are always (at least) two sides to any debate and they're at an equal footing and need to be presented in the same manner would be ignoring human nature and history. Some debates are extremely one sided.The problem are debates themselves. Thinking in terms of sides that fighting to win an argument is about as far from trying to understand reality and find objective truth as you could possibly get.
And if you bring up "human nature and history", what has been true throughout history is that denying equal footing and consideration to different views on contested topics is a power play, and an identifying mark of future oppressors. It starts with denying the opponents the ability to express themselves. Eventually, physical violence follows.
There's a reason discussions about cancel culture and left bias usually have someone bringing up the right to due process and "innocent until proven guilty" - those are one of the greatest achievements of the human civilization, and the people sharing the viewpoint you presented here are trying to undo it all.
> More often than not one side is ignoring reality and is not using reason to maintain their position - fossil fuel lovers, flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, fringe conspiracy theories, etc. etc. etc.
Back to that debate-based POV. This is patently ignorant of reality and basically just a form of self-justifying one's own hate or dishonesty. The truth is, almost nobody in all those debates knows much of reality. There are few specialists with a solid grasp on objective truth, some more with an approximate one, everyone else has only surface understanding of some slice of the issue. But what everyone has is a good understanding of immediate, first-order consequences the issue has for them personally.
Fossil fuel love doesn't stem from thermodynamics - people are mostly just worried about their jobs, or their communities. They feel the "fossil fuel haters" are trying to force them to take one for the team, that they're destroying the world they got used to living in. There's lots of mistrust and feelings of being attacked involved. Once you get that, you'll start to realize why all the arguing keeps going in circles, and that getting more pushy with "quoting facts" to "opponents" who clearly are "ignoring reality and not using reason"... isn't going to work. You aren't any different than them, you just worry about different things.
I suppose I shouldn't dignify your blatantly manipulative grouping of "fossil fuel lovers" with "flat earthers, anti-vaxxers, fringe conspiracy theories, etc." - but the truth is, the underlying reasons for those viewpoints are quite similar. Ingroup/outgroup dynamics, lack of trust, feeling of being force-fed beliefs and denied agency.
> Not only can you not reason with such people, presenting their position as an equal one that merits a debate is dangerous because their conversion tactics work on some people (mostly through FUD).
Yup. The next thing usually is locking such people in camps, as they're clearly too dangerous to have around. Fancy how the people who are most vocally anti-.*ist are also most eager to adopt those same behavior patterns.
> As they say, reality has a leftwing bias.
[citation needed]