61–70 of 307 posts
1) Be polite. Nobody wants to listen to or learn from a rude person.
2) Avoid signaling your values, knowledge, or status. Write for the person you are addressing, not other members of your in-group. Proofread your writing and delete anything that does not serve this purpose.
3) Don't value winning more than understanding.
Eventually, I get to a crossroad: either I accept what these people are saying as right (even when it's wrong and would require some absurd actions on my part), or I navigate to exit that situation so I can minimize my future interactions with those people. If neither are possible, it's perhaps time to find new work. Of course, I'd love to get onto the same page as them. But I think we have to acknowledge that sometimes it's not possible. I say this as someone who believes that he has gotten pretty good at this skill after years of experience.
As would probably be expected, these types of people are lifers at organizations where they have used political means to entrench themselves, and would likely not survive on the open market if they ever needed to look for new employment.
A very similar effect is the "backfire effect" http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect I've been spending a lot of time focusing on this with customer support. When a customer is hot about a problem it doesn't help at all to show facts about anything. It really helps though to begin with a place of empathy of how you understand how they feel if you were in a similar situation. For example, had a great experience…
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…
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…
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 for a laugh, half to better understand my opponents in future debates).
Of course, a visit to the Natural History Museum, NY, is on the same itinerary for balance.
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. I didn't always think this way. In the past, I would say that people are reasonable, it's always possible to figure out what the truth is, especially if I acknowledge the possibility that I am often wrong. But now I realize that some pe…
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 or disprove the existence of a higher being or a religion. But some people will fundamentally be okay with believing in a higher power though. So whatever side of the debate I'm on, when the conversation comes down to a fundamental argument I let both parties be right.
It's the complete opposite of what seems to be the increasingly reigning trend online at least, and all too often offline. That is to say this is good advice, but a really shocking number of people seem to unaware that the least effective teacher is the one who informs you that you're a pointless moron before trying to correct you. I'm constantly amazed at people who think their genius is so valuable that anyone woul…
The goal of online conversation is usually not to convince the purported target of the rhetoric.
It's the complete opposite of what seems to be the increasingly reigning trend online at least, and all too often offline. That is to say this is good advice, but a really shocking number of people seem to unaware that the least effective teacher is the one who informs you that you're a pointless moron before trying to correct you. I'm constantly amazed at people who think their genius is so valuable that anyone woul…
If somebody calls you a pointless moron, they are probably not trying to teach you anything.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
Really Bad article by the way.
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…
> 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…
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've found The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins a very enlightening read if one wishes to understand the arguments of religious people.