I actually red-pilled a friend on the jab after showcasing the amount of gaslighting that’s gone on. He had already had the jab but never got the booster.
But did YOU do it, or was he already skeptical and just needed his thoughts validated?
This is why I'm not sure I've ever persuaded anyone with reasoned argument alone, and persuading people is a huge part of almost every job I've ever had.
I have. But then, this man knows I've a scientific background, and he's seen me whip white papers seemingly out of my ass if I say " I know what I'm talking about".
He got both his Moderna, but hadn't gotten a booster.
He also dont trust the GP Dr he was seeing, after I looked at his blood work and pointed out the things he'd missed...
Not I, but a two very close friends. The one pursuaded and the other doing the pursuading. The latter however would claim that it was pure reason plus divine intervention, mund you. And I myself was persuaded thereby on at least one count.
Also, I assumed the phrase "reasoned argument" included pointing to physical evidence as well as pure logical statements from first principles.
It requires the person have a run-and-find-out mindset as well as understanding what proofs are.
It's certainly possible, and that's all we need for a yes here. The problem is that it's only possible with open-minded people who are intelligent enough to admit they don't know everything. That's not the majority of people, and certainly not a majority of the people we're trying to debate recently.
I suppose there's also another type of time I can think of that might or might not qualify, and that's when person A thinks something but not very strongly, and person B knows quite a bit about that something and convinces them.
An immediate example that jumps into my mind was a young pitcher who was basically standing straight up to pitch because he felt like his pitches were faster. After 10 minutes of demonstrating 'proper' form and explaining why it was superior to his poor form, the poor form disappeared forever.
So basically situations in which one person is an almost 'empty' vessel and somebody else knows a lot and can easily explain and demonstrate it.
Good example. It's kind of what I had in mind for "trivial things"- not necessarily low-value ideas, but ideas the receptive party isn't at all married to.
As a similar example to yours that went in the other direction, I've firmly resisted anyone trying to teach me open-eye shooting (aiming with the non-dominant eye kept open). I'm VERY eye dominant, know that about myself, and know it would probably take literally years of terrible shooting to somehow recondition myself for what would probably be minimal gains at best. About half the instructors I've ever worked with don't give a shit at all- typically the ones teaching tactical shooting. So I'm going to be extremely resistant to future attempts to "convert" me on this.
Oct 21, 2022·edited Oct 21, 2022Liked by Guttermouth
Yes, there are counter-examples there I can think of as well. Sometimes 'bad' form works for a specific individual (generally due to unique experience/practice). It's important to recognize those cases as well!
Edit: I worded this unclearly, so I'll provide an example: a hitter who stands in a strange manner or has a strange leg kick before he swings.
Oct 20, 2022·edited Oct 20, 2022Liked by Guttermouth
That's a yes for the trivial, (mostly) a no for anything of consequence. This is an unfortunate feature of the human condition. There's a sub-verbal calculation that happens before anyone opens their (gutter) mouth in a conversation. And 99 times out of 100 the creature typing into the calculator is an insane monkey-lizard-crackhead that can't do math.
I take these questions too seriously...spend too much time contemplating the best answer when the choices are usually suboptimal. Clearly I should just take Steve Guttenberg for everything.
Take a suboptimal answer and tweak it for us in the comments. We're not here to judge your chosen answer...unless it's Guttenberg...then imma judge you.
I figure eventually I'll have a disclaimer under the poll long enough to satisfy everyone's obsession with finding cracks in other people's ideas and no one will participate because it's too long to read.
I'll twiddle someone's ideas around in my wee tiny mind if I find them interesting, but I'm not gunna obsess over them . I got obsessions enough without borrowing any.
In fact, I'm all good for other Gutterballs to walk up to me to " borrow a cup of obsession " like neighbors used to borrow sugar in the 50s.
I'll be Neighborly. ( I did tell you that's what I titled the session I taught our national association last month, didn't I? 😏😈)
Thank you! It was my first time being asked to teach. When other black belts flinch during the demonstration because they can envision the damage being done... I call that a win. I'm not the sweetest neighbor.
Yes, for relatively trivial things to them that are a big deal to yourself.
In my case it was guns. When I met the wife she had a serious aversion to having one in the house. She knew I hunted because we were set up by her mother but hunting was pretty separate from having a gun in the house. Well, for me it was a package deal, if we were going to spend the rest of our lives together she had to get used to the idea that there were always going to be guns in the house.
In her life before she met me, guns were never a part of the picture except riding on a police officer's hip. She had never shot a gun or been around anyone shooting a gun and she told me she wasn't comfortable with guns around. For the first year and a half of our relationship it wasn't a problem as we maintained separate housing even though I never stayed in my ghetto home after about the 2nd month of dating. She got very sick when we were dating and I stayed to take care of her and just never left/ was never asked to leave. Up to that point our relationship had been platonic but she was clearly in no condition to be alone. Up to that point we had never even kissed and I had never spent the night.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that we kind figured out we had caught feelings and it snowballed pretty rapidly. But the subject of guns was still touchy. When I finally ended my lease and moved in it came to a head and we talked about it. She was OK if they were in the house but they had to be locked in a closet in another room. It was only 2 guns at the time and I wasn't terribly involved in shooting of any kind. The hunting I did was archery only and she was fine with the bow and even the hunting.
And then I got invited to an out of state hunt and she wanted to come with because it was with family and I would need to bring my shotgun. We weren't married yet and she had only briefly met any of my family, they lived out of state so she spent time getting to know my family and amazingly she didn't turn tail and run at that point. She still wasn't comfortable around guns and would find somewhere else to be when we cleaned them when we were finished hunting for the day.
Fast forward 5 years and we went on our second honeymoon out west to where home is for me. Preparing for the trip I purchased a handgun because we would be visiting some pretty wild country with critters that bite. She didn't like the idea but she didn't say I couldn't bring it. When we went out and I put it on my hip she wasn't exactly enthused but she didn't throw a fit either. We went out to tramp around the wilderness and found ourselves sitting on a mountainside having a picnic lunch and from the brush down the mountain I could hear something grunting maybe 100 yards down the hill. I knew immediately it was a bear but I didn't know the flavor of the bear as we couldn't see it.
I will never forget the look on her face when she heard it and asked what it was. I said it was a bear and I saw the gears turning in her head, "You have your gun?" I told her I did and she moved over next to me, on my left side like I had been conditioning her to do since we met. She never understood why I always made her stay to my left and that clicked in her head at that moment. If she were on my right she would be interfering with my draw if something were to threaten. We just backed up the mountain back to the van and never saw the bear.
After that she expressed a desire to shoot, so I took her to the range with my AR after sitting down and giving her a familiarization and a safety course that was very basic. She shot it and thought it was OK and then we made it a regular thing. She still has no interest in hunting, she couldn't kill an animal and that is 100% OK but 5 years later she expressed an interest in shooting a handgun. 5 more years and she took a concealed carry course and aced the shooting portion.
She doesn't carry very often, partly because she knows I am always carrying but that is OK. She no longer sees guns as something evil and only for criminals and police. She gets it now.
But changing someone's mind who has already made up their mind and invested themselves in it deeply is not likely to happen no matter how many facts you have to prove their position wrong. I dated a girl in my early 20's who was rabidly anti-gun. I knew this early on in our first date but I didn't volunteer that I totally disagreed with her. Things were good until we went dancing and she put her arm around my back and felt my handgun tucked into the small of my back. She lost her shit and that was a spectacular breakup. What she didn't know was that every time we went out I was armed. And we had gotten pretty attached to each other but I had been pretty discreet about carrying and she never caught on until that point. Whenever we would end up back at her place I would slip the holster out of my back and put the gun under the seat.
She did try to convince me that if I got rid of the gun we could get back together. Alas, I was too invested in my own safety to make any such compromise. She wasn't real pleased by that answer and it was the only time I ever got hit by a woman. Even today 30 odd years later she blocks me on every social media platform. Which is kind of strange as the only thing I ever did was to make sure that when we were together nothing bad would happen to her. The last words she spoke to me was, "I can't believe you love your guns more than you love me" and my last words, "Yeah, well my gun never slapped me".
Neither of us were willing to change our minds and no amount of discussion would change that.
I wouldn't expect a single kind word from a man I had struck. And I wouldn't strike one unless I had a dire need to incapacitate him.
I find it interesting that a woman willing to assault your person unprovoked would be so virulently opposed to guns. She's clearly comfortable with violence on at least one level.
I haven't decided what to get for a CCW now that we're in a state that allows it. My husband is still waiting to get me the holster promised at our last anniversary once I've picked one. I think I want to go with a back holster like in your story, a pancake or something similar.
I've since switched from back to an IWB which rides between 2 and 3 o'clock with the grip riding canted slightly forward. The back carry was never comfortable and has the disadvantage of being nearly impossible to draw from while seated. It is way more comfortable and always accessible except if you are laying on your right side. But back in the stone age there were far fewer concealed carry options in holsters and really guns for that matter.
Don't want to sound like I am mansplaining but you really should go shoot some guns to get an idea of what feels right for you and do the same with holsters. And don't fall into a trap of carrying a Glock because that is what the guy at the gun store suggested. Glocks are great duty weapons when they are carried in a retention holster but the lack of a safety other than the trigger can make it a poor choice for concealed carry for a lot of people. I can't tell you how many people that bought a Glock because it was recommended but carry it with an empty chamber because they "don't feel safe carrying a loaded gun". A safety helps a lot with that and the whole point of carrying is to be ready for an unexpected event of trouble. If you are expecting trouble, carry a rifle, bring friends who are also are carrying rifles too.
You're not mansplaining at all; I asked a question and was hoping for guidance.
I already shoot quite a bit, including a few handguns, but none of them I would describe as really practical for concealed carry. I guess I'm mainly looking for good starting points on potential guns to try out for CC; there is a huge catalog to choose from.
The majority of my experience is with precision or battle rifles. My husband has spent more time with hunting rifles and shotguns.
Thanks also for the info about IWBs; having read a few articles after your comment, I think I've switched that to my preference. It also probably rules out revolvers as choices for me to consider.
Yes, go ahead and break the pasta before cooking. It's easier to get it all in the pot, doesn't affect the flavor or texture, and the pasta doesn't know how long it's supposed to be, anyway.
1: Your interlocutor needs to be more interested in being correct than being "right" in the conversation. That is, they need to be interested in truth and not just telling you what they think and winning the conversation.
2: You need to have a relationship with mutual respect. If the other person doesn't think you might have something to offer it doesn't work, and if they think you don't take their thoughts seriously it doesn't work.
3: You need to understand their position and their reasons for it pretty well. This kind of feeds into number 2, as if you understand their position and reasons well they are going to feel more respected, and actually respecting them makes understanding easier.
I'd say that the more important the question, the more central to someone's sense of reality, the higher the bar for those requirements. For lots of the stuff we want to argue about, the bar is pretty damned high, but we often pull it off with some of our close friends without even noticing. Sometimes it takes a while, so we aren't present for the change of mind, but it does happen.
That's what I get for living in a different time-zone, Doc Hammer says it all and does it briefly and succinctly. So I'll settle for riding coat-tails here:
1) Can agree and confirm, based on work experience in the school system - debate being a huge part of teaching pol sci. "What is most important, to be right (factually correct) or to win the argument?" was an oft repeated sentiment, in various forms and formulations. The corollary being that sometimes it is more important to be rght and sometimes it is more important to win, which also is a segue into logic and rethoric; if you don't win it doesn't matter if you're right and if you win but you're wrong, well you can get people with the right know-how to sort it out. Just look at Green politicians for a real-life example.
2) Here I'd like to add that [r-e-s-p-e-c-t] as ms. Franklin sang it isn't an immutable and identical concept over cultures, or even within the same culture - so knowing what form and in what manner respect is in existence becomes a proto-step necessary for what you describe. In some circles, to show respect means to show obeisance before the threat of force, in others it means to show deferrence for titles and arbitrary authority, and in others it means not bringing up bothersome facts since it's not nice to cause discomfort by purposefully doing so. The corollary here being that knowing how to manipulate the concept [repect] become important as a tool and a possible "fifth column" in your service should your opponent not do so themselves.
3) Yes. Know and understand the other as the other knows and understands himself is crucial. Corollary: even if honest and fair open and factual debate is virtually impossible (say debating genital mutilation with moslems or jews), knowing your opponent as they know themselves gives you more maneuverability.
And finally, and this one might upset people of very dominant religious persuasions, there is no difference to the brain/mind between belief in make-believe and belief in facts, just as there's no functional difference to the brain/mind between reality and fiction. Reality is perception in that sense, and realising and learning what that actually means for us is akin to being the only side with aircraft in a war.
Maybe the time a schmuck who was sort of the unofficial physician to my then mother-in-law whenever she decided she needed an IV drip, and he'd tell me about how he hated his wife, and I asked him why the hell he thought *she* didn't have the right to despise a man who'd disrespect her so badly.
Some time later he told me how I'd completely changed his thinking and he'd begun having real conversations with his wife, etc. etc. etc.
Yes, if you’re both coming from an open, honest place. And no one is wearing a fucking mask or hasn’t voted democrat in the last 20 years.
Have you ever, with certainty, accomplished this with someone?
I actually red-pilled a friend on the jab after showcasing the amount of gaslighting that’s gone on. He had already had the jab but never got the booster.
But did YOU do it, or was he already skeptical and just needed his thoughts validated?
This is why I'm not sure I've ever persuaded anyone with reasoned argument alone, and persuading people is a huge part of almost every job I've ever had.
Well dammit now you got me questioning! I can’t say confidently!
Would you say she changed your mind about this through reasoned argument? 😂😂😂
No, she just made me question myself. Like every woman in my life. 😂😂😂
I have. But then, this man knows I've a scientific background, and he's seen me whip white papers seemingly out of my ass if I say " I know what I'm talking about".
He got both his Moderna, but hadn't gotten a booster.
He also dont trust the GP Dr he was seeing, after I looked at his blood work and pointed out the things he'd missed...
Not I, but a two very close friends. The one pursuaded and the other doing the pursuading. The latter however would claim that it was pure reason plus divine intervention, mund you. And I myself was persuaded thereby on at least one count.
Also, I assumed the phrase "reasoned argument" included pointing to physical evidence as well as pure logical statements from first principles.
It requires the person have a run-and-find-out mindset as well as understanding what proofs are.
Thanks, Baga. We're going through a surrogate for our baby. We plan to homeschool and NO unnecessary vaccinations.
LMAO! You got my vote!
It's certainly possible, and that's all we need for a yes here. The problem is that it's only possible with open-minded people who are intelligent enough to admit they don't know everything. That's not the majority of people, and certainly not a majority of the people we're trying to debate recently.
I suppose there's also another type of time I can think of that might or might not qualify, and that's when person A thinks something but not very strongly, and person B knows quite a bit about that something and convinces them.
An immediate example that jumps into my mind was a young pitcher who was basically standing straight up to pitch because he felt like his pitches were faster. After 10 minutes of demonstrating 'proper' form and explaining why it was superior to his poor form, the poor form disappeared forever.
So basically situations in which one person is an almost 'empty' vessel and somebody else knows a lot and can easily explain and demonstrate it.
Good example. It's kind of what I had in mind for "trivial things"- not necessarily low-value ideas, but ideas the receptive party isn't at all married to.
As a similar example to yours that went in the other direction, I've firmly resisted anyone trying to teach me open-eye shooting (aiming with the non-dominant eye kept open). I'm VERY eye dominant, know that about myself, and know it would probably take literally years of terrible shooting to somehow recondition myself for what would probably be minimal gains at best. About half the instructors I've ever worked with don't give a shit at all- typically the ones teaching tactical shooting. So I'm going to be extremely resistant to future attempts to "convert" me on this.
Yes, there are counter-examples there I can think of as well. Sometimes 'bad' form works for a specific individual (generally due to unique experience/practice). It's important to recognize those cases as well!
Edit: I worded this unclearly, so I'll provide an example: a hitter who stands in a strange manner or has a strange leg kick before he swings.
Your broader point is more important, though- receptivity has a lot to do with attachment, or lack thereof.
That's a yes for the trivial, (mostly) a no for anything of consequence. This is an unfortunate feature of the human condition. There's a sub-verbal calculation that happens before anyone opens their (gutter) mouth in a conversation. And 99 times out of 100 the creature typing into the calculator is an insane monkey-lizard-crackhead that can't do math.
That's why art is so important.
I love that the conclusion was art.
Awesome... do my fellow monkey-lizards Have to be crackheads? Just wanna know my fellows...
I take these questions too seriously...spend too much time contemplating the best answer when the choices are usually suboptimal. Clearly I should just take Steve Guttenberg for everything.
Lol. Don't stop!
I love your comments!
Take a suboptimal answer and tweak it for us in the comments. We're not here to judge your chosen answer...unless it's Guttenberg...then imma judge you.
I figure eventually I'll have a disclaimer under the poll long enough to satisfy everyone's obsession with finding cracks in other people's ideas and no one will participate because it's too long to read.
Joke them if they can't take a fuck.
I'll twiddle someone's ideas around in my wee tiny mind if I find them interesting, but I'm not gunna obsess over them . I got obsessions enough without borrowing any.
In fact, I'm all good for other Gutterballs to walk up to me to " borrow a cup of obsession " like neighbors used to borrow sugar in the 50s.
I'll be Neighborly. ( I did tell you that's what I titled the session I taught our national association last month, didn't I? 😏😈)
No, you didn't, but that's wonderful .
Thank you! It was my first time being asked to teach. When other black belts flinch during the demonstration because they can envision the damage being done... I call that a win. I'm not the sweetest neighbor.
Yes, for relatively trivial things to them that are a big deal to yourself.
In my case it was guns. When I met the wife she had a serious aversion to having one in the house. She knew I hunted because we were set up by her mother but hunting was pretty separate from having a gun in the house. Well, for me it was a package deal, if we were going to spend the rest of our lives together she had to get used to the idea that there were always going to be guns in the house.
In her life before she met me, guns were never a part of the picture except riding on a police officer's hip. She had never shot a gun or been around anyone shooting a gun and she told me she wasn't comfortable with guns around. For the first year and a half of our relationship it wasn't a problem as we maintained separate housing even though I never stayed in my ghetto home after about the 2nd month of dating. She got very sick when we were dating and I stayed to take care of her and just never left/ was never asked to leave. Up to that point our relationship had been platonic but she was clearly in no condition to be alone. Up to that point we had never even kissed and I had never spent the night.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that we kind figured out we had caught feelings and it snowballed pretty rapidly. But the subject of guns was still touchy. When I finally ended my lease and moved in it came to a head and we talked about it. She was OK if they were in the house but they had to be locked in a closet in another room. It was only 2 guns at the time and I wasn't terribly involved in shooting of any kind. The hunting I did was archery only and she was fine with the bow and even the hunting.
And then I got invited to an out of state hunt and she wanted to come with because it was with family and I would need to bring my shotgun. We weren't married yet and she had only briefly met any of my family, they lived out of state so she spent time getting to know my family and amazingly she didn't turn tail and run at that point. She still wasn't comfortable around guns and would find somewhere else to be when we cleaned them when we were finished hunting for the day.
Fast forward 5 years and we went on our second honeymoon out west to where home is for me. Preparing for the trip I purchased a handgun because we would be visiting some pretty wild country with critters that bite. She didn't like the idea but she didn't say I couldn't bring it. When we went out and I put it on my hip she wasn't exactly enthused but she didn't throw a fit either. We went out to tramp around the wilderness and found ourselves sitting on a mountainside having a picnic lunch and from the brush down the mountain I could hear something grunting maybe 100 yards down the hill. I knew immediately it was a bear but I didn't know the flavor of the bear as we couldn't see it.
I will never forget the look on her face when she heard it and asked what it was. I said it was a bear and I saw the gears turning in her head, "You have your gun?" I told her I did and she moved over next to me, on my left side like I had been conditioning her to do since we met. She never understood why I always made her stay to my left and that clicked in her head at that moment. If she were on my right she would be interfering with my draw if something were to threaten. We just backed up the mountain back to the van and never saw the bear.
After that she expressed a desire to shoot, so I took her to the range with my AR after sitting down and giving her a familiarization and a safety course that was very basic. She shot it and thought it was OK and then we made it a regular thing. She still has no interest in hunting, she couldn't kill an animal and that is 100% OK but 5 years later she expressed an interest in shooting a handgun. 5 more years and she took a concealed carry course and aced the shooting portion.
She doesn't carry very often, partly because she knows I am always carrying but that is OK. She no longer sees guns as something evil and only for criminals and police. She gets it now.
But changing someone's mind who has already made up their mind and invested themselves in it deeply is not likely to happen no matter how many facts you have to prove their position wrong. I dated a girl in my early 20's who was rabidly anti-gun. I knew this early on in our first date but I didn't volunteer that I totally disagreed with her. Things were good until we went dancing and she put her arm around my back and felt my handgun tucked into the small of my back. She lost her shit and that was a spectacular breakup. What she didn't know was that every time we went out I was armed. And we had gotten pretty attached to each other but I had been pretty discreet about carrying and she never caught on until that point. Whenever we would end up back at her place I would slip the holster out of my back and put the gun under the seat.
She did try to convince me that if I got rid of the gun we could get back together. Alas, I was too invested in my own safety to make any such compromise. She wasn't real pleased by that answer and it was the only time I ever got hit by a woman. Even today 30 odd years later she blocks me on every social media platform. Which is kind of strange as the only thing I ever did was to make sure that when we were together nothing bad would happen to her. The last words she spoke to me was, "I can't believe you love your guns more than you love me" and my last words, "Yeah, well my gun never slapped me".
Neither of us were willing to change our minds and no amount of discussion would change that.
I wouldn't expect a single kind word from a man I had struck. And I wouldn't strike one unless I had a dire need to incapacitate him.
I find it interesting that a woman willing to assault your person unprovoked would be so virulently opposed to guns. She's clearly comfortable with violence on at least one level.
I haven't decided what to get for a CCW now that we're in a state that allows it. My husband is still waiting to get me the holster promised at our last anniversary once I've picked one. I think I want to go with a back holster like in your story, a pancake or something similar.
I've since switched from back to an IWB which rides between 2 and 3 o'clock with the grip riding canted slightly forward. The back carry was never comfortable and has the disadvantage of being nearly impossible to draw from while seated. It is way more comfortable and always accessible except if you are laying on your right side. But back in the stone age there were far fewer concealed carry options in holsters and really guns for that matter.
Don't want to sound like I am mansplaining but you really should go shoot some guns to get an idea of what feels right for you and do the same with holsters. And don't fall into a trap of carrying a Glock because that is what the guy at the gun store suggested. Glocks are great duty weapons when they are carried in a retention holster but the lack of a safety other than the trigger can make it a poor choice for concealed carry for a lot of people. I can't tell you how many people that bought a Glock because it was recommended but carry it with an empty chamber because they "don't feel safe carrying a loaded gun". A safety helps a lot with that and the whole point of carrying is to be ready for an unexpected event of trouble. If you are expecting trouble, carry a rifle, bring friends who are also are carrying rifles too.
You're not mansplaining at all; I asked a question and was hoping for guidance.
I already shoot quite a bit, including a few handguns, but none of them I would describe as really practical for concealed carry. I guess I'm mainly looking for good starting points on potential guns to try out for CC; there is a huge catalog to choose from.
The majority of my experience is with precision or battle rifles. My husband has spent more time with hunting rifles and shotguns.
Thanks also for the info about IWBs; having read a few articles after your comment, I think I've switched that to my preference. It also probably rules out revolvers as choices for me to consider.
My husband and I used our stimulus $ to load up. I got one with a grip safety, which has been a bitch to find a holster
I changed several people's minds about covid by saying things of this nature:
"Wow man, you "got" it much faster (even if they didn't) than most".
It gives an opportunity for dialogue and for them to tacitly admit it to themselves.
"Yes, for relatively trivial things." And with a lot of begging.
Yes, go ahead and break the pasta before cooking. It's easier to get it all in the pot, doesn't affect the flavor or texture, and the pasta doesn't know how long it's supposed to be, anyway.
It's understandable that you might have thought this stack is a haven for psychopaths, but it isn't. Please leave.
So much for my theory.
I think yes, but with some severe caveats.
1: Your interlocutor needs to be more interested in being correct than being "right" in the conversation. That is, they need to be interested in truth and not just telling you what they think and winning the conversation.
2: You need to have a relationship with mutual respect. If the other person doesn't think you might have something to offer it doesn't work, and if they think you don't take their thoughts seriously it doesn't work.
3: You need to understand their position and their reasons for it pretty well. This kind of feeds into number 2, as if you understand their position and reasons well they are going to feel more respected, and actually respecting them makes understanding easier.
I'd say that the more important the question, the more central to someone's sense of reality, the higher the bar for those requirements. For lots of the stuff we want to argue about, the bar is pretty damned high, but we often pull it off with some of our close friends without even noticing. Sometimes it takes a while, so we aren't present for the change of mind, but it does happen.
That's what I get for living in a different time-zone, Doc Hammer says it all and does it briefly and succinctly. So I'll settle for riding coat-tails here:
1) Can agree and confirm, based on work experience in the school system - debate being a huge part of teaching pol sci. "What is most important, to be right (factually correct) or to win the argument?" was an oft repeated sentiment, in various forms and formulations. The corollary being that sometimes it is more important to be rght and sometimes it is more important to win, which also is a segue into logic and rethoric; if you don't win it doesn't matter if you're right and if you win but you're wrong, well you can get people with the right know-how to sort it out. Just look at Green politicians for a real-life example.
2) Here I'd like to add that [r-e-s-p-e-c-t] as ms. Franklin sang it isn't an immutable and identical concept over cultures, or even within the same culture - so knowing what form and in what manner respect is in existence becomes a proto-step necessary for what you describe. In some circles, to show respect means to show obeisance before the threat of force, in others it means to show deferrence for titles and arbitrary authority, and in others it means not bringing up bothersome facts since it's not nice to cause discomfort by purposefully doing so. The corollary here being that knowing how to manipulate the concept [repect] become important as a tool and a possible "fifth column" in your service should your opponent not do so themselves.
3) Yes. Know and understand the other as the other knows and understands himself is crucial. Corollary: even if honest and fair open and factual debate is virtually impossible (say debating genital mutilation with moslems or jews), knowing your opponent as they know themselves gives you more maneuverability.
And finally, and this one might upset people of very dominant religious persuasions, there is no difference to the brain/mind between belief in make-believe and belief in facts, just as there's no functional difference to the brain/mind between reality and fiction. Reality is perception in that sense, and realising and learning what that actually means for us is akin to being the only side with aircraft in a war.
Yeah but I can't remember when...
For something important?
Maybe the time a schmuck who was sort of the unofficial physician to my then mother-in-law whenever she decided she needed an IV drip, and he'd tell me about how he hated his wife, and I asked him why the hell he thought *she* didn't have the right to despise a man who'd disrespect her so badly.
Some time later he told me how I'd completely changed his thinking and he'd begun having real conversations with his wife, etc. etc. etc.
Might've been true, who knows?
It's theoretically possible. Rhetoric /meme is far more 'cost effective.'
I don't bother w either, anymore.
Fuk em, not my problem.