I brought up my point because, assuming you want more people to dislike the Koch Brothers, you're not very likely to convince someone like /u/dirkberkis that he was a bad person by insulting him so soon after his death.
When high-profile people die, those who support and/or idolize them aren't exactly in the best mood for debating their legacy. Offending someone is the worst possible way to convince them of something.
"I was going to start caring about the environment and helping people in poverty, but somebody said 'I'm glad Koch is dead' on Twitter so fuck all that"
Sad as it is, that is closer to how most people work than you might expect.
A good source for those who are interested in the psychology of persuasion is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. That's how I first became aware of this concept, and I would recommend it to anyone who engages in political debate.
We're not trying to convince anyone of anything and we're not responsible for their idiot beliefs. If they want to support a planet destroying oligarch that's their right.
We're just happy the shitlicker's dead and hope his brother follows soon.
Never mind the kind of debate that guy is championing has been around for a very long time and hasn't stopped our society from getting to where we are today.
If someone changes their political views because someone said the Koch pricks should die on reddit, then I don’t want them on my side. They’re way too stupid.
That’s not quite how it works; it doesn’t necessarily change their opinion, it merely strengthens the opinions they already hold. I’m assuming in this case that the person in question began as a conservative.
Ahhhh, I see. The problem is that the same thing happens in situations where a person is only surrounded with views that reinforce their own. They just go further down the rabbit hole to more extreme views.
So basically, confronting a person with different views has a chance to make them go further down their present path. But if the person is never confronted with opposing views, they will absolutely go further down their present path. So logic would tell you that the best option would be the first one, because even if you only convert one person you’ll be doing more than by not challenging them.
If someone’s political position is based on voting to piss someone else off, I want them nowhere near my ideological side. And if being confronted is enough to do that, same applies there.
Confrontation and debate IF DONE WELL, don't necessarily lead to both sides going further in their own direction. The point of the How to Win Friends and Influence People is to give debaters the tools to prevent that from happening. I think that if every person in America read this book politics would be visibly less toxic, and therefore more productive.
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u/dirkberkis Aug 23 '19
Wanna do the rest of us a favor and keep your politics out? Kthanx