An argument is not a fight that must be won. It is a conversion with an exchange of ideas and opinions. The world is a tiny little bit more complex than “wrong/right”, and so are the conversations and differing viewpoints.
Important distinction for this thread:
- A dialectical argument is one where both sides compare views to see if they can together arrive at a higher truth by realizing their mistakes. Good for changing your mind. Requires good faith on both sides.
- A debate is a rhetorical battle, often more for the sake of presenting views to an audience than for the sake of the debaters. Do not change your mind because you’ve been rhetorically outmanoeuvred. This is the common type of argument for politicians and public discourse.
No. If I believed that, I’d turn into a racist chud because I have never been able to “win” an argument with racist chuds as I tend to argue with logic and facts.
Changing your mind isn’t something you do - it’s something that’s done to you. If you hear a compelling enough argument, you will change your mind whether you want to or not. If that doesn’t happen, the argument wasn’t good enough.
Obviously there are ways to resist changing your mind once that uncomfortable feeling starts creeping in, and that’s called cognitive dissonance. When new information conflicts with your prior beliefs, you either try to discredit it - for example by attacking the suspected motives of the person making the argument, as many like to do - or you try to retroactively fit it into your existing belief structure instead of updating your views.
I change my mind all the time. It’s not fun, but I have no choice. When someone makes a good point I can’t refute, updating my beliefs is the only rational thing to do.
This is actually one of the most puzzling things about online arguments I run into here pretty much daily. More often than not, the people I’m arguing against don’t even seem to try to change my view. They’re just putting on a show to let everyone else know I’m making the wrong noises and need to be ridiculed for it. Shutting down the discussion like that just seems incredibly unproductive to me.
No. Just because I’m uneducated about something or not intelligent enough to convince someone else about something, it doesn’t mean I’m necessarily factually wrong or morally wrong about something.
The view I agree with is: If I can’t win an argument I should consider changing my mind.
Absolutely not. No one wins an argument and it’s the least likely form of communication to result in any part changing their mind. Even formal debate with rules and timers doesn’t lead to changed minds often.
I personally strive to be factually and logically correct about anything I might discuss (that can be validated by facts or logic). Despite spending large portions of my time reading and researching so that I understand the world I live in better, I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been able to change someone’s mind.
The truth is it’s very hard, bordering on impossible to change someone’s mind who isn’t open to it and most people are not. It’s easier to make a snap judgement and never reconsider it or let someone else form one’s opinion of something than to do the work to understand a topic enough to warrant having an opinion at all.
The extreme polarization of opinion and the politicization of basically everything makes it so that it’s rapidly becoming functionally impossible to interact with people of different ideologies as they now encompass most of one’s life.
DEPENDS WHO you arguing, if its illogical like conspiracies, or political you cant win against doubling downers.
It’s a logical fallacy called ad hominem if you discredit what someone says based on who said it rather than what is being said.
I can’t win arguments because I’m bad at arguments.
By that logic, I would probably end up changing my beliefs every week or so or end up believing something absurd because someone who believes it is good at sophistry.
But then again, this is also why I try not to argue much. It’s a waste of time and just makes everything worse.
I will, however, hear people out if I think they might have some good points.
No. Not all people will be convinced even when presented with overwhelming evidence. And not all arguments pertain to matters of fact, thus there is no objective right/wrong.
Feelings don’t care about facts.
Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
So no is my answer. But we could argue about it.
No.
Source: Tried to argue with an antivaccer…
antivaccer
There are people who deny the existence of vacuums now? Smh my head
Yeah, they don’t like anything that sucks more than they do.
So, I assume you’re a guy (or at least have those “parts”) since you’re smacking two heads…
If you are right, why didn’t you win?
Because “right” and “good at winning debates” do not necessarily correlate.
Because you can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into. You’re not arguing with facts, you’re arguing with people, and if you argue with stupid people, they’ll drag you down to their level and best you with experience.
I believe the common analogy is it’s like playing chess with a pigeon:
You know you’re smarter and do everything right, but they knock all the pieces over, shit on the board, then strut around like they won.
Some people don’t respond to reason or facts.
Yeah like all ML ;)
🙄
Cause being right doesn’t mean you know how to argue with that person. It also doesn’t mean you remember all the relevant facts that would make winning possible.
What does winning look like?
Recognizing you’re wasting valuable oxygen and limited emotional bandwidth on someone who doesn’t want to be reached.
Sadly, this seems to make up the vast majority of people.
I mean… I’m not much or a people person for that reason. They are fucking exhausting.
Same. So I guess that means we’re done here. See ya around. 😁
You can try it right now, actually.
Being good at talking is not equal to being right. Falling victim to manipulation is not equal to being wrong.
IF one can’t win the argument because the opposing-position is true, correct, framed-rightly, presented-accurately, etc,
THEN one must ( according to integrity! ) change one’s mind.
ELSEIF one can’t win because the opponent WON’T frame things rightly, because they WON’T accept-as-valid-anything-outside-their-axioms, the WON’T allow correct-reasoning to be valid, the WON’T tolerate anything outside of their ideology/prejudice/“religion”/formal-system,
THEN one ought ditch the “discussion” & find somebody with intellectual-integrity to discuss things with, instead.
Go see some stuff on Peter Thiel, or the ones who hold that the world is being overtaken by evil because women have rights…
Go see some of the ones who hold that Trump is pristine, & all others are evil…
Go see some of the fascist stuff…
Go see some of the Communist-Imperialism stuff…
Go see some of the zionist/christofascist/islamist/fundamentalist-atheist/hindutva/“buddhist”-genocider-of-Tamils/etc stuff…
& see that you can’t win an argument against any of these axiom-based ideologues, & that’s a feature, not a bug:
they’re enforcing that their-continuums/souls get locked into what they want, & that will enforce that their-continuum/soul WILL “reap” the consequences of what they want, until their souls grow up.
That’s how enforced-evolution-for-all-souls/continuums works:
ALL energies contained-in-EndlessStreamOfUniverses gets recycled!!
Including my-continuum/soul, including your-continuum/soul, ALL continuums included.
Endlessly.
Purification’s enforced & guaranteed, & natural-ignorance AND intentional-ignorance are allowed, because that’s Free Will, & it’s required, for continuums/souls to have their own way, their own path, their own lessons, their own realizations.
No escape, ever, until a given continuum has earned ALL of its-own meanings, & ALL of its-own purifications, & ALL of its-own Truths…
So, if someone, anyone, holds-to retarded-“meaning”, why should that convince more-awake-one to hold to more-retarded-“meaning”??
Hold to what’s framed-universally, livingly-True, upright, correct, open, BEing-integrity, etc, … & let the world enforce its ignorance & its intentional-ignorance,
& if that means that one only gets prejudice & contempt, well that’s just good honest aversion-therapy, to help one break one’s attachment-to-getting-caught-in-human-existence, isn’t it?
( it is. )
( :
_ /\ _
If I can’t win an argument because the other guy has good points I need to reconsider my opinion.
If I can’t win because me not gud talk, maybe not.
No, it doesn’t work like that. Nobody can change someone else’s mind by arguments. Learning new things or changing your mind is something that only happens internally. It is only you who can change your own mind or learn things.
Good argumentation can encourage someone to question their own arguments, which can encourage them to investigate the topic, which can teach them something that can make them change their mind or adapt their existing views in a way that works with the new knowledge.
Because of this, you shouldn’t waste your time arguing against someone’s arguments. That will only escalate the potential conflict and move the goal post further away from whatever the initial topic was. To put all of this to good use, you should rather question the other person or yourself until either of you reach the inevitable answer: “I don’t know”. From there you can start figuring out what you need to learn and eventually make up your mind.
