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Comment by phizy | Hacker News Reader

There's always been people who believe in nonsense. Most people, throughout most of history have. The meaning of "post-truth" today is that people in power are no longer being asked to justify what they do on the basis of fact. (It doesn't mean that facts don't exist or that they don't matter, I just found it off-putting that you'd try to suggest that.)

Allow me to paraphrase a concept from Tolkien: evil doesn't win because it's a superior force, it wins because it convinces you that it's already won. "Look over there, evil wins. Look here, evil already won. Evil always wins, that's the way it has always been. You can't fight it so give up."

You can't win by spreading evil's messages, even sarcastically. You win by being a superior force and never giving up. People's credibility should actually suffer when they do or say things that are incredible, and people who appeal to us with facts and compassion should be rewarded.

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But when you use words like "should", you've kind of already accepted the fate that it is not.

There are fights worth having, and then there are fights that are worth walking away from. If someone starts spouting off garbage, I just walk away and cut ties with them. I'm well past arguing over stupidity. You can tell when someone is unreasonable pretty quickly. However, when someone responds in a way that says they are willing to at least consider an opposing view, I will have a conversation. I enjoy those conversations even if no view points are changed at the end. That's the way it should work. See, I just said should as well.

>However, when someone responds in a way that says they are willing to at least consider an opposing view, I will have a conversation.

But what if they don't want a conversation? What if they want a "silent majority" that they will then claim to represent? What if they interpret a lack of resistance as evidence of support?

You may not be changing people's minds outright, but you do have some impact on the strength of their convictions, and their sense of how broadly held they are.

That's exactly why I enjoy having conversations with people with differing view points. If they are compelling and it's something I was unsure of anyways, I'm willing to accept that my current view may be flawed. OR if at the end of the conversation the other persons arguments were uncompelling or even disproven during the conversation, then I feel better about my current view of the topic.

If someone doesn't want that conversation, then it doesn't happen. I don't strap someone to a chair with toothpicks under their eyelids. I reserve that when getting people to watch my short films!

Edit: Conversations about differing/opposing view points isn't always about changing minds. It just helps to get to know someone. If someone tells me they are vegetarian, I don't launch into why I'm not. However, I will make the mental note to not ask them to join me for dinner at the local steak house. If I want to have dinner with them, it helps me plan an appropriate place that they would be okay with as well.

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