Remindes me of the tweet that said something like “My favorite moment on the internet was when someone said, they believe that people will changed their mind when given evidence. Then I linked TWO SOURCES that said otherwise and they were like I still believe it.”
Or when a hexbearian explained to me that hexbear isn’t toxic at all, it’s just when people refuse to read sources but than it’s their fault for not engaging with the material. Later they refused to open my sources.
The person you’re talking to is unlikely to be pursuaded but there’s usually silent, invisible lurkers who can be.
I know I’ve changed my mind on things because of arguments I’ve read on the internet.
It is proven that people do double down on their views when confronted with opposing evidence, but IMO this is more about the psychology of trust and confrontation between individuals, rather than proof of the futility of argument as a concept. Hell, Vsauce made a video called ‘The Future of Reasoning’, where he makes the case that argument might have been selected for as an essential part of human psychology and necessary for our survivial.
Evidence shows that arguments are really only conducive to changing opinions when the person has a set of primers to find the person they disagree with otherwise agreeable. They refer to it as being in alignment with socio-epistemic conditions. Basically, people within a group identity can change opinions with others in the group, as long as the difference in opinion is not one that would be diametrically opposed to their group’s underlying identity. So, arguments between people from two different groups, like left v right, don’t really change minds towards the group they do not identify with. Those watching the debate will agree with the people who are in the same socio-epistemic group. This arguably makes public debate a bad thing. This is because those third party on-lookers will side with the person in the debate they most identify with for reasons outside of the debate. So you are simply platforming the person you disagree with, and possibly exposing people more in alignment with them, to an argument for a more extreme version of their position, rather than exposing them to a counter-opinion argument, to be considered.
Here is a good starting point on this subject, it links to a number of supporting papers early in the paper.
So, if I just wait for the argument to cool off, then start replying, over and over, to anyone but the person I am directly disagreeing with, but still in the same thread, until the automatic votes accumulate to my favor, I will always be right?
Neigh. The picture is only showing from the (human) wrist down. Horse legs and most (all?) mammal quadruped legs actually pretty closely resemble each other.
It’s actually a really interesting question. It’s commonly believed that on horses the vestigial remnants of additional toes/hooves/foot structure are the chestnuts and ergots. The first known horse had 3 and 4 hooves per leg! https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b35b141b-7684-42e4-a745-1ff2d5a94587.png
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d6b8bc87-d0cf-4bb8-bfa6-787e09524093.png This is a trimmed chestnut. They grow a material similar to a nail or horse hoof - ergots are similar, but in a different location. When they get big you just peel or clip it off. They can smell a bit strong when you trim them, but hooves smell worse when the farrier comes out!
I can’t possibly jump this many members of congress! I won’t risk it. I can jump two, maybe three, but asking me to jump this many, is asking me to risk my life.
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