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Cingulate posted:Weren't libertarians aggressively anti-bailouts? Yes it's the one freak area of common ground that gave leftists some hope they could make common cause. Problem is, it's because they think the free market is a thing.
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Jan 8, 2015 21:44
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Cingulate posted:Have you checked out Nozick's solution? I had a quick look; like I thought they collapse into standard liberalism; right to private property is absolute except when it isn't. *engages in discussion about when it's appropriate to violate it* wateroverfire posted:Indeed. Also, the time-honored strategy of "muddle through relying on social convention while constructing ad-hoc solutions that no one exactly likes but everyone can live with, when necessary" works as well for libertarianism as it does for everyone else. If it really seemed like society couldn't function without one you could create a Libertarian EPA that, idk, just did certain pollution controls and nothing else. Are you trying to say libertarianism is a consistent basis for society so long as its core principles are ignored when things get a little hazy? I'd suggest that means it's incomplete or flat out wrong.
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Jan 8, 2015 21:45
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Zeitgueist posted:Problem is, it's because they think the free market is a thing. So do Marxists 
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Jan 8, 2015 21:45
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Disinterested posted:So do Marxists As a rule, or some? I don't know socialists who think that a free market is something that has or ever will exist, as libertarians and ancaps define it.
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Jan 8, 2015 21:47
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Cingulate posted:Weren't libertarians aggressively anti-bailouts? No. The big donors and financiers of Libertarian politics most definitely wanted the bailouts. I think you're confusing what they tell the rubes with what they actually lobby for.
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Jan 8, 2015 21:51
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Zeitgueist posted:As a rule, or some? I don't know socialists who think that a free market is something that has or ever will exist, as libertarians and ancaps define it. A lot don't, because it's a very diverse field and there are also a lot of filthy casuals who have no understanding of Marx at all. What I mean to say is, 'Proper Marxists' in theory have a lot of time for it, even though they believe it to be self destructive. But they don't believe there isn't at least some emancipation involved in the free market. To think of it very basically, it's an early and bad formulation of freedom, but also necessary and important. It gets you far enough to realise how unfree you are in other ways. VitalSigns posted:No. People like Ron Paul were against, but finance is always going to vote for bailouts. Otherwise it would be like Turkeys voting for Christmas.
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Jan 8, 2015 21:53
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namesake posted:Are you trying to say libertarianism is a consistent basis for society so long as its core principles are ignored when things get a little hazy? I'd suggest that means it's incomplete or flat out wrong. Just as long as we only ignore those principles in really important cases, like when South African apartheid is unfairly maligned by liberals or Jamie Dimon needs another handout.
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Jan 8, 2015 22:03
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namesake posted:Are you trying to say libertarianism is a consistent basis for society so long as its core principles are ignored when things get a little hazy? I'd suggest that means it's incomplete or flat out wrong. Sort of. I mean libertarianism is a utopian political philosophy, like Marxism for instance, and as such it's a statement about a certain kind of ideal society rather than a blueprint for some existing society, with all its real complications, to follow.
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Jan 8, 2015 22:43
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wateroverfire posted:Sort of. I mean libertarianism is a utopian political philosophy, like Marxism for instance, and as such it's a statement about a certain kind of ideal society rather than a blueprint for some existing society, with all its real complications, to follow. Oh so like Platos Republic? Fair enough then. I'd say that libertarianism is a far more precise philosophy though which is brought down by its precision methods unable to handle reality while Marxism is concerned with eliminating the failures of our current reality and stumbles on how to actually do that.
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Jan 8, 2015 22:55
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namesake posted:Oh so like Platos Republic? Fair enough then. I'd say that libertarianism is a far more precise philosophy though which is brought down by its precision methods unable to handle reality while Marxism is concerned with eliminating the failures of our current reality and stumbles on how to actually do that. Marxism is principally a predictor of failure of our social order rather than a troubleshooting guide for 'how to get out of capitalism', for that you need Lenin, Trosky, Mao, even Luxembourg etc.
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Jan 8, 2015 22:57
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Disinterested posted:People like Ron Paul were against, but finance is always going to vote for bailouts. Otherwise it would be like Turkeys voting for Christmas. Ron Paul has never really struck me as Libertarian, maybe Neo-Confederate? He certainly is no lover of the NAP considering his main platform seems to be getting the Federal government out of the way so the South can go back to Jim Crow. e: Well, actually nevermind, Jim Crow and apartheid are Libertarian as hell.
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Jan 8, 2015 23:01
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VitalSigns posted:Ron Paul has never really struck me as Libertarian, maybe Neo-Confederate? He certainly is no lover of the NAP considering his main platform seems to be getting the Federal government out of the way so the South can go back to Jim Crow. Enforced apartheid as a policy of the state is extremely anti-libertarian. Apartheid by pratice, but not law, in a totally free state is for some libertarians a logical consequence of a maximally free society. Ron Paul is basically the prototypical libertarian in American political discourse. If he's not the most famous libertarian American politician alive, I don't know who is. He, for example, is for the abolition of the federal reserve and free competition for different forms of currency created by private citizens.
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Jan 8, 2015 23:04
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Disinterested posted:Enforced apartheid as a policy of the state is extremely anti-libertarian. Haha, you'd think so, wouldn't you. Like, you'd think that'd be the one time Libertarians were actually right about something. Reason Magazine posted:Ron Paul Newsletters posted:Disinterested posted:Ron Paul is basically the prototypical libertarian in American political discourse. Yep, you're right. He is.
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Jan 8, 2015 23:29
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VitalSigns posted:Haha, you'd think so, wouldn't you. Like, you'd think that'd be the one time Libertarians were actually right about something. I'm not sure this stuff is coming from his libertarianism. It's a better explanation that he's both a libertarian and a racist - he has always had extremely incoherent ideas, after all. Believing in the gold standard for the 21st century is the economics equivalent to believing that voodoo should be used to treat diabetes. Although it is the case that Libertarianism can integrate with some forms of racism quite readily, particularly the one that Paul is eliciting in that article. After all, libertarianism makes the assumption that individuals and small communities of persons are capable of self-government, and thus should be permitted to self-govern. If you make the assumption that some people are not capable of self-government because they have a deficiency of reason, you can now begin to become a fan of apartheid or slavery. However, Paul still clearly prefers that the state not write ordinances for whites to govern blacks, so long as all other laws get abolished at the same time as that one. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Jan 8, 2015 |
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Jan 8, 2015 23:32
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Disinterested posted:I'm not sure this stuff is coming from his libertarianism. It's a better explanation that he's both a libertarian and a racist - he has always had extremely incoherent ideas, after all. Believing in the gold standard for the 21st century is the economics equivalent to believing that voodoo should be used to treat diabetes. Support for South African apartheid was very strong in Libertarian circles from the seventies to the nineties. It takes an...impressive amount of charity not to notice how much of Libertarian thought is dedicated to redefining a police state as not-coercive if the right people are in charge. E: ^^^^ What, no, Ron Paul is a huge supporter of anti-sodomy laws, anti-abortion laws, etc as long as they're done on the state level
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Jan 8, 2015 23:38
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VitalSigns posted:Support for South African apartheid was very strong in Libertarian circles from the seventies to the nineties. This is a very peculiarly American tendency. Lots of these libertarians are similar to the kind of people who are loving doomsday prepping for peak oil or zombies or something, and have always given me the impression that they would be in the front line of the black shirts for the putsch. VitalSigns posted:What, no, Ron Paul is a huge supporter of anti-sodomy laws, anti-abortion laws, etc as long as they're done on the state level His libertarianism is very non-classically liberal, and focuses more on localism, I suppose. He clearly does not have an advanced theory of liberty or interference. But he's not a theorist, he's just another dumbass politician with an incoherent ideology. And yet, the most recognised libertarian in America (Chomsky is the only real competitor, I guess, and he's an anarcho-syndicalist).
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Jan 8, 2015 23:40
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I think this post from an infamous libertarian poster from 2012 who turned away from the movement and came to the libertarian thread to tell us about it September of last year could be pretty illuminating on the subject:LolitaSama posted:I'm an immigrant, and during 2013 and 2014, as debate over immigration reformed raged on in the US, I saw how extremely anti-immigrant the Republican Party was. It was so extreme I could only imagine intense racist fervor could inspire such zeal. I reluctantly switched over to being a single issue Democrat at first, but started to see everything from a more leftist viewpoint over time. Now I see the same racist fervor of the anti-immigrant right also underlying libertarian ideology. I realized libertarian dislike for welfare was actually driven by the fact that it was viewed as a transfer of wealth from rich whites to poor blacks. The people on Stormfront (the white supremacist forum) spouted the same nonsense conspiracy theories about the federal reserve system as the libertarians, but they colorfully included heavy anti-Semitic arguments that libertarians omitted. VitalSigns posted:^^^^ Didn't he repeatedly try to introduce legislation defining life as starting with conception while in Congress?
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Jan 8, 2015 23:41
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Yeah, thanks, that's a good post. It's not a problem for all libertarianism, but it's definitely describes a big problem in the American right (and also some parts of the European right) that's not just in the libertarian movement. Libertarians often attract conspiratorial people (anti-Semitism is in many ways the original conspiracy theory), of course, because they're terrified of government and pathologically paranoid.
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Jan 8, 2015 23:45
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Libertarianism should lend itself especially badly to anti-semitic conspiracy theories though, considering the Jewish proportion amongst the libertarians is about as much as amongst communists, including Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, von Mises, and Nozick (though not Hayek). (Not as if this would have stopped people like Stalin from becoming anti-semitic of course.) As for the racism - I don't think it's fair to describe the key thinkers of libertarianism as being defined, or even particularly influenced, by racism. Ayn Rand was mostly an anti-communist, Nozick deliberately uses a black top athlete and supports reparations, the Austrian school had little connection to blacks in the first place and many of them probably experienced racism as members of the disprivileged group. Maybe contemporary libertarians in the US are defined by racism, but that doesn't discredit the libertarian idea.
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Jan 9, 2015 00:27
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Cingulate posted:As for the racism - I don't think it's fair to describe the key thinkers of libertarianism as being defined, or even particularly influenced, by racism. Ayn Rand was mostly an anti-communist Mmhmm "Ayn Rand posted:Now, I don't care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country. And you're a racist if you object, because it means you believe that certain men are entitled to something because of their race. You believe that if someone is born in a magnificent country and doesn't know what to do with it, he still has a property right to it. He does not. Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights--they didn't have a settled society, they had predominantly nomadic tribal "cultures"--they didn't have rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights that they had not conceived of and were not using....But let's suppose they were all beautifully innocent savages--which they certainly were not. What were they fighting for, in opposing the white man on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existnece; for their "right" to keep part of the earth untouched--to keep everybody out so they could live like animals or cavemen. Any European who brought with him an element of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it's great that some of them did. The racist Indians today--those who condemn America--do not respect individual rights.
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Jan 9, 2015 00:33
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Oh, I assume she was probably racist as hell. There is an important difference between what I said, and something I did not say: that Ayn Rand was not racist.
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Jan 9, 2015 00:37
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Cingulate posted:Oh, I assume she was probably racist as hell. There is an important difference between what I said, and something I did not say: that Ayn Rand was not racist. Right, a whole collection of non-racist (or privately racist but whose racism definitely didn't impact their ideas or conclusions, no sir!) honest intellectuals just so happened to come to an agreement on the importance of making sure businesses, schools, and maybe even small towns are left free from federal interference to segregate and discriminate as they wish. Hey, it could happen!
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Jan 9, 2015 00:40
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VitalSigns posted:Right, a whole collection of non-racist (or privately racist but whose racism definitely didn't impact their ideas or conclusions, no sir!) honest intellectuals just so happened to come to an agreement on the importance of making sure businesses, schools, and maybe even small towns are left free from federal interference to segregate and discriminate as they wish. I'm pretty sure that people like Rand are just racist in the sort of second degree - they just don't care what happens to people of any ethnicity as long as the mechanism that governs what happens is not interfered with by the state or by any form of collectivism. Ayn Rand couldn't give a poo poo about another white person who wasn't either a business partner or a lover either. Objectivism really is its own little crazy universe of ideology. But she is in favour of property rights, and thus in the creation of capitalist forms of exploitation overseas. So is Marx, in his own way. It's not necessarily a primarily racialist or racist view, it's really mostly about the property rights for Rand. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 00:47
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VitalSigns posted:Right, a whole collection of non-racist (or privately racist but whose racism definitely didn't impact their ideas or conclusions, no sir!) honest intellectuals just so happened to come to an agreement on the importance of making sure businesses, schools, and maybe even small towns are left free from federal interference to segregate and discriminate as they wish. But it's frustrating.
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Jan 9, 2015 00:53
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Disinterested posted:But she is in favour of property rights, and thus in the creation of capitalist forms of exploitation overseas. So is Marx, in his own way. It's not necessarily a primarily racialist or racist view, it's really mostly about the property rights for Rand. Ayn Rand I think is more a topic of psychology (as a case study) than as a philosopher.
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Jan 9, 2015 00:56
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Cingulate posted:I find it extremely frustrating to talk to you because I feel you never engage with what I actually say, or what Nozick actually says, or libertarianism, or whatever; you're just trying to poo poo on libertarianism, point out its obvious injustices and incoherence and so on. And hey, I can kind of understand you wanting to do that, consider how awful Ayn Rand and Ron Paul and Paul Ryan and so on obviously are. I know how you feel man, noone ever wants to engage with me about the Gangster Computer God Worldwide Secret Containment Policy. You know, it's made possible solely by Worldwide Computer God Frankenstein Controls. Especially lifelong constant-threshold Brainwash Radio. Quiet and motionless, I can slightly hear it. Repeatedly this has saved my life on the streets.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:00
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Cingulate posted:She seems to me to be less a philosopher, and more a fetishist. She obviously really hates communism and weakness, especially weak men, and she loves America and strong, successful men, and it's all very sexualised. That's quite true. Nobody in the field of political philosophy or philosophy in general has ever taken the work of Rand very seriously. She is just either an object of fetishisation or a target for psychoanalysis herself - which is ironic, considering your diagnosis. She was hated by a lot of old school Christian conservatives like Buckley who really believed in value and social order, too, which could be quite funny.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:00
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I just realised my single right-wing friend's long-time girlfriend looks a LOT like Ayn Rand. I don't think he's ever read Ayn Rand, or would like her if he had to, he's a "true conservative". But ... still. So that's my story, I hope you liked it.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:06
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Cingulate posted:I find it extremely frustrating to talk to you because I feel you never engage with what I actually say, or what Nozick actually says, or libertarianism, or whatever; you're just trying to poo poo on libertarianism, point out its obvious injustices and incoherence and so on. And hey, I can kind of understand you wanting to do that, consider how awful Ayn Rand and Ron Paul and Paul Ryan and so on obviously are. I appreciate that you're trying really, really, superhumanly hard to be broadminded, but if someone creates a facially non-racist ideology that  just so happens to enable segragation, with a shrug and "well maybe the market will sort that out. somehow" when this is pointed out, I think it's reasonable to at least give it a suspicious look-through.I can find Afrikaans pro-apartheid philosophers who advocated giving most of the land back to black people, and dividing South Africa's land resources justly and fairly among the various nations like a division-of-Czechoslovakia model. And they heavily criticized the policy of white people trying to rule over all of the land while depending on black labor. But it'd be pretty ridiculous of me to say to you "well, you're just pointing at the actual political realization of apartheid and making GBS threads all over it, which is understandable, but you never engage with what Cronje actually says about apartheid as an equal partition of territory among the races, none of whom should be held as superior to another. Just look how racist he says he isn't, can't deny that!" Like, after a certain point, you just have to say to Libertarians "okay if your system has racism as a practical consequence and that doesn't bother you, then it's pointless to distinguish between what you're doing and what a racist would do because there's no observable difference"
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Jan 9, 2015 01:19
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Cingulate posted:I just realised my single right-wing friend's long-time girlfriend looks a LOT like Ayn Rand. Uh-oh. I think there's a Lovecraft story like that. "The Freep on the Doorstep".
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Jan 9, 2015 01:21
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VitalSigns posted:I can find Afrikaans pro-apartheid philosophers who advocated giving most of the land back to black people, and dividing South Africa's land resources justly and fairly among the various nations like a division-of-Czechoslovakia model. And they heavily criticized the policy of white people trying to rule over all of the land while depending on black labor. But it'd be pretty ridiculous of me to say to you "well, you're just pointing at the actual political realization of apartheid and making GBS threads all over it, which is understandable, but you never engage with what Cronje actually says about apartheid as an equal partition of territory among the races, none of whom should be held as superior to another. Just look how racist he says he isn't, can't deny that!" The explicit purpose of those philosophies is to achieve racial seperation, not to achieve parity in the distribution of land; it's no different really from the 'separate but equal' argument in Plessy v. Ferguson. There's a difference between that and doing what Rand does, and saying that everything should be a free for all: I feel as if she really wouldn't care at all if black people won out in such a situation, because her philosophy was so narrow that she would have to accept it. That's different from Ron Paul type people who probably are racists who are just putting a thin veil on it these days because it used to be acceptable (or maybe even necessary to get elected) back in the day in their districts. You do have to be able to seperate all of these ideologies out from eachother, or you will swiftly find yourself with a very flat and limited vocabulary for describing them if they're all in the same pile together. Which is fine for the internet, but it winds up being a problem in academic work or any serious conversation about the merits or attributes of different political theories. E.g. Marx didn't regard it as necessarily entirely bad that India was colonised by the British, even though he was entirely opposed morally to imperialism and colonialism and actively agitated against it. He saw that the fact of India's colonisation by the British would serve as a catalyst for turning it in to a nation. Some people in post-colonial studies regard Marx as 'just another racist' for this analysis and either pretend he never said it or poo poo on him eternally for it, neither of which is that helpful. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 01:26
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Disinterested posted:The explicit purpose of those philosophies is to achieve racial seperation, not to achieve parity in the distribution of land; it's no different really from the 'separate but equal' argument in Plessy v. Ferguson. Whoa whoa, you're not engaging with the writings of Geoffrey Cronje. He says very explicitly that it's not about racism, and that the various nations within South Africa should get a just and fair allocation of land and resources. That the people who put his ideas into practice didn't follow that is unfortunate, and I understand why you want to condemn that, but you shouldn't use that as an excuse to reject the legitimately non-racist philosophers of apartheid. You have to prove that national separation inevitably leads to racism, and as we can see from the division of Czechoslovakia, that's not the case. Might as well say Hitler came to power in a democracy so democracy is bad.
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Jan 9, 2015 01:38
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VitalSigns posted:Whoa whoa, you're not engaging with the writings of Geoffrey Cronje. He says very explicitly that it's not about racism, and that the various nations within South Africa should get a just and fair allocation of land and resources. That the people who put his ideas into practice didn't follow that is unfortunate, and I understand why you want to condemn that, but you shouldn't use that as an excuse to reject the legitimately non-racist philosophers of apartheid. You have to prove that national separation inevitably leads to racism, and as we can see from the division of Czechoslovakia, that's not the case. I know you're trolling, but I'm just going to say it anyway: Cronje specifically and openly laid out a plan to achieve racial separation, even though he professed to believe that the subordination of black people was not just. That's different from both not laying out a plan to achieve racial separation and not believing that black people are inferior, but just not caring if that happens (Rand). It is substantively quite similar to Ron Paul. I'm pretty sure racism isn't the driving principle of Randian ideology, although there is always some hazard whenever you deploy ideas of social Darwinism. There's more than one way to be a racist. I think we should open the floor to crazy right wing mormon racism next. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 01:47
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Disinterested posted:That's different from both not laying out a plan to achieve racial separation and not believing that black people are inferior, but just not caring if that happens (Rand). It is substantively quite similar to Ron Paul. Ron Paul literally supported apartheid. His newsletters called black people voting the "destruction of civilization" in South Africa. He didn't just "not care" if segregation and voter suppression happened on the free market. He did everything in his power to support it wherever it existed. VVVVV Oh yeah, I did misinterpret you, sorry. And I'm sure Ayn Rand wouldn't have any problem declaring black people savages to be despoiled and used as free goods if they had stuff that Glorious Western Man wanted, just like she didn't have any problem saying the same about Native Americans VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 02:17
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VitalSigns posted:Ron Paul literally supported apartheid. His newsletters called black people voting the "destruction of civilization" in South Africa. He didn't just "not care" if segregation and voter suppression happened on the free market. He did everything in his power to support it wherever it existed. Which is what I literally just said. Are you unable to read? I said Rand is indifferent - as in Ayn Rand - but that view is substantively similar to Ron Paul's. Hence my earlier remark: quote:That's different from Ron Paul type people who probably are racists who are just putting a thin veil on it these days because it used to be acceptable (or maybe even necessary to get elected) back in the day in their districts.
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Jan 9, 2015 02:21
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Question for anyone in this thread: have you recently, or ever, at all, been convinced of something in a political debate? Or have you undergone a longer process that resulted in you changing a previously-held assumption? What was it, and how did it go down - what argument convinced you?
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Jan 11, 2015 14:20
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Does anyone have a copy of those "Ron Paul will kill an infinite number of people" banner ads and the post it linked to? That didn't exactly convince me, but it did make me think something like "This is such an absurd argument... It's obviously absurd because... Um..." Maybe there were already cracks in the armor by that point, but for such a weird argument, it did add some doubt.
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Jan 11, 2015 14:24
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Cingulate posted:Question for anyone in this thread: have you recently, or ever, at all, been convinced of something in a political debate? Or have you undergone a longer process that resulted in you changing a previously-held assumption? On a great many occasions, but it can be a pride-swallowing experience depending on how strongly you have put your arguments and depending on what you feel you have on the line. Usually it is part of a longer process - and the argument can either be the beginning, or the moment of a final conversion. Typically, of course, arguments tend to be more effective the more ignorant you are of the subject matter, because your own position is less ossified. Also, sometimes you can be put off by your own positions if you hear someone else making them. I certainly used to find that in relation to Israel - Palestine, where I've shifted a lot over the years towards a kind of Avi Shlaim view. But usually changing my mind is a private experience, and if I feel a bit battered after an argument I go away and do my own reading and see how I feel about it then. It's an obvious question to ask in the current context of DnD posting, but the reason is obvious - people tend to embrace straw men arguments much more, or put their point too forcefully or comically, and muddle up the arguments. You also can't really get a good grip on tone, etc. It's not a situation very conducive to civil disagreement. You need people who are coming in to the thing open minded, not just to try to convince you. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 14:28
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Cingulate posted:Question for anyone in this thread: have you recently, or ever, at all, been convinced of something in a political debate? Or have you undergone a longer process that resulted in you changing a previously-held assumption? 1. General Ideological Shift - I went from right-libertarian to what I think would be a Liberal Socialist. This occurred through years of exposure to information which decreased the former's, and increased the latter's, perceived conduciveness to human health and happiness. Some of the most important items were effort posts which took time to sink in, and to some of which I even gave glib and stupid responses  2. Policy Position - In the IRC, I was being an over-excited nerd about hydroponic farming (now commercially viable in high-margin markets!) and had a ridiculous position about a thing. One goon attempted dissuasion by dumping on the position; didn't work. Another pointed out I was basically putting the cart before the horse and over-extrapolating; that worked -- reversed my position on the spot. 3. Policy Position - I was misapprehending traffic flow dynamics and someone had a similar, "Uh...," style response where he pointed out the correct dynamic -- reversed my position on the spot. tl;dr: 1) Figure out the considerations satisfied by my ideology, show me something better. 2) Show me missing/incorrect pieces of my analysis. If I were more irrational, treating politics as a matter of culture and identity, of faith and conviction, probably none of that would've happened. I can't remember why I transitioned toward trying to be rational, but I do remember, at one point, thinking something along the lines of, "Of what value are beliefs which prescribe harm?," and feeling like it was a big deal.
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Jan 11, 2015 15:09
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Cingulate posted:Question for anyone in this thread: have you recently, or ever, at all, been convinced of something in a political debate? Or have you undergone a longer process that resulted in you changing a previously-held assumption? I'm a stubborn jackass who doesn't like to admit when he's wrong, and I'm trying to change that but it's still sort of the case. I've had a few of political debates where someone else made a completely valid argument that I really should agree with, but since I'm in the middle of the argument I'll rarely see that at the time. Once it's over and I go over it in my head I'll usually see that the other person is right and re-evaluate my position. I've had other times where I've watched people debate (usually here) and had my ideas changed based entirely on that. Also, I've convinced other people a few of times, but in those cases it was usually people who only had a vague idea of the concepts we were discussing and once I explained things in more detail they realized their position didn't align with their values and agreed with me instead.
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Jan 12, 2015 03:43
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