Let’s say zero is straight up shutting your ears, going lalala and storming out of the room, let’s say 10 is sitting down with a Nazi, genuinely making an effort to see things from their point of view just to see if you could.
Sure this may sound ridiculous but it’s basic knowledge that studying your opponents viewpoints is the best way to counter them and get new insight yourself.
Me? Id like to think I’m a 6, I don’t cut family ties over their political opinions but I’m very likely to shut that down with a “I don’t want to speak politics with you”
Lemmy can be an echo chamber sometimes, but that doesn’t mean everyone here is a mindless zombie, how do you all deal with others who believe differently? Can you back it up?
If I don’t have a choice to leave or feel irrationally compelled to actually try to debate them 10.
It’s not a choice it’s a fucking curse. I don’t have to think, my mind will eventually start predicting what they say and eventually I want to gut myself because I can think of a hundred things to say and know that it won’t change their fucking minds.
Worse, mind reading is a fallacy. Sure predictions can be pretty accurate, but there’s no way to know for sure if those arguments will play out exactly as I think. But there’s real curse is that just because all the things I can think to say won’t change their mind, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something that will. I might just be too dumb to think of a good argument. So I rot as the conversation happens to me trying to think of anything that could make a difference.
Oh also yeah when they say horrible shit and your mind decides to go “here this is how their victims feel” that’s pretty fucking horrible too.
But if I get up or get upset or react strongly it’ll likely ruin any chance of me changing this person’s mind. Not that that chance existed in the first place.
Anyway, it isn’t difficult to see things from other people’s perspective but let me tell you I much prefer talking to psychopaths than delusional idiots.
I had a roommate who was full blown psychopath (and business major to boot lol) who, once he found out I could see things from his perspective, would debate politics with me in a completely candid manner. I once brought up “so you’d support slavery then?” And he deadass said “if it benefitted me then yes”
Fucked up, but the thing is, he’d listen to my arguments when they were logical. And he wasn’t sadistic, slightly narcissistic, but like he didn’t derive pleasure from other’s pain.
Nazis typically aren’t that. Nazis are typically idiots who can’t face the real sources of pain in their life, so they direct their hatred of their lives and themselves to others. Same with manosphere incels, same with bigots of almost every kind. But you can’t get them to see what they don’t want to see in the first place.
So you just feel bad for them, feel bad for others harmed by people like them, and hate yourself for feeling hatred for them because you get why they are doing it.
It isn’t fun and it’s not even fucking useful because it’s not like you being emotionally stressed out is helping anyone ever and you aren’t changing their minds.
Its a curse to feel irrationally compelled to talk to those who won’t listen because “maybe this time it’ll work” it doesn’t.
If I’ve had enough time to wake up and I’m not upset about something else (and I think the only thing that really upsets me by now is a random argument with my wife or my mom), and if I determine you’re not arguing in bad faith but actually being entirely frank, probably a 9 or 10?
IME, evil people are rare, and what you’ll find more often than not is that they’re either slow or just straight up insane, so I can’t just go around being THE antisocial prick when people are simply sharing their mind without consciously trying to be hurtful, misleading or disruptive.
9.5 However, just because I can doesn’t mean I have to. I had discussions with a traditional Nazi, with an antisemite, with Corona deniers, … I’ve studied philosophy which teaches you to take other viewpoints to understand the inconsistencies.
But doing it for a long time is extremely exhausting which is why I refuse to discuss renewable energy with my father; who’s not categorically wrong on that topic but narrow minded and only educates himself as much as needed to believe some convenient half-truths.
0
I have some family members I haven’t spoken to in probably 6 years cause I can’t stand their beliefs. Life is too short to spend it with people that you don’t like.
Me? Id like to think I’m a 6, I don’t cut family ties over their political opinions but I’m very likely to shut that down with a “I don’t want to speak politics with you”.
I’d say that’s 3 or low 4. I think you need to define the middle stages of this scale more clearly.
One time I had a conversation with a friend who said they would vote for Trump. We don’t even live in America, I asked him why and he said “well he seems more honest and real.” Other times I try and talk to Zionists, and the genuine hatred for Palestinian people is insane, and intolerable, and they got loud and angry when I made reasonable, good points.
Out of 10, if they don’t get angry and loud, like a 6 on average, if they are just uneducated, like an 8?
10
0 because we dont have to coexist. People should be free to live how they want. Unfortunately we all know that auths cant handle people being free and will always come a knocking.
If only I could leave this planet and leave humanity to the silly little games they play with each other’s lives.
I straight up told my father to drop politics or I’ll go home.
He wasnt thrilled about the ultimatum but he stopped. I got the cold shoulder for the remaining evening. :p
Really depends if the viewpoints involve the oppression of other beings than near zero if not maybe 6.5.
By that criteria, 10. Like, if a Nazi wanted to seriously talk with me, I’d be fine with that. Glad, even. The thing is, they don’t usually do a whole lot of thinking or analysing, or they would have stopped being a Nazi pretty quickly.
It’s usually more about psychoanalysis - trying to figure out how their irrationality works. I spend a shit ton of time trying to get inside the head of the people who maintain the world’s problems. So, still 10.
It depends on what those opposing viewpoints are. If they involve actively targeting and harming vulnerable people, I have no space at all for those viewpoints or the people that hold them.
For the other stuff, maybe a 7.
Unrelated to the specific question you asked but you would probably enjoy reading They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. The author befriended ten nazis after the war and writes about what he learned from that.
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint.
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
If they’re disagreeing about following the social contract of tolerance, -10/10. They break the contract, they aren’t covered by it, they should be removed with prejudice.
If they’re disagreeing about the value of certain concepts, solutions or programs, 3/10? I’d talk to someone about something for a little while, I might give them a reference, but it’s not my job to educate them.
Of course just talking to people, I’m like a 5/10 in general…
If they’re disagreeing about objective reality
I always enjoy hearing about how people come to believe what they do. There’s pretty much always a logical basis for it and the difference just comes down to their heuristics failing at one particular point and cascading.
It depends on what you mean by viewpoint. If they’re disagreeing about objective reality, 0/10. If we can’t agree on an objective level, there’s no point.
This is pretty much the crux of the problem right here. How are you supposed to have any kind of productive conversation about the world if they are living in a fictional one that doesn’t actually exist?
5
7.5/10. I find that most people I encounter, even if they support causes against those which I support, would agree with my viewpoints, as long as I don’t say “socialism”. That is an unfortunate consequence of being raised in an environment of capitalist realism.
Where’s the other 2.5 points? I’ll happily listen to my opponents recount the life experiences and thought processes that make them oppose my viewpoints. But for my own sanity, I refuse to engage with those who merely throw attacks at me.
I back off from arguing on the internet in general, also for my own sanity.
So a general view I’m seeing here is, “sure if it remains civil”, what if it gets tense? These are tough issues after all. How far do you think you can tip that scale before it becomes an argument? I would agree that yes once name calling happens we have stopped debating and started arguing.
Hard to say personally since I can’t remember the last time I had a real-life conversation go tense. I’ll entertain some pretty wild thoughts, but once the other party centers the debate over emotion at the expense of evidence, I’d say that’s the point I start losing patience.
7.5
