Debates aren't always about changing the mind of the person you're debating, they are about presenting your ideas to an audience.

Have you ever perused a thread on a subject and had your mind changed without engaging? Maybe you had the wrong perspective and changed your mind or didn't know enough to have an opinion going in but came out with a more informed stance?

That's why I do it. And I've had that happen numerous times.

As person who use to be anti gay and racist I was changed.

Now I'm bi and have admitted to having it bad for women of color.

Which has led me to a happier life overall. Loving people is a lot easier than hate I can tell you that.

Once, maybe 3 years ago or so, I had the ignorant belief that if the US went to war with Iran, it would be a walkover. (Mind you, this was at least a couple of years before the US was dumb enough to do it.) Someone on Lemmy made very logical and cogent arguments as to why it would be orders of magnitude more difficult than I thought. I read their points and was actually fully convinced that their standpoint was correct. And now here we are in this shittiest of timelines, and that individual was proven correct by, of all things, reality.

Yes, I believe I have and recently too.

A post came up about sexism and someone mentioned the wage gap. Men always go to the talking point of “well women don’t want the hard and dirty jobs, men do all that work”. So I mentioned my experience as a woman trying to become an electrician:

I overheard another electrician and the foreman talking about my body in a way that made me know I was unsafe around those men. Speaking about how I’m not “woman enough” because I have short hair or the things they would do to my body without my permission to make me a “real woman^tm”^.

I received a direct message from someone saying that they reached out to women they knew in the trades who confirmed my experience was not unique. It was just not something they thought about and it’s not talked about enough or pushed back on when talking about the gender wage gap.

Women enjoy working in trades but we are sexually harassed and assaulted out of these spaces and it has nothing to do with “men do all the hard work”.

I have had my mind changed, or at the very least been introduced to new ideas that I then went on to explore, which led to me changing my mind.

Online arguments are for the audience, anyway. This is more obvious if you watch some old debate videos from the mid 2010s, especially involving right wing "intellectuals" like JP. He is clearly uninterested in convincing his opponent. Most of the time, his aim is to (a) confuse and (b) enrage his opponent, and then adjust his suit and tie, lean back, and smugly tell them to calm down.

It's not debating to convince your opponent (or even the audience) of your ideas, hence his tendency for useless tangents and unnecessarily esoteric language. It's debating to look like the smart and collected guy, while making your opponent look unhinged in comparison. It's not about the substance, it's about the show.

Yes, I have changed a mind or two. Low single digit percentage, I'm sure. I'm more focused on countering bad information information or presenting a perspective that hasn't been represented yet. I don't really expect to change the mind of the person I'm arguing with.

As for not getting sucked in, does the Lemmy app you use have User Tags? Best feature reddit was completely missing (aside from, you know, the whole FOSS federation thing). I use the feature to apply a tag and color to users. I use yellow to warn myself about someone who I think previously argued in bad faith or might be trolling, a "proceed with caution" warning. I use red for "do not engage"; on reddit I probably would have blocked them but just red-tagging them, I can still see the rest of the community respond to them. Any time a post or comment comes up from someone I've red-tagged, I know not to get sucked in. I use Voyager app on Android. I don't block much, just spam, bots, and full Nazi/CSAM apologist types.

Not in an actual argument but reading a back and forth between two people as long as at least one of them is giving solid info and the other one is semi coherent, it's changed my mind.

The main problem is that people don't even know how to talk to each other, much less make a convincing case to have someone change their mind. It is possible though. If a black man can convince dozens of KKK members to abandon their racist beliefs through conversation alone, then there's a reliable and repeatable way to change deeply hardened ideas. But no one wants to bother to learn this, they would rather shout at others and try to "own those retards" to make themselves feel better.

Daryl Davis

Podcast with Daryl Davis

Different podcast on changing people's minds on polarising social topics with deep canvassing

Also worth considering how open you (the royal "you", not OP specifically) are to having your own mind changed; before getting worried about the minds of others.

In his book Synergetics , Buckminster Fuller points out (don't have the exact quote) that you almost never hear a politician say, "you know, the evidence and logic of the other side are now overwhelmingly persuasive; I must change my political affiliation" -- but among scientists, you hear the equivalent all the time.

I can’t remember changing anyone’s mind, but I've changed my mind when someone has given me more information than I previously had. “Oh, huh, I hadn’t thought about that. I think you’re right” type of thing.

It's rare to straight up change someone's mind. But most change is about planting a seed that will grow over time as they remember what you said and start seeing patterns that align with it. I've had a few more of those, and they are still productive.

I convince myself I convinced them.

I try to. Debates aren’t (or at least in an ideal world shouldn’t be) a victory to win over the other party. It’s to present your ideas and convince. Because of that I try to do it for a few reasons. Namely:

I would wish the other party to hear me out, I should do the same. Especially in a debate with emotional stakes putting yourself in there shoes can help

And considering the other party’s point of view puts you in a position to understand them, and if you’re going to be debating against it then that’s important to know

Plus, especially in politics, I feel as if I become naive enough to become convinced by an idea of moral dubiousness then that is partly a failure on my part to be fooled by it

You could never know. A lot of people are not self confident enough To admit they were wrong. Even of they do, they may not tell you.

Don't know about changing my opinion while actively arguing with someone, but I have had opinions that formed for the first time when I read through comments of other people arguing. So, there's still some value in arguing your own points for a third person observer. :)

Have you ever changed your mind?

I often feel like debate entrenches a belief in both audience and debaters.

My strategy is usually to ask them questions that challenge their assumptions. Studies have shown this to be the best way to get someone to change there mind. However, most of the time they stop replying before I can gage if they have changed their mind or not. I assume that my questions make them uncomfortable so they stop engaging instead of evaluating their opinions.

The other way around (who has been convinced themselves) would make more sense imo, because when people change their mind about things it happens after they've had time to process it, not immediately on the spot. If you change someone's mind with an argument online you are likely not going to find out about it. I've changed my mind about a lot of things and what people say online plays a big role in that, but it happens later, unless it was like a clear factual oversight on my part in which case I try to admit glaring mistakes.

Yep, happens frequently enough to make discussion worth it in my view. People often message me and let me know that.

You've got to figure out your audience. You can't change people unwilling to change. Since most people online prefer an echo chamber to reasonable discussion, you'll overwhelmingly encounter those that won't change their mind.

That said, I still find it mostly worthwhile to have SOME back and forth with those people because others will read it. I feed some trolls a few scraps in hopes that lurkers will be able to discern the better argument from it. Don't go in too deep, and once the ad hominems come nonstop from them, or you can't keep your next reply from containing them, stop.

I've had my mind changed plenty of times, but I'm also open to the idea I can be wrong. If you are talking with people that can't manage that much, you won't feel like you've "won" any arguments because it's coming down to two people saying the other is wrong without allowing themselves to be the one in the wrong.

All that said, I've had way better discussion here than reddit.

Years ago, I got into it with somebody on Reddit over climate change. They thought it was normal and expected that the earth went through cycles of temperature ranges, and saw little harm in human acceleration of the process.

I at least got them to go "huh, that's true" by approaching it from the typical conservative top priority: money. I said even if it's "normal to have cyclical temperature range extremes," human acceleration of that is going to be extremely costly as our infrastructure - farms, warehouses, transportation, etc. are all going to have to be rebuilt around where things we need grow better after such changes. And it will frequently have to be done again as accelerated changes keep occurring.

You wanna convince someone of your perspective? Hit 'em where their priorities lie.

Closest I’ve come was being in a discussion thread infested with antivaxxers. This was at the height of Covid and right around the time the first vaccines were being given. I had just gotten mine a few weeks prior.

I picked one guy more or less at random and all I did was reiterate my experience getting the vaccine and that I had no regrets doing so. I made it a point not to belittle his point of view and only suggested that maybe at some point in the future he be open to seeing things differently. And then we parted ways, he with what seemed like some increased level of respect for my point of view, and me with still absolutely no respect for his.

It's rare, but I've been on both convincer and convinced sides. If both people arguing are rational, it often ends with both of them learning something new and adjusting their worldviews to fit each other.

Though usually it very quickly becomes obvious whether the other person actually looks for a debate or is just trying to provoke an emotional response.

I have a conspiracy theorist at work that (I think) I got to shut up a bit.

He started going on about how leftists are getting chips implanted and that that’s the mark of the beast. I basically told him no one knows what the fuck he’s talking about with these chips, but a real, visible, example of the mark of the beast is the MAGA hat. I think I cracked him a bit with that one.

I also told him that I’m down to hear his thoughts about Bigfoot because I think cryptozoology is fascinating even though I’m not a believer.

So now he tells me about his camping trips looking for Bigfoot.

I’m ok with that. It’s harmless. 🤷‍♂️

Yeah, several time on lemmy. Maybe like once ever for 7 years of reddit lol.

I've certainly had my mind changed.

One of my earliest memories of the internet was when I was like 12 and I went to nuklearpower.com (home of the 8-bit Theater webcomic), and I saw a thread in the forums debating religion. I knew atheists existed, but had never met one and never really considered why I believed the things I did, or why they believed something different. I posted a comment defending what I'd been taught but then started really thinking about it. It wound up reshaping my entire belief system. I realized that if everyone just believed what we were taught, then there'd be no way for us to really know which of us is right, and even if I was right it would be through pure luck and there are countless people following the same approach to wrong conclusions. This led me towards science, and towards grounding my beliefs in reason and evidence.

That was the first time I had my mind changed, and yes I was very young but it wasn't the only time. Some years ago, I not only had my mind changed but changed a big part of my lifestyle, in a large part because talking about it with people on the internet convinced me to go vegan. I don't believe I'd met another vegan irl (unless they didn't tell me, ang what are the odds of that?) and if I did I certainly didn't debate the nitty gritty with them.

There are countless smaller examples I could point to. But in virtually all of those cases, the conversation didn't end with, "Huh, I guess you're right." It ended with me arguing my position as best as I could, but being dissatisfied with the things I was saying and thinking it over over the course of days, months, even years. Changing your perspective or worldview usually doesn't happen over the course of a single conversation, but it can cause a seed to be planted.

You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.

I think at least one position argued in a forum like Lemmy/Reddit is not often arrived at through reason.

I discuss on social media media to hear other opinions and it constantly helps me to change my mind. I won’t broadcast that though. I presume the same is true for most others as well.

I think and folks have given me new perspectives. There is decent discourse that develops but not always and not even the majority. Like the rest of life you got to appreciate it when its good because its certainly not always going to be.

No but I have been the other party who was convinced. Not in a big philosophical way but convinced that I didnt know what the hell I was talking about and that I had drank the proverbial kool aid.

Only with debating reasonable people. Otherwise they just detract, use whataboutism, or unplug.

Online debates are more about influencing the audience, who are undecided, the opponent doesn't matter.

I used to be pro death penalty, but I have been convinced that the state really isn't up to the responsibility much of the time. So many cases have been proven to be wrong over the years, there are lawyers that just go through old murder cases and prove innocence with DNA.

I can think of a view times I that have changed my position through conversations online, but always with accompanying facts, an article or study, footage from multiple angles, and so on.

I generally don't argue long enough to "convince" people, that's just banter really to pass the time like if I am stuck in a line.

Yes, it happens from time to time on lemmy. People convinced me to their point of view couple of times as well. As long as someone actually wants to talk and not just silence you it's possible. I was way less likely on Reddit.

I've both had my mind changed and had others change their mind when talking online, but I don't think it's the norm if I'm being honest. Most people don't seem to enjoy having their views challenged and someone feeling defensive will very rarely approach discussion with an open mind. I say this as someone who gets defensive and struggles at times with this very thing. We're all flawed. 🙃

A few times, all of which I remember being with someone who started with a point of view based on ignorance about the topic and changed their mind because they gained new knowledge and understanding. In all of the cases they didn't seem too committed to their point of view because of follow up questions and being engaged by asking for more information in more and more nuanced ways.

One person had the opinion that crime stats showed minorities committed more crimes. I presented something that explained how the stats are based on police behavior and decisions prosecutors make that lead to systemic racism. The real point that made it through was the statistic that black people are pulled over disproportionately during the day compared to night, which shows who is driving plays a part. Stop and frisk being targeted into minority neighborhoods resulting in more stops reinforced the police effect on stats.

But that only worked because they were interested in finding out more. I've never convinced anyone who dug their heels in immediately.

I have changed my opinion on exchanges between other people, which is how I learned about the cause of the bias in police stats. Hopefully I changed a few minds for the better without hearing about it as well.

Early Gen X here, been on line since 1992.

I've had the interwebthingies change so many bad ways of thinking of mine. And I was (relative to the normal Lemmy/Piefed user) already a pretty lefty liberal. And I used to adore a defending my "point" in a good internet argument.

Yes. I have had my own changed as well.

In my encounters it's more often that a counter argument to what I say is not wrong either. When a morsel of nuance can be introduced, we can understand each others' argument without necessarily having anyone flip around their opinion to the opposite.

However I have tried sometimes to no avail, if there's no progress after around 3 back-and-forths I end the conversation.

If you want some advice to increase your success in getting people to consider, try this: Start with the part you agree or share with the other person's perspective. Try for a "Yes... and..." if possible, or "Yes... but..." if you can't. After the and/but, that's where you can go into the difference in opinion you have.

Not exactly, but one time way way back in the day when I was on Reddit, I was debating this far right guy on some kind of culture war issue and I told him if he was such a gigachad who was gonna get a wife and make a ton of white babies, why not do it? Get offline, delete his reddit, and go live in the real world.

He messages me, "okay" and some time later, I see he deleted his reddit account. Legit, it was gone. I felt almost proud of him in that moment. I hope he is out there living his best life and moved away from online arguing.

No, I suck at it. I suck at defending my opinions with facts and logic. That is why I am always changing my opinions. It is hard to form an opinion that might work, and then find out all the reasons why it is wrong and then have to change it. I should have payed attention in school when they had us write persuasive essays.

If I did I didn't know it. But probably not. The best I could hope for is to give them something to think about. People believe what they do for often very personal and emotional reasons and an online scuffle isn't going to change that.

I have learned a lot and even changed my mind on things watching other people hash it out, though.

As for getting in the mix, I don't even bother anymore. I suck at debating and every time I get into an argument I just end up feeling really stupid, doubting my own convictions, and mad and embarrassed by the end of it.

I do often learn something from it but the emotional disturbance of constantly being on the losing end of an argument makes it a shitty lesson and one I'm rarely eager to repeat.

Most of the time now I just say what I gotta say and if someone wants to debate it I ignore them. They can debate themselves, if it's a subjective opinion I don't care if they like it or not. I'm too old to give a fuck what some rando on the Internet thinks. If more than one person chimes in with the same criticism, especially over a fact, I'll still ignore them but I will probably go do some more research to see if I was mistaken.

Yes, coming from a very conservative religious background challenging my world-view with every media and discussions I read online (reddit when it was good) I changed for the better good.

I personally like to expose myself to ideas which are contradicting my personal experience/views. It is painful, but rewarding.

Also like to use the arguments I heard/read in a debate where I agree with my 'oposition' but want to keep the conversation going. I learned the hard way, that I have to be very clear upfront about it. And the other side has to think through the arguments instead of responding with emotions.

I higly disagree on your point, discussion are required, they don't have to change either side's mind, but should build them. Also don't forget the audience, it is possible they don't have a pre existing strong opinion (or at all) on the topic.

It is very unlikely you will ever get a feedback that your opinion mattered, but it can happen, and it can change lifes.

No. Possibly because I have never really tried to, after realizing that:

1. People entering said debates are mostly just there to win an argument.
2. I am under no obligation to convince them that their beliefs are utterly stupid

Those who hold stupid positions aren't really the ones with a mind open enough to the position that they might in fact be in the wrong. Plus, I don't have the capacity for bullshit that such an endeavor requires.

I have long since concluded that people will not only hold stupid beliefs, but desperately cling to them and consider me not having the fortitude to put up with all the fallacies that follows as a sign that they're right.

I don't really have an audience, and I therefore don't feel like entering a debate, because debates to me seem mostly performative in an effort to gather soundbites and/or screenshots.

I'm sure you (yes, you reading this) have plenty of positions I find utterly idiotic, but I frankly don't think I'm the one who will be able to convince you. I can't educate the world, the world needs to converge on that on its own.

Most of the time it doesn't escalate into a contentious debate, sure. Lots of discussions where the things I read change my view on things, and I'm sure my own comments change others' view on things too.

But by the time it starts to take on the style of an actual debate, there's less room to convince someone who feels strongly enough to engage in the debate. Still, it's worth doing sometimes because in these public forums, the debate might be read by thousands of lurkers, some of whom didn't feel strongly enough to have a view, but walk away convinced that one of the two sides is more correct.

I know I've been convinced of a side while watching two others debate.

On individual points, yes, but I hardly engage these days. This was also back in the days of forums and fark more than on modern SNS

I think it depends on the tone. I've had my mind changed and view adjusted many times in online discussions. Does the other person come at me in a "debate" mindset, very aggressive, dismissive, hostile, or calling me names? Bye, I'm probably going to block them and move on with my life. But if they come at me with a spirit of discussion, education, and kindness as a fellow human with a differing opinion, I'll consider what they say. I may not agree with it, but many times I have adjusted my views or even completely changed them.

I remember years ago I was completely against legalization/decriminalization of drugs. I thought that it would never be a good thing and didn't understand why people would support it; why would you want to give people MORE access to heroin? I had commented on a website making a statement along those lines, and someone responded with a well educated comment about how a certain country (was it Brazil? I can't remember, it was so long ago) had either legalized or decriminalized drugs and how not only did it allow them to put in place systems to help addicts, but the crime rate dropped substantially because the cartels no longer had a market to operate. I ended up doing some research and realized that this person was right, and ever since then I've been firmly on the side of decriminalizing drugs and putting efforts towards healthcare and helping addicts rather than punishment.

yes, a lot. but it was a decade or two ago.

there were a few subreddits long time ago where I was popular precisely for debating people and ideas and regularly got messages about how interesting my comments were and how they made people re-evaluate things they believed or thought. after I left there were some posts about 'where did he go?'

but post 2016 or so anytime I do that it just results in name calling and being labeled and demonized. open and civil discussion in general is just harder to facilitate online or in real life... because more and more people perceives it as an existential threat. i have noticed especially the past few years all the toxic online attitudes are filtering into the real world.

Debating is not how you change someone's mind. You can change the mind of an undecided audience perhaps, but not who you're debating.

No one could ever convince me of anything ever.

Yes, there were a few times I have managed to convince someone on here, even on "political" topics. Not so much on Reddit.

Plenty of times I've been convinced that I was wrong about important things as well, which I always try to own.

I wouldn't say there's definitive "winning" or "losing" an online argument. This is a public forum, your arguments are there for everyone to see, even if the person you're talking to still disagrees by the end it may help someone else form a more informed opinion.

I have convinced every single person I've talked to online that all my ideas are correct.

And other lies I tell myself.

No, I dont think so, but I have been DM'd by one or two people who weren't participating in the discussion, they were reading or just following along; my (and other similarly minded folks in said discussion) arguments apparently got them to at least somewhat reconsider what they believed. It was only ever a handful of times over the years, but I think it still fits the premise of your question.

Now granted, this was mostly on like 2010's "Christian creationist verses basically all of science" rage-bate Facebook groups (as was the style at the time). I have no way of confirming these people were being genuine, but also no real reason to doubt them. Most of the messages I got were people learning for the first time that Evolutionary Theory wasn't "anti-Christian." That the vast majority of Christians and Christian denominations weren't actually Young Earth Creationist or necessarily against the concept of the theoretical foundations of academic biology. Heck, one or two of them didn't even know that the overwhelming majority of Chritstians are not biblical literalists. They had been taught that most of the fields of science were basically a (insert boogeyman here) plot to destroy Christianity or god or something.

Again, these weren't the people I was "debating" but rather just curious onlookers watching me, an insufferable 20-something edgy-atheist (again, as was the style at the time), dunk on people who had absolutely no intention of doing anything other than move the goal post to protect sky daddy.