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Comment by bjornsing | Hacker News Reader

> Brexiteers won't be reasoned with and being reasonable is seen as weakness by them.

This “reasonableness is weakness” thing seems to be a more and more clear trend in western culture... It’s quite disturbing and seems very dangerous to me.

Or is it something that’s been circulating for a long time, just that I haven’t noticed?

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It's the 'movie' version of negotiating that plays to a populist crowd.

It intersects with other 'tough guy' identity tropes that are being (successfully) used in domestic political battles to gain power, and then are repositioned to be used in foreign relations with predictably terrible outcomes.

The problem is the audience of the negotiating stance isn't the counterparty, it's the domestic base who elected you because they were fed up with nuance and are suspicious of the counterparty.

This isn't just a Brexit problem, but is much more widespread.

I don't know how you'd be able to align incentives any worse.

> It's the 'movie' version of negotiating that plays to a populist crowd.

See also: "the art of the deal"

> The problem is the audience of the negotiating stance isn't the counterparty, it's the domestic base who elected you because they were fed up with nuance and are suspicious of the counterparty.

Not just the nuance, but the lack of dramatic change, a handful of examples of bad behavior by the party of nuance being equally corrupt or useless, and a constant stream of propaganda highlighting that.

I don’t think people disagree more than they ever used to. I do think however that people are much more likely to judge those who disagree with them as simply being bad people, and are therefor willing to just dismiss their point of view entirely. Which is pretty much what the parent comment is doing. For anybody who’s legitimately curious about why Brexiteers so firmly won’t be reasoned with, I’d suggest you take a look at this survey that shows how much less likely remain voters are to understand the motives of leave voters, than leave voters are to understand the motives of remain voters.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/05/04/leavers-have-a-bet...

Really I think most people generally agree on what they want from society. Outside of the fringes, the primary points of contention revolve around how to prioritize issues over other issues, and the specifics of the approach to solving them.

Respectfully, I have talked to hundreds of brexiteers and looked at everything they claim. Then dismissed it. It's exposure, not a lack of exposure that makes me dismiss them. As far as I can tell (I am no social scientist) they'd be flat-earthers or anti-vaxers but they got got caught up in brexit first...

If only they were less unreasonable...

I think this whole thing has really taught me a lot.

One aspect of that is that people are not rational by nature. Another is that we cannot change that about them and actually it's as much a force of nature as a hurricane or an earthquake. You cannot argue or reason with any of these forces.

Our mistake has been failing to build quake proof cities, not failing to appreciate the earthquakes point of view...

I think that's a view that a fair number of people have. Of course the error in it is that you're confusing "different rationale to mine" with "lack of rationale". It's very easy to look at people who disagree with you and presume that they're uninformed or irrational. When the truth is most certainly that you and the person you disagree with are both misinformed and irrational, only about different stuff. By refusing to acknowledge the possibility that people may in-fact engage in well reasoned consideration about a topic, and come to a different conclusion than you did, you're just perpetuating the very thing you're complaining about. You can disagree with me, and I may in-fact be completely wrong, but I do think I've presented a rational position, and made some effort to substantiate it. Something I can't really see here in your comments.

Of course, you're correct that there could be a rationale for brexit. But that begs the question: what is it? After 100s of discussions with 100s of brexiteers, none has been forthcoming. They've made weird claims about soverignty\trade\immigration\fishing\passport-colour-schemes etc, but those all fall down when you introduce facts and yet brexiteers don't change their position. So the real rationale must be something else.

So we're presented with 2 possible realities:

* EITHER, there is no rationale for brexit beyond the "It's what I want and I don't know why but I do" rationale (weak right?). I might not agree with this, but I would respect it if that was what brexiteers said. I can't justify my love of chocolate but I still love it.

* OR, There is a rationale for brexit, but it is secret and cannot be shared with me, and people insist they will share it for unknown reasons, but then don't also for other unknown reasons.

This second position seems a little crazy, but I will admit it is technically possible. Perhaps 17million people have all been initiated into the secrets of brexit and my small remainer mind cannot fathoms such great matters...

OR you could take a look at the article you were linked to about various surveys, and see what they had to say about the self-reported motivations of the voters. Might be enlightening.

How have you managed hundreds of conversations with hundreds of different "brexiteers"? Do you have exact figures? Is it part of your job? Is a "brexiteer" the same as someone who voted to leave the EU, or do you mean something more specific?

The linked article supports my position: people claim to have voted for brexit because of X, but when facts come in and disprove X, they claim it was Y. Rinse, repeat.

People need to stop pretending they had a viable reason for their vote. If they admitted it was just personal preference I'd accept that. But pretending it was logical when it wasn't is frankly insulting.

My reading of it was that it compared peoples motivations for voting against what other people thought were their motivations, and showed a difference. I saw no section there that said "and when they were proved wrong ..."

Honestly I think your attitude here is terrible

One of the major reasons given there in the surveys is that leave voters wanted UK law to be made by the UK. How has that been "disproven"?

It may not be something you care about, but that's very different.

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