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Comment by LichenStone | Hacker News Reader

Aye, the ideal goal of disussion shouldn't be to persuade in my opinion, but to explore each other's ideas with the aim of modifying and improving each position. I think the process of doing that happens to be the best way to actually get people to go along with something also.

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Take an interest, not a position. A position often causes us to feel like we have to defend a position, taking an interest helps increase the likelihood that both parties remain open

That's a good way of thinking about it. Reminds me of when Alan Kay asks "Are ideas like matter? [bumps his fists together] Or are they more like light? [Overlaps his hands]" (roughly paraphrasing there).

The ability to entertain multiple, seemingly contradictory thoughts at once is a good skill I think.

“The ability to entertain multiple, seemingly contradictory thoughts at once is a good skill I think.”

Unfortunately large portions of the populace see this as being phony. You must be a red or blue team person, being “people without a tribe” is itself a heresy because by not conforming to this idiotic false dichotomy denies the simpletons and partisans their fallacious little world views. Socrates died in vein, I suppose.

That's a strange take on Socrates, it makes him sound like he died (intended to die?) for our sins like some kind of Jesus figure. I doubt he'd agree with it.

Anyway, I suspect you mean 'in vain'. Veins are those little tubes in your body that the blood flows through, in generally in the direction of the heart. Since Socrates died by poison one could argue that he literally died "in vein" but this is probably not the interpretation you were going for.

I agree with you on the teams thing, and in my opinion it has a strong relation to two-party systems.

> That's a strange take on Socrates, it makes him sound like he died (intended to die?) for our sins like some kind of Jesus figure. I doubt he'd agree with it.

Much of the Christian narrative about Jesus and the nature of divinity is influenced by Neo-Platonist thought, and Plato did kind of frame Socrates' story in those terms. So it's not that Socrates was a Jesus figure, Jesus was a Socrates figure.

With many political matters, though, people inherently have to hold positions by virtue of the fact that the issues affect their material interests. You need to remain open in spite of that, but there are also limits to how open one can be when someone else is arguing that you should lose your job or that your health insurance should be able to deny you coverage for care, or maybe that you are culturally or genetically inherently stupid or incapable of self-governance.

Not all controversial matters are political. For instance, it's not inherently political whether global warming is real or whether vaccines work in curtailing a pandemic. Only a certain side in these debates wants to reduce arguments in which there is rational evidence (and important actions to be taken) to something that is merely "political", and therefore a just a matter of constitutional free speech and action.

> explore each other's ideas with the aim of modifying and improving each position.

That's the academic concept of discussion, which is a very fine and respectable (not to mention important) thing.

Sometimes you do have to persuade, because action is required.

For instance, it is important to persuade non-believers in human-caused global warming; it's not just about improving their intellectual position.

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