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> I don't want to be this way. I just seem to have a preference for it.

Aren't you being a sort of "preference fatalist"? Do you think it's impossible to change preferences?

Maybe a good place to start would be to research people who have changed preferences. I think motivation is not the mythical black box that oms people ascribe to. We're motivated by cognitive processes and experiences. If we expose ourselves to different experiences and try to see value in different things, our brain can adapt and start saying "Okay, this thing I didn't find motivating is getting motivating!" -- motivation is built by yourself. I call this concept "freedom of utility" -- you're free to choose what to care about; although of course there are limits to the flexibility of some of our instincts for various reasons related to just being limited, finite beings overall.

(I'm speaking of the general issue of changing values and changing your mind -- hopefully not too personal)

In your case, I think at a level you've already adopted different values (which I think is admirable and necessary for humans to achieve a good existence), but you're finding it hard reconciling your various intuitions and various rational thoughts. I think it's a slow process, but we should let the truth and what we ultimately find genuinely best win -- discuss it with other people, think about it, test its consequences (in real life or thought), this is how you change your mind.

> Aren't you being a sort of "preference fatalist"? Do you think it's impossible to change preferences?

I've changed my mind on a lot of things. Big things too. I've always enjoyed debating subjects too because I think there is often value in changing minds and having your own mind changed. There are also things which are provably true and preferences. It's really the latter that I see no point in changing people's minds about.

I think you basically have two end states to civilisation, the first being a single world government which sets laws to maximise the happiness and wellbeing for the average individual in a society.

Or the second option is that you accept the diversity of human opinion and have lots of smaller states where those states can adopt their own unique laws that maximise the happiness and wellbeing of that unique community.

I'd argue neither is stable because you either have competing states with different laws or a single government with lots of unhappy subjects.

But just as an example here, you're not going to make the world a more peaceful or happy place by forcing the middle-east to be pro-LGBTQ even if it's the "right" thing. Here in the UK we see this all the time. We import people with different ideas form our own then create conflict by telling them they're wrong for thinking the way they do. And for what? Perhaps some times something can be so clearly wrong that it warrants intervention, but in this case if someone who's LGBTQ wants to leave that community for somewhere more LGBTQ friendly they can do that and everyone is happy. I'm not going to get into a fight with a Muslim about why their beliefs are wrong.

I guess my position is just that the majority of violence and unhappiness in this world comes from people either believing their view is the correct view and that others should share it, or that someone else view is wrong and that they need to be stopped. All the insults on Twitter. All the people the state locks in cages. All the bombs drop for not following democratic values. I don't want any part of it. For the most part so long as they do so peacefully I'm happy for people to live however like, believing whatever they like.

People seek to change the minds of others because their opinions (and subsequent actions) often affect the people themselves.

A simple example of this would be abortion.

abortion itself, being a personal decision/action, doesn't seek to affect the thoughts and behaviors of other people. perhaps you mean anti-abortion, since that attempts to be positively coercive of others?

They mean the issue of abortion (whether pro or against). "Change the mind" they mean from its current position (whether pro- or anti- abortion).

Even if we assume that "it's a personal choice" is some kind of natural/god-given/obvious default (which historically it hasn't been), we'd still to work to change the minds of people who think otherwise...

I'm a pretty liberal person in a very liberal area, but nobody has ever tried to convince me to change my mind to be pro-abortion. I'm in favor of letting people make their own healthcare decisions of course but to be actively pro-abortion seems like some hyper niche position.

I think agitating publically on a pro-abortion position is rare and considered unseemly by most liberals. However I do believe there are many situations where people will find themselves under pro-abortion pressure.

For example, I know many Icelanders are quite proud of how they have 'solved' the problem of Down Syndrome in their country by good prenatal testing. I strongly suspect women in countries like this face tremendous pro-abortion pressure when they consider carrying these children to term and welcoming them into their families.

If anti-abortion advocates were just advocating for their right to try to convince people to not get abortion and apply their own social pressure (not backed by the force of the state) then I'd have no objections. I mean I find the idea of using that right objectionable but it is obviously their right.

abortion has been a personal choice for most of humanity. only relatively recently have social mores become coercive like this, on which foucault wrote a whole treatise.

Abortion can only seen as a personal decision if you don't consider it murder. From the view point that "life" starts at conception, it cannot be seen as a personal decision. Thus, pro-abortion seeks to change the minds of people such that "life" does not start at conception.

By “abortion”, I don’t mean the act itself, more the attitude and specifically voting preferences of others.

Regardless of your stance on this, how others think and vote will affect other people.

For example, I am pro-choice. I believe people should have a right to access abortion if necessary. I don’t need to change someone’s mind if they don’t personally want to support abortion, but I do need to change their mind if they want to vote for people who will restrict that right.

See also: climate change.

There are many areas where you can and should agree to disagree and there will always be middle ground compromises in the details, but some issues really are black and white. Either you believe other people should have access to abortion or you don’t.

Also, and I hope this is obvious, the point is not whether you think abortion is right or wrong, it’s that other people’s decisions can affect you or your family or the world in general.

How do you determine who is in the community and subject to the community law?

I'll take the opportunity to insert some thoughts from metaphysics here. It says that the evolution of humanity begins with total unity, and just as total lack of reason: if one was to lose a finger, others would feel the pain, but wouldn't understand why. In order to develop reason, humanity descends into individualism. The extreme social division today is the sign of passing the midpoint of evolution when mind is fully developed, but the sense of unity is lost. After that the course of evolution will take us back, but we'll get to keep the skill of reasoning. Returning to the origin will be forced by shared hardships: the divisiveness will die off under their pressure.

This is hilarious! I have never heard a perspective like this before. However, I don’t believe you. Let me see if I can persuade you…

> For some reason I'm a hard-core libertarian so I kind of hate my own core values. I'd even go so far as to acknowledge that my ideal world would be close to hell for most people. I don't want to be this way. I just seem to have a preference for it.

Honest question, have you ever considered this to be a legitimate data point that would act to falsify your hard-core libertarian values?