No, It's Not Your Opinion. You're Just Wrong

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13 points·pappyo··8 comments

Articles like this, and the frustrations expressed, really help to reaffirm my belief that Philosophy, or at least deductive logic, ought to be a necessary part of our public school system.

If you want to win over someone from an opinion... the last thing you do is tell them that their wrong.

If a person cannot be persuaded that they are wrong, is there any chance of 'winning them over'? Seems like you're wasting your breath at that point.

We can only hope that the logic and evidence you, the persuader, present is sound enough to drown out the nonsense being perpetuated by the person you're attempting to convince. Given what we know about reinforcement of incorrect information, though... perhaps a losing prospect.

If you flat out tell someone they're wrong, you've lost the chance to change their opinion. They'll get defensive because you appeared to give no consideration to their opinion, and they'll disregard anything you say in return.

Well, my opinion is that you are wrong.

Your opinion is not substantiated by any significant amount of evidence and therefore does not merit consideration.

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

I'm always amazed to see how ill-received jokes and jests are on this site. I can't believe someone downvoted a comment quoting the Dude.

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