Update 2019-02-16 0407 PM:
Facts only matter in one context: Power. If a fact doesn’t give you power, it arguably isn’t even a fact. Actuality’s defining trait is reality’s agreement. That’s alliance. That’s power. Knowing a fact about the sun makes the sun your ally to whatever extent the fact dictates.
Understanding the sun is what gave us farming, and it underwrote the Pharaohs power.
This is the whole reason we regard reason and rationality as superior, because ultimately understanding reality gives you technology and techniques which in turn give you real physical power. Take that away and all you have left is the same powers fantasy has. Emotional, psychological, subjective.
It’s a lie is pretending that facts and reason persuade people, which is manifestly untrue as proven by virtually every social debate still existing. Like nuclear power or climate change for example, or the persistence of multiple religions. (Since presumably either one or zero of them have facts on their side we should have whittled away the false competitors by now.)
Update 2018-02-10 0200 PM:
(Copy pasted comment, somewhat off topic)
I’m not gonna make any future attempt to comment wisdom or ethics at people. Because they are fact immune.
It seems my fact immunity manifestation is refusal to parse fact immunity in others. I bet I’m back at it again in a matter of days.
I keep trying and trying and trying to talk some wisdom and raw kindness into people and I fail over and over.
I realize now what I was doing with these comments was just an expression of frustration at atrocious odious hateful suffering-perpetuating memes, and that I’m completely better off just letting them fester in hateful little pockets and colonies while a small core of humanity carries the rest of it past this dark age.
Anyone who doesn’t tell them flattering crap they wanna hear is a “troll” in their mind. Well no. Not only do I really believe everything I type, I can exhaustively defend it, but it NEVER gets to that point because people are fact immune and astonishingly skilled at avoiding looking at anything that might challenge their belief system. (Honestly if anything is “wrong” with me in this context it’s that I for some reason lack this revulsion. I (pathologically?) adore challenging my own world view and would welcome REAL fact and logic pure debate. Indeed, having that debate with an AI is one of the things I most look forward to about the future. I am genuinely curious where I’m provably wrong or inconsistent. Humans that I’ve found just can’t bring that game to me. (Comment off topic:) All you ever do metaphorically is squirm and complain and crap in your hand and throw it and call that discussion.)
I’ve linked and linked and you refuse to read/watch. http://underlore.com/the-final-underclass/ READ IT. Especially watch the vimeo video from west wing. I mean it’s FAR from ideal, as it’s still propaganda mostly from your (the 1%s) camp, but it already refutes your entire position. Less well than the essay but you’ve got your fingers in your eyes screaming la la la to spare you from the horror of my text, so I’m done asking you to read that with a rational open mind. Honestly my even typing this is still my own fact immunity. I apparently still believe if I just type clearly enough and have enough fact and logic behind me you’ll somehow come around.
But you won’t. And I sort of know you won’t. Yet here I go again. /sigh
Update 2017-02-26 0443 AM:
Do it like this guy:
Convert your work, whatever it is, into straight up propaganda. Because otherwise, no one will listen.
“One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.” ~Frank Zappa
Update: 2017-01-15 1044 PM
Debate is a myth. If reason and logic equaled persuasion we’d have scientists and logicians as heads of state and we’d have far greater consensus generally across the entire human civilization. Debate is what it is dismissed as in 99% of social contexts, empty Internet argument or pointless televised drama intended to manipulate and deceive.
Update 2017-01-12 0633 AM:
Two short answers to how learning can exist if debate is pointless.
1. Children by default have no positions and can acquire them from reality or from adults.
2. People are perfectly happy to accept new data that doesn’t contradict previous data. It all depends on emotional loading.
This is the source of Max Planck’s famous quote:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
I didn’t say learning is impossible, I said debates are an illusion.
See also: https://news.rpi.edu/luwakkey/2902n.
It is not debate which persuades.
Debate doesn’t trigger persuasions. That happens organically and indirectly, in ways that evade all the psychological deadlocks which make debate an illusion in the first place.
Facts and debate only change a person’s position when the emotions have a vested interest in switching sides. This is why money’s power to corrupt is so strong.
Also it’s important to be raised with a mindset that consensus and reality matter. Ironically, I was given a form of “faith” in facts that functions as the exact opposite of faith.
I was paradoxically frozen by adulthood into a state of childlike flexibility.
People rationalize what benefit them emotionally. Emotional manipulation is what actually persuades. It just gets complicated when you realize that literally everything else can have an impact on emotions, including debate, facts, and of course, reality.
All else being equal, to what extent debate appears to work on a given person is to what extent debate moves them emotionally.
Update:2015-12-10 0325 AM
http://www.ibtimes.com/donald-trump-explained-how-dominate-media-1987-i-play-peoples-fantasies-2218125
“Decades of studies back up his claim that people are drawn to shameless narcissism, be it in the realm of politics, business, war or show business.“
Update: Very relevant. And new to me as of 2015-08-12 0955 AM
Risk = Hazard + Outrage (24:07) from Peter Sandman on Vimeo.
To anyone seeking to change the world with writing the biggest advice I can offer, which is based on my own failure, is that charisma and emotional manipulation are the only way to persuade people.
Facts and logic and Intelligence only ONLY matter when you are up against a technological non-human problem.
They must feel it before they can think it regardless of how flawless and defended the thought is. Debate does not exist. Facts do not matter to the human mind directly. This is why religion is capable of persisting.
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” ~Max Planck (strikethrough mine)
http://adamcurtisfilms.blogspot.com/
Watch those to learn how to influence mobs of people. That’s the only way to do it short of technological game changers.
http://underlore.com/what-can-i-do/ (20,000 words and needs heavy updating and much of the text is debate which I need to integrate.)
Find a copy of this and read it: http://www.thriftbooks.com/viewdetails.aspx?isbn=1841880094
See Also:
http://io9.com/the-backfire-effect-shows-why-you-cant-use-facts-to-wi-1443792942
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crowd:_A_Study_of_the_Popular_Mind