Definitely a 'yeah, but...' article. It's not wrong, and there are cases of remarkably successful persuasion where we might guess it to be impossible. The problem is the techniques of individual persuasion have been known since antiquity. Why don't they work ? Or rather, why do extremists still sometimes triumph ? Because knowing rhetorical techniques is not enough. It's a network problem and must be treated as such. Articles like this fail because of several reasons : 1) they have a very limited reach; 2) the networks we participate in do not encourage such well-intentioned behaviour as the author would like (and sometimes thrive off its very opposite); 3) there are completely separate factors at work - it's not all about information transmission.
No amount of 'we just need to be nicer / more respectful to [or other variants of 'better'] each other' articles will ever work. If that were so, the world would already be a Utopia. It's not that they're not worth reading, it's just that the effects are a lot more limited than the authors would like. Real solutions have to be far more radical.
https://plus.google.com/+RhysTaylorRhysy/posts/izrupauy1it
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
Hmmm. [The comments below include a prime example of someone claiming they're interested in truth but just want higher standard, where...
-
Where Americans think Ukraine is These are the guesses of 2066 Americans as to where Ukraine is. Only 1 in 6 were correct. Presumably the... -
I've noticed that some people care deeply about the truth, but come up with batshit crazy statements. And I've caught myself rationa...
Nonsense, from stem to stern. Never did rage brook honest debate, nor tyranny any semblance of law and order.
ReplyDelete