Many hold strong beliefs and opinions, however not many know the roots of their belief. If a person agrees to explore it, both of you will learn something new and fascinating. The problem is finding someone who wants to think and ask the questions. This goes for both. Many want to “convince” someone, but how much do you truly know about the thing you’re trying to prove?

This also comes back to the “why?” game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth? Play the game, find out how deep you lake of knowledge goes

  • skillissuer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    this doesn’t guarantee that the conclusion is correct, or is in scope of expertise of either of you

    • DominicHillsun@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      It doesn’t, but at least it makes both think and hopefully improve the quality of the arguments. And with internet at our finger tips, it doesn’t take much to double check a couple things :)

    • GeminiFrenchFry@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      That’s a part of the enlightenment and purpose for open-minded people. One or both may learn they really don’t understand what they so firmly believed.

  • Vengefu1 Tuna@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This also comes back to the “why?” game so many kids play. Parents get annoyed by it, but are they really annoyed at the game or their lack of knowledge depth?

    I used to think this as well, until I had a three-year-old. One day she yelled under the bathroom door, “WHY ARE YOU POOPING??” I’ve realized that young kids may ask “why” more often to annoy and test social boundaries instead of actually trying to learn something. When she does ask “why” in order to learn, it’s fun explaining and teaching her. But it’s not as often as I thought it would be.

  • Dran@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    This process is generally referred to as The Socratic Method. As you said, the devil is in first convincing both parties within a debate that they should be searching for shared understanding through the process of attacking and defending ideas, not attacking and defending each other.

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    1 year ago

    Not always. A lot of the time people will just lie about what they actually believe and why they believe it.

    For example. People are going to say they support free speech because they believe in it as an important principle for a free society. No one is going to say they support free speech because actually they’re a full on Nazi and this is the only way to get their message out to the public until they get the reigns and then they can dispense will al the “free speech” stuff and lock down the opposition.

    Actually this applies to a lot of politics related stuff. For example politicians always talk about how tax breaks are going to stimulate the economy, none of them say “well my mate paid me a few million under the table to push this, even though ‘trickle down’ has never worked in the 100+ years that it’s been around”.

    Security patches, Everyone says “We need to insure that all new software has up to date security and patches.”, no one says “We want to collect every single bit of telemetry and integrate end to end DRM and the only way that can work is if the device is completely locked down so the users can’t bypass or root it.”.

    • Coelacanth@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re right. Going down through the levels of “okay, and why?” works on a theoretical level but requires both the person asking the right why-question and a level of intellectual honesty from both parties that is incredibly hard to find.

      It’s not a bad approach for questioning your own beliefs though, if you can muster the strength to be honest with yourself.

  • Jajcus@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    That works only when people are ready to question their opinions. Many are not. The ‘why’ question does not seem to make sense to them – why ask for reasoning, when we know ‘the fact’?

    The only meaningful ‘why’ in such situation may be: ‘why I am still talking to them?’

  • Ragnell@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I had a commander who used to drive all the techs crazy by asking “Why?” His philosophy was to ask “Why?” six times whether he understood or not to make sure his sergeants had thought through any proposal.

    • DominicHillsun@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      Problem here is the answer contains multiple explanations. When asking “why?” it needs to be more specific otherwise you get your problem.

    • freehugs@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think the key is to remember you are trying to discuss opinions/convictions not facts.

      When B says something like “C is a nazi”, A correctly asks why B believes C is a nazi, not why C is a literal nazi. So when you go down one level, A’s next question should be something like “why do you think these are nazi tactics?” and “why are nazi tactics bad?” It really requires both sides to be intellectually honest and curious about someone’s actual beliefs, otherwise the technique doesn’t work. I also think limiting yourself to just “why” isn’t always helpful. Sometimes you need to ask for clarification or the entire conversation becomes a farce.

      Remember the goal is to learn something about the other persons views, not to set each other up with rhetorical questions.

  • credo@laguna.chat
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    1 year ago

    eventually both of you will come to a conclusion

    But not necessarily an agreement.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I remember asking my father in law why he doesn’t believe in climate change. It boiled down to him saying the democrats just want to control us. When I asked why he said just so they have more power for power’s sake. I told him I’m willing to accept that politicians can be like that (because many are) but why does he believe that the republicans are immune to this craving of power or if he thought republicans denying climate change could be just for the sake of controlling people to get more power (like he accused democrats of) and surprise surprise he couldn’t give me an answer other than democrats are corrupt and want more power but republicans don’t (which isn’t an answer because I’m asking why).

    • key@lemmy.keychat.org
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      Turns out most everyone thinks based on reasoning developed by years of cumulative, biased experiences that ultimately amount to fundamentally distinct axioms of how the world works. Few people actually have opinions based on “logic”, least of all the people who fly the banner of “rational” or “emotion free” opinions. Answering why just provides post-hoc explanations rather than an actual cause (which humans are great at coming up with, just look at split brain cases). Which just turns most “big topic” disagreements into competitions over who can come up with a better sounding justification.

      • Duchess@yiffit.net
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        1 year ago

        i’ve never come across this before but this is an excellent term. nobody is entitled to an unchallenged opinion but at the same time forcing someone into that type of conversation is unlikely to be productive.

      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I think the only way to avoid it really, is for the two people to agree in advance that they will each be open to questioning and will take the process in good faith. Know what yoiu are getting into.

      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Haven’t we all.

        More annoying though, is when you are really trying to understand the other person’s point of view and they shut down debate by the accusation of sealioning. There should be a word for that

        • Ragnell@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          The word is “tired”, I think. A lot of people just don’t have the energy to answer the whys and are used to bad actors using why to exhaust them. So when it comes to things like racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia…etc… it’s a) an exhausting subject to begin with when its aimed at you, and b) a magnet for disingenuous bigots and trolls, so people will just shut down the conversation rather than try and explain their whole existence.

          Honestly, I think isms are the only times when sealioning is sealioning, because that’s the only time you get people arguing in such bad faith.

          • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I think the only time I was accused of it was when trying to engage with a climate change denier. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were tired. I’m not particularly sympathetic.