I don't tend to debate politics (either online or offline), because for the most part, I find that people who differ from me in their opinions generally do so because they start with a different set of axioms.
Say, for example, one of us thinks that raising children is important / a duty, one of us thinks it's not / a bad idea, and from that come all sorts of policy decisions.
We can, if we want, do thought experiment style discussions around it all, we can learn more from each other, but ultimately no-one is going to convince the other.
"Ethical Pluralism." It can still be worth to take the arguments through the paces as an exercise of checking reasoning and respecting someone else's beliefs, but yeah, people can definitely reason correctly from different values and wind up with wildly different normative conclusions.
I've found a 100% correlation between the (believed) outcomes of those political opinions and the holder of those opinions benefiting from that outcome (again believed). Those axioms are almost certainly in the mix, people who think raising children is important will probably want children, and then hold opinions that benefit them as parents.
I'm no different, so now I spend my time wondering how to shoehorn, contort and caress my beliefs in such a way as to benefit others too. Better that than give up my dearly held beliefs.
Want to really get someone to consider your viewpoint? Carefully consider your ideas first, then tell them once. Be silent while they say whatever they want in response. Then drop the subject.
Hmm this never works. I’m in a similar position in my team at work. “Hey we should do X because Y and Z.” “Hmm no, I don’t like that.” Nothing gets done…
A while ago I did a bunch of thinking about how to convince people and came down to that it's usually one of three techniques: coercion, rhetorical persuasion, or modeling good behavior. (Broken down as violence, active non-violence, and passive non-violence.) I used to believe that persuasion was generally more effective at convincing others than modeling, but these days I'm not so sure.
I people constantly complaining about modern web frameworks but these people never offer concrete alternatives. It’s always “it depends” or whatever to avoid even an example of what they are arguing _for_ and why it’s better.
Say, for example, one of us thinks that raising children is important / a duty, one of us thinks it's not / a bad idea, and from that come all sorts of policy decisions.
We can, if we want, do thought experiment style discussions around it all, we can learn more from each other, but ultimately no-one is going to convince the other.