For conversations where you think you just know better, I recommend active listening. No, I don’t mean the shallow thing of becoming a conversational parrot. You try to put what you said into your own words, to check if you understood their claim. This does several good things to the conversation. One, it often reveals mistakes in your interpretation of them. This helps avoid pointless rabbit-holes in the discussion based on misunderstandings. Two, it lets them know you are trying to understand so that when you make your objections they are likely to respond better. Three, taking a conversational tone which is open to their view helps you to actually be open to their view.
I also recommend taking an attitude of playing around with ideas. Keep an eye on what you believe, but take an interest in the alternatives, even the ones which sound crazy. That way, you can notice when the “crazy” ones seem to line up better with reality.
I’d second the active listening and check for clarification idea. If I’m at the point where I’m fairly certain that this person doesn’t know what they are talking about, I stop putting effort into arguing and just see if I can learn anything about how they came to this point of view.
For conversations where you think you just know better, I recommend active listening. No, I don’t mean the shallow thing of becoming a conversational parrot. You try to put what you said into your own words, to check if you understood their claim. This does several good things to the conversation. One, it often reveals mistakes in your interpretation of them. This helps avoid pointless rabbit-holes in the discussion based on misunderstandings. Two, it lets them know you are trying to understand so that when you make your objections they are likely to respond better. Three, taking a conversational tone which is open to their view helps you to actually be open to their view.
I also recommend taking an attitude of playing around with ideas. Keep an eye on what you believe, but take an interest in the alternatives, even the ones which sound crazy. That way, you can notice when the “crazy” ones seem to line up better with reality.
I’d second the active listening and check for clarification idea. If I’m at the point where I’m fairly certain that this person doesn’t know what they are talking about, I stop putting effort into arguing and just see if I can learn anything about how they came to this point of view.