I have too, but only after discovering rationalism. Original line was meant to apply to general internet.
And in the broadest strokes that statement is objectively false—I was deconverted from christianity via online argument. However the arguing was repeated confrontations over several weeks, and then the deconversion didn’t take place until months later—after I’d completely lost touch with my opponent. I’ve never been able to contact him and thank him properly.
But for the average person, any single argument session will not noticeably change their position. I feel that adding any caveats to the original statement makes the emotional weight swing far away enough from 0 that the caveat makes the statement less true in practice. Similar to how you are better off saying “You have no chance of winning the lottery, ever” than you are saying “There is an infinitesimal chance you’ll win the lottery”. One cannot activate few enough neurons to properly convey the chances of winning when thinking about the chances of winning, and thus accepting “You’ll never win” is closer to the truth when run on human brains.
My experience of there being plenty of people online who will change their mind isn’t limited to only rationalist circles, though it is mostly limited to circles with people of above average intelligence. Perhaps if you are actually talking about the average Internet user, it’s justified to make the kind of assertion that you were making, but I wouldn’t expect most LWers to hang out in the kinds of online circles that are dominated by average Internet users.
I have too, but only after discovering rationalism. Original line was meant to apply to general internet.
And in the broadest strokes that statement is objectively false—I was deconverted from christianity via online argument. However the arguing was repeated confrontations over several weeks, and then the deconversion didn’t take place until months later—after I’d completely lost touch with my opponent. I’ve never been able to contact him and thank him properly.
But for the average person, any single argument session will not noticeably change their position. I feel that adding any caveats to the original statement makes the emotional weight swing far away enough from 0 that the caveat makes the statement less true in practice. Similar to how you are better off saying “You have no chance of winning the lottery, ever” than you are saying “There is an infinitesimal chance you’ll win the lottery”. One cannot activate few enough neurons to properly convey the chances of winning when thinking about the chances of winning, and thus accepting “You’ll never win” is closer to the truth when run on human brains.
My experience of there being plenty of people online who will change their mind isn’t limited to only rationalist circles, though it is mostly limited to circles with people of above average intelligence. Perhaps if you are actually talking about the average Internet user, it’s justified to make the kind of assertion that you were making, but I wouldn’t expect most LWers to hang out in the kinds of online circles that are dominated by average Internet users.
“There are better uses for the cost of a lottery ticket” might be still better.