# The (constructive, effective) disagreement thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 10, 2020, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194 "2020-11-10T03:03:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/81 "2020-11-11T19:24:02Z")
Sure, but your question really didn’t address the 80M so much as it addressed the 70M, and – since they’re really very distinct cohorts at this point – I don’t think you can safely aggregate the two groups to determine an average. I love the saying, “A mathematician said that he slept with his head in the oven and his feet in the freezer. ‘On average,’ he said, ‘it’s quite comfortable.’” 😉 Thank Og I didn’t have to leave SDMB to find the other one that I love, and that came to mind: > [@World's funniest joke](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-funniest-joke/360131/78): > > Three statisticians go hunting one fine autumn day. A deer runs in front of them. One statistician shoots ahead of it. The second shoots behind it. The third shouts, “We got it!” Joe retires and builds his dream house on a mountain in West Virginia. He’s just settling in when there’s a loud knock at the door. He opens it to see a huge, unkempt man in a torn red plaid shirt, jeans with suspenders, beer belly and an enormous bushy beard. “The name’s Big Earl,” the man booms. “I live on t… ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/82 "2020-11-11T20:34:22Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > I genuinely don’t understand the impulse some people have to always double down It could be pride, or it could be rational/quasi-rational avoidance of embarrassment or shame. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/83 "2020-11-11T20:45:49Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > It could be pride, or it could be rational/quasi-rational avoidance of embarrassment or shame. > > ~Max IMHO doubling down on being wrong is a greater embarrassment than correcting course. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/84 "2020-11-11T20:50:38Z")
You’ve never been in a car with a driver that won’t admit that he’s lost before, have you? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/85 "2020-11-11T20:56:30Z")
Do you think he was serious? Some people are contrarians by nature. _I_ think there is a psychological phenomenon whereby people tend to root for the underdog. If I remember from Psych 101 that tapers off when stakes are high. Maybe this person doesn’t think politics is that important - most people I see don’t - so he treats it like some spectator event where it is acceptable to switch sides based on popular support. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/86 "2020-11-11T20:58:14Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You’ve never been in a car with a driver that won’t admit that he’s lost before, have you? A few times. My father was like that. Fortunately we didn’t usually travel to areas he wasn’t familiar with unless it was on our summer vacation. There was the occasional argument between my father and mother on those occasions, about stopping to ask for directions vs. continuing to drive aimlessly. Sure, it sucked to have to stop at a gas station to ask for directions, but driving around while lost is worse, IMHO. Even my father, though, wasn’t someone who always doubled down. When I was old enough to discuss politics he told me he had voted for Nixon but that he learned his lesson after that and voted Democratic every election after that. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/87 "2020-11-11T21:04:52Z")
This was an ardent Trump supporter who was in the middle of an angry rant, so I suspect he was serious. He was basically saying, “I have some criticisms of Trump I can’t talk about because someone on the internet called Melania a whore!” He was also apparently under the impression that no candidate in history had ever suffered such grave insults. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/88 "2020-11-11T21:14:27Z")
I could keep trying to come up with ways to engage this person in a constructive manner, but I can’t tell if you want to have that conversation or if you are just making a point that some people are brick walls. Another thing to keep in mind is that person’s motivation for posting. The last thing you want to do is engage a rant and come across as a sea-lion troll. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/89 "2020-11-11T21:17:34Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I could keep trying to come up with ways to engage this person in a constructive manner That would be the point of this thread. > [@Max\_S](#): > > I can’t tell if you want to have that conversation or if you are just making a point that some people are brick walls. But I think that this is the problem, right here. I’ve tried engaging my family into rational conversation about anything political, and it pretty much just makes them angry to have any of their presuppositions questioned. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/90 "2020-11-11T21:20:07Z")
That’s just the thing. A conversation can only be constructive if both people are into respectful dialogue. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/91 "2020-11-11T21:35:34Z")
> [@urbanredneck2](#): > > BTW, women can be equally as nasty just get them together with friends and get some drinks in them. We are not voting for those women. This is a discussion about an actual man who said actual things that were actually recorded AND he is unapologetic for them AND he was running for President of the United States. Your nasty women are made of straw. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/92 "2020-11-11T21:39:26Z")
How can I have a conversation with my mother about BLM, when she insists that there were only 10 black men killed by police last year? (That’s not the _only_ factual thing that she is wrong on, but it is the easiest to give as an example.) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/93 "2020-11-11T21:49:04Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > But I think that this is the problem, right here. I’ve tried engaging my family into rational conversation about anything political, and it pretty much just makes them angry to have any of their presuppositions questioned. Rarely do you find someone who is open to full and deep debate on the turn of a dime - which is part of why I appreciate these message boards. If someone is letting off steam with a Facebook rant during their lunch break, in the middle of a stressful work day, you’re probably not going to reach them by posting a point-by-point factual takedown. If someone is on a family vacation stressed out about the itinerary or trying to relax or cook, maybe they don’t want to talk politics, or if they are talking politics maybe they just want to talk and not listen. Maybe talking politics is useful to them as a form of _social bonding_ (compare: sports talk) and not as an intellectual or factual or philosophical exercise. That being said, my opinion is that no person is a brick wall in every context. Even an old laconic curmudgeon might have a constructive conversation if you know him well enough, talk in the right room, at the right time of day, reduce your complicated and specific political questions to simple, more general questions about life, etc. You know, I remember learning about Albert Einstein’s brain. How it was so specialized to solving mathematical problems. I remember learning about like, neuron pathways and strengthening. I also remember learning about operant conditioning. And nowadays we’ve got trigger warnings and red flags. Some people you can mention politics or make a small political remark and it ruins their whole day, or even worse, they go into a spiel. I personally theorize that these are all the same phenomenon, a sort of automatic hostile response, and if you want to engage that person, you need to abstract away the politics and present the tangible moral (or legal) question. You can’t get them to talk about the specifics with an open mind, but you can try to bring out the underlying principles. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/94 "2020-11-11T22:06:03Z")
So the onus is on libs, again, to approach the right in the correct way, with correct tone and correct timing. Meanwhile, it sounds like the right spares absolutely no thought in dumping their dross on anybody within shouting distance or reach of a keyboard. I really do hope that the right has someone like you, **Max S.** , to give them this kind of thoughtful advice when they are consumed with worry for the future of democracy, and that their thoughtful message of comity just isn’t getting through to liberal hearts and minds. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/95 "2020-11-11T22:10:34Z")
P.S.: This isn’t meant to be taken out on you @Max_S. I think you grok the frustration. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/96 "2020-11-11T22:11:15Z")
The onus of changing minds shall always and forever be on _progressives_, so long as that ideology means progress and not the status quo. And the enemy of progress shall always and forever be the ideology of _reactionaries_, so long as they retain an uncompromising commitment to what already is, or what was. The fact that progress is towards liberalism should be something for liberals to celebrate, considering the alternative. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/97 "2020-11-11T22:22:22Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > if they are talking politics maybe they just want to talk and not listen. Yeah, that sounds about right. They certainly like to _talk_ politics, but not listen. They have no problem talking _at_ me, telling me how wrong I am to be supporting a socialist who wants to yadda yadda yadda. They have no problem excoriating movements like BLM, making any number of counterfactual or misleading claims as to their motives or actions. What they have a problem with is being corrected on any of this. What they have a problem with is me not accepting their word as gospel. Now, some of this may be a parent/child dynamic, and even though I’m in my 40’s and run a successful business, they may still think of me as that 5 year old that ate dirt patties. But, that’s just one more thing that they are incapable of learning and adapting to. And this is not limited to my parents and family, it’s just that anyone else in my social circle is polite enough to _not_ engage in politics when I’m around. I’m far too good a cook and event planner for them to risk losing me. I’ve actually seen a couple of times when someone starts up on something, and one of the other conservatives acquaintances actually shushes them or leads them off to another area. I don’t start anything with any of them, as I know it won’t go anywhere, but it still frustrates me. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/98 "2020-11-11T22:23:26Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > The onus of changing minds shall always and forever be on _progressives_ , so long as that ideology means progress and not the status quo. But it would be nice if we could agree on reality. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2020, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/99 "2020-11-11T23:10:29Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I don’t know. I think you’re asking a hugely important question, but I don’t know how much of myself I can set aside in a relationship before the relationship loses its authenticity. I know several Trump supporters and sometimes I get why they like him but other times not. Nobody’s perfect of course, and we hope others overlook our flaws to embrace us as well. But I know: some flaws are difficult to impossible to ignore. One of the things I remember from 2016 was the notion that people weren’t voting _for_ Trump but _against_ Hillary. I would have felt much better if they’ve sent him a resounding no this time, like “OK, you had four years and I don’t know what I was thinking but no. Just NO!” > [@k9bfriender](#): > > What they have a problem with is being corrected on any of this. What they have a problem with is me not accepting their word as gospel. I get a lot of blinking from them. And no back up sources or much depth on the subject. Then they change the subject but I don’t sense there was any impact…they just won’t talk to you, and maybe they write you off as difficult or ivory towers or something. > [@QuickSilver](#): > > So the onus is on libs, again, to approach the right in the correct way, with correct tone and correct timing. Meanwhile, it sounds like the right spares absolutely no thought in dumping their dross on anybody within shouting distance or reach of a keyboard. At some point, words and a nice approach become useless and people resort to action. Slavery, Jim Crow, Integration, LA riots…I left things out of course, but BLM shows that we still haven’t learned or atoned enough for the sins of the father. Then the conservatives say “Look at how they act” or “We have no other choice” or “Law and order!” etc. If they only protested in a civil way… > **[Roger Goodell on Colin Kaepernick: 'We believe very strongly in patriotism in...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2016/09/07/goodell-doesnt-agree-with-kaepernicks-actions/89958636/)** > > NFL Commissioner says he recognizes San Francisco 49ers QB's right to protest. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2020, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194/100 "2020-11-12T00:14:38Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > I grew up Catholic. I left the church as soon as I started taking biology and physics classes and realized that the story told in the Bible just isn’t compatible with natural laws as we currently understand them, and became a deist. I leave room to reassess should we make some new discoveries. > > I’m an average married guy, and I do genuinely apologize to my wife when I screw up. > > The thing is that I’m not claiming to have exceptional will power or genius level intellect or nerves of steel or any other such things. That’s probably why I don’t get other people’s intransigence. I’m not Michael Jordan wondering why nobody else is as good at basketball as I am. I’m just an ordinary person who might make an occasional free throw wondering why other people don’t even aim in the general direction of the hoop when making their shot. What’s easy for one person may be extraordinarily difficult for someone else. This is as true of admitting that one’s wrong in a particular area as it is of physical skills. I don’t bother trying to play basketball at all. I couldn’t make a basket when I was a young child, or when I was in my teens, even when I was trying; why mess with it now? There are other things in the world which I’m good at, which I enjoy, which give me satisfaction. (The problem with this analogy is, of course, that my not aiming at a basketball hoop doesn’t screw up anybody else. But many of those unwilling to change their politics are helping people in some other ways; and while they’re Not Looking at the thing that’s hard for them to do they’re not seeing where their politics are screwing other over.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-constructive-effective-disagreement-thread/925194.md?page=6)