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Spent 2 years arguing politics on Reddit before I noticed I never once changed a mind, mine or theirs
Not trying to be above it. I was the guy typing 400 word replies at 1am, sourcing links, feeling like I was winning. Then one night my roommate read one of my comments out loud in a dumb voice and I heard it. I was not talking to the other person at all. I was performing for whoever else might scroll by.
So I tried an experiment for 60 days. No replying to strangers. Only talking politics with two guys at work who disagree with me on pretty much everything. One of them is a union guy, one votes the other way on basically every issue. We get lunch on Thursdays. The rule I gave myself was ask one real question before I say anything.
Difference is night and day. In person you cannot just vanish when it gets hard. You have to sit there and eat your sandwich. Turns out I agreed with the union guy on like three things I assumed he was against, and the other guy had a reason for his view that I had never even considered because online I was too busy dunking.
Nobody flipped parties. But I stopped thinking half the country is either stupid or evil, which honestly is a bigger win than any argument I ever "won" online.
Curious if anyone else here has a spot in their life where they can argue with someone who disagrees and it does not turn into a mess. What does that look like for you?
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