LogFAQs > #945724338

I think NFUN is arguing that it's reductive to equate "X believes one thing because it's fact." and "Y believes another because they're biased in favor of believing it." because they're substantively different in that the first person can be convinced/argued to a different point of presented with sufficient evidence that their position is in fact incorrect whereas the second will instead double-down on their point in the face of that evidence and dismiss that evidence as fake or biased.

It's a different argument/point than how to actually convince the second person they're incorrect but he's raising the issue because if you equate the two then you're implicitly saying the same approach could work for both cases - they're the same, after all!

I think both NFUN and colliding agree that convincing someone who holds their position because they've entered a bubble of confirmation bias is a very difficult thing, and I don't think either have offered a solution on how to actually achieve that goal (Indeed, colliding seems to say you can't accomplish this.) NFUN simply took issue with how he tried to frame his lead-up to this conclusion by trying to equate it with "How would one convince you that your beliefs are wrong?"

Ultimately the problem is that instead of arguing sides agreeing on the facts in a debate/argument/discussion and the argument arising out of that mutual acceptance of the underlying facts; increasingly you see more and more that people will adopt their own "facts" and so now the parties don't even agree on the most basic framework of the discussion. And there's no longer even any commonly accepted "refs" in this anymore to settle those disputes. (Journalists and the media used to play something akin to this role but no longer.)

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xp1337: Don't you wish there was a spell-checker that told you when you a word out?