There are some things it's not worth arguing because the facts have already been well presented and at this point anyone arguing to the contrary has deliberately chosen to ignore those facts. Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya. Climate change is not real. Jet fuel can't melt steel beams. JFK was killed by a magic bullet. The Holocaust never happened. Snowden is a terrorist and a treasonous traitor.

Does anyone really still have the time or energy to argue with a birther? Or a Holocaust denier? There's no evidence supporting their point of view, so why is it up to me to have to prove them wrong? Every reasonable person already accepts that what the NSA was doing is wrong. You can't hold the simultaneous opinions that Snowden was a traitor who should be punished and that the NSA was wrong for conducting illegal wiretaps.

I would actually argue that it's not wasting time to insult them, it's wasting time arguing with them. If you try to prove them wrong, they're going to engage you in their nonsense, because their mind is already made up. If you insult them, they're more likely to just leave you alone. But no matter what, you're not going to change their minds.

>I would actually argue that it's not wasting time to insult them, it's wasting time arguing with them.

That's exactly the attitude that brought us Donald Trump. If you mock and delegitimize people for long enough, they'll stop taking the system seriously and just give you the finger in any way they can.

No, it happens further back than that. If you pretend that all opinions are equally important, if you legitimize provably wrong opinions just for the sake of "teaching the controversy" or "hearing both sides of the argument", you teach people that it's okay to be ignorant, that it's okay to put their fingers in their ears and ignore the facts when they're presented.

Donald Trump is what happens when you tell someone "yes, it's okay for you to think the president is a Muslim from Kenya" and not challenge that opinion. Unless you seriously think we should continue to pretend that these are actually legitimate opinions to hold? If someone says "vaccines cause autism" and you show them the facts but they come back and say "but those facts were made up by so-called "scientists"!", what then? What's your next move? You've already proven them wrong, they've already ignored you.

Either you continue to listen to them, thereby legitimizing their point of view, or you say they're crazy and move on with your life. Because you can only argue with facts. If you argue with them, you're inherently accepting their opinion as fact. We need to foster the idea that it's not okay to ignore easily provable facts. Ignorance is not an option. We need to shut down Donald Trump and Jenny McCarthy as soon as they start talking, not hear them out like they're part of the conversation.

>Either you continue to listen to them, thereby legitimizing their point of view, or you say they're crazy and move on with your life.

And they get pissed off at being called crazy, and elect Donald Trump as President. So that didn't work out so well for you.

>We need to shut down Donald Trump and Jenny McCarthy as soon as they start talking, not hear them out like they're part of the conversation.

"Shutting down" people like that legitimizes their persecution narrative, which is a really, really bad move.

I think this is an important conversation, so I'd love to hear how you would handle the balance between not legitimizing their opinions and not forcing them to double down due to persecution. It's something that we, as a whole, seem to be failing at right now, and you're right, I don't have a good answer for it.

I'd handle that balance by dropping the "not legitimizing their opinions" part completely.

There's a lot to unpack here, but briefly, the idea of "legitimizing" an opinion suggests that there is some group of people who have the authority to decide what opinions are okay to hold and what aren't. The problem is, a) there is no dispassionate authority you can refer to when we're talking about political issues; everyone brings their own biases whether consciously or not, and b) people who already disagree will not cooperate with that authority voluntarily, and c) the authority has no actual power in a democratic polity anyway. You can't arrest the other side, you can't put them in camps, you can't fine them. All you can do is yell insults at them, and if they don't care what you think, you are effectively powerless -- and obviously powerless to anyone watching.

Your only option in a democratic society is to have faith in the truth, plainly and calmly and repeatedly and respectfully spoken. When the other side comes at you with illogical nonsense, don't get angry; look at it as an opportunity to educate the onlookers, an opportunity that the other side has generously given you. And take that opportunity as often as they foolishly provide it to you.

And yes, one can be cynical and believe that the truth doesn't always win out. But suppression of lies either ends up in the fascist state you're trying to prevent, or eventually collapses in on itself and creates an even worse reaction. In an open society, the fascists are a couple of losers in basements complaining to themselves while the world moves past them. In an increasingly closed society such as the one we live in now, they become the brave rebels fighting the Establishment. Don't let them be the brave rebels.

Thanks for the opportunity to express these thoughts.

Very well said. I think you're spot on that these folks aren't going to back down, but at least you can use the opportunity to explain the facts to other people who might be more willing o hear them. That's something we're missing during these discussions, we put a lot of emphasis on hearing both sides of the story, but not a lot on making sure everyone is aware of the facts, even if it hurts the rhetoric of one side of the argument. Fact checking during debates or roundtable discussions would go a long way towards rectifying that.

Thanks for the conversation, I do see your point and I agree. It's a no-win (or at least a only-partial-win) situation, but stating the facts and moving on is probably the most effective route, with the hope that the truth wins in the end.

They're just so damn annoying though!

One way to make those interactions less annoying is to, perhaps temporarily, put aside your goal of getting them to agree with you, and choose another more achievable goal. Here are a few you could try:

Have a cordial interaction with someone who sees things differently

Learn from this person about one of the things they are an expert on

Understand more deeply the pseudo-logic of their mindset and where it comes from

All of those goals are realistically achievable which should make them less frustrating than trying to win. And as a side benefit if you succeed at any of the above, you should be in a better position to bring them around should you go back to trying to do that.

You are conflating fact and opinion. Someone's opinion on Snowden isn't necessarily based on facts. You can be objectively wrong about a fact, but you can't be objective wrong about an opinion.

>You can't hold the simultaneous opinions that Snowden was a traitor who should be punished and that the NSA was wrong for conducting illegal wiretaps.

Sure I can. Snowden could have leaked one single document that would blow open the illegal meta data case--the FISA subpoena. Instead he leaked thousands upon thousands of pages about stuff that had nothing to do with illegal wiretapping. He leaked stuff that is the unambiguously legal.

A huge percent of what snowden leaked was stuff he just didn't personally agree with. And sorry, that's not good enough for me. The USA isn't run by Edward Snowden.

I don't think he's a traitor, but he is a leaker.

I believe opinions do have to be based on fact. That's the difference between opinion and faith. People have faith that God exists, even if they don't have proof. But opinions are really just your interpretation of the facts you're presented with. Opinions change as you get new facts, faith persists even in the face of facts. If you believe something even though fact says otherwise, that is not an opinion. It's faith.

And yeah, it's fine to believe that Snowden went too far while also believing the NSA went too far. But you specifically are not arguing against what I said. I said "you can't believe Snowden is a traitor...", you said "yes I can", and then went on to say "but I don't think he's a traitor". So... anyway.

It's more than just interpreting facts. People make value judgements too. A lot of the pro Snowden support is based on a belief that transparency is a good thing. That isn't a universal truth. Reasonable people can disagree.

Okay, you're right. Opinions can be based on faith, as well. But anyone would be well within the realm of sanity to weight opinions based on faith lower than opinions based on fact.

"I base my opinion on X on the fact that my religion says X is right/wrong, I base that religion on faith" doesn't mean the opinion is based on fact. You've got me on that one.

If you only base your opinions on facts, you can't really have opinions about very many things. Very mundane details of historical events. Narrowly defined conclusions of studies which are almost never actually specifically applicable to any situation at hand. If you believe science reporting headlines you might think you are basing your opinions on facts, but if you actually read the papers you realize how little science can actually say.

Very few of the principles that basically everyone relies on to make value judgements are based on actual research. Most people who purport to base their opinions solely on scientific research are saying that because they have some small number of sample opinions that contradict commonly held opinions and which are based on facts. They then generalize to "all my beliefs are based on facts" even though basically none of these people actually audit their beliefs in any systematic way. The subjective experience of being an outspoken proponent of a factual analysis leads to the false generalization of that story into all aspects of their life.

But in fact we make thousands of judgements every day, the vast majority of which are based on a few casual observations, or our internal model of the universe, which, while based on facts, is not a reliable witness, nor is it a scientifically valid source of data.

But there's a difference between "scientific proof" and "fact". Science has never proven that Old Spice is the best scent, but the fact is that's what I wear and my wife likes the way I smell. It is my opinion that Old Spice is the best based on the fact that my wife likes it.

Fact doesn't have to be based on research or science, all it means is "the truth". It is a fact that I have a dog sitting on my couch. I don't need actual research to back that up, it's just a fact. It is not a fact that my friend, who died a few years ago, is also sitting on the couch beside me. That's just a belief, based on faith. There has been zero scientific research into either of these claims, but one is undeniable fact and the other is not. It doesn't matter if you don't believe that I have a dog. Your lack of belief doesn't make it less true.

I honestly don't even remember what we're actually talking about, and at this point I'm pretty sure I don't care anymore. Sorry.

> It is my opinion that Old Spice is the best based on the fact that my wife likes it.

That's not a rational conclusion. Why make a baseless comparative judgement like "it's the best" when you can make a qualitative judgement, like "it's good" or "my wife likes it".

That's my point. You think you're scientifically minded, but you have opinions like "Old Spice is the best" that aren't based on facts at all.

> It is a fact that I have a dog sitting on my couch.

This falls into the category of "mundane historical events" I mentioned above.

> I honestly don't even remember what we're actually talking about, and at this point I'm pretty sure I don't care anymore. Sorry.

My guess is you don't have any rational disagreement with what I said, so you just started saying random things about hypothetical situations and you bored yourself.

Snowden has only leaked information to the press, so they could determine what is newsworthy and relevant to the American people.

Newsworthy isn't the standard for whistleblowing. If it was they'd let journalists do research on classified documents.

Weak-minded people don't read opposing views to change their minds. They read opposing views exactly to pick them them apart, reject them, and reinforce their own.

If the opposite view is truly held by the weak-minded, then there is way more value in further ostracizing them than providing a case to and trying to reason with them.

That wasn't really my point, though I can see how I may have been unclear/provocative.

In any case, I think the article we're commenting upon makes the case better than I could. Opinions to to the contrary (from what I've seen) tout the damage (unquantified and unqualified) that was done to the intelligence community and gloss over the obvious wrongdoing on the part of the government. Further, I have yet to see a single article that both condemns Snowden while directly arguing against his moral case for whistleblowing.

But again, none of this was my point. My point is rather that I see no reason why such an opinion should invalidate or detract from a movie/article/whatever.

I interpreted the parent comment as saying "if you accuse anyone of intellectual laziness, that detracts from your work". I find this view problematic, especially when there's ample evidence of intellectual laziness: condemnation without addressing a well-argued moral case.