I post on /pol/ without agreeing with most of their views. You're unlikely to immediately convince anyone of a diametrically opposed point of view at any given time. But you can bring nuance to a very one-sided, memed and stereotyped "discussion".

For example there is a large overlap between pro-fossil fuel and nationalist attitudes. It is fairly easy to get some concessions about renewables from them once you point out that renewables mean energy-independence and not giving money to the middle east.

If you have no scruples of adopting their arguments for the sake or arguing you can also make your argument explicitly anti-jewish by pointing out that israel would be a far less important strategically if the US did not depend on oil as much. It seems like people have trouble applying logic of this kind because they fear being seen endorsing the arguments that they use but in the end it's just a form of playing devil's advocate.

If you have a thread where the general tone is that all blacks should be killed then maybe an admission that this would not be a smart move and better solutions can be found is already progress. Small progress, but still important, nudging things in a better direction bit by bit. And yes, board culture does change over time, imperceptibly to most, but it does change.

So patient, persistent effort might yield a small shift in the attitudes of some in the audience.

At what cost in those who see the basic terms of debate validated by engagement? When you're arguing that only some black people should be killed instead of all of them, what harm are you doing by legitimizing the basic question of whether blacks should be killed?

You are assuming that there is a question to legitimize. If you have someone convinced of the issue then there is no question. By engaging in discussion you are simplying providing an alternative view point. You don't have to present yourself as opponent, you can present yourself as member of the ingroup with a slightly more moderate position that might also be more palatable to the public. There are many strategies. It is also important to realize that there are many passive readers of such discussions. I recall moot (rip) saying something along the lines that there is a 1:10 ratio of posters to lurkers. So by presenting a more moderate position you're also showing people who might not like the left that there are alternatives to the most radical voices.

In the past, even in many brutal wars, belligerents generally recognized the need for parley. This is not even a war, it is a disagreement about social norms and laws. If villainize the other side to the extent where it would be immoral to even speak to them you're only fueling the polarization instead of creating a continuum. Look at europe. The extreme right exist too, but between the left and the right there are many different currents represented in parties, which lowers the activation potential for people gradually switch camps.

> you can also make your argument explicitly anti-jewish by pointing out that israel would be a far less important strategically if the US did not depend on oil as much

Wait a sec, can you explain how this is anti-jewish? As a person of Jewish ethnicity who does not support many actions of the Israeli government, I fail to see how this makes the argument anti-Jewish. I do concede that it might make it more appealing to those with anti-semitic sentiments.

> I do concede that it might make it more appealing to those with anti-semitic sentiments.

That is what I meant to say.

That said, both /pol/ and the israeli government tend¹ to lump anti-zionism and anti-semitism together. In the former case due to the purported¹ global jewish conspiracy, in the latter case because it makes a cheap knockout argument against anyone questioning their treatment of palestine.

So I phrased it through that lens.

¹ do I really have to pepper those qualifier words everywhere?

> You genuinely think the type of people who subscribe to subreddits like coontown and fatpeoplehate are going to have their mind changed by people on the internet?

Yes, because I've personally met such people.

> I've had no success changing the minds of people who think that being trans is a mental illness despite citing numerous peer reviewed articles. Maybe I'm going about it wrong, but I'm not sure it gets more clear than pointing to a bunch of scientists that directly contradict their understanding.

Changing minds takes a lot of empathy and skill (and usually time) to pull off consistently in person, much less online; I'm not surprised that a strategy of throwing scientific articles in people's faces (which they will probably never read) would be unsuccessful. Regardless, even if you are successful, you will probably never know unless you have a long term relationship with the individual.

I also have direct experience with the opposite: an older friend (late 50s), socially isolated, who over the last year or two has self-radicalized into a hardcore Muslim hater.

A few years ago he was just a plain ol' gentle soul, and he liked to watch those militant atheist videos on Youtube (I have no opinion about such). I guess one of them had some sort of anti-Islam recommended video that caught his eye, because I remember the day we went out for lunch and he told me about a video he watched about Islam.

I have quite a few Muslim friends so I spent some time gently dissecting what he was saying. None of what I said stuck. Over the following year, he got deep into the rabbit hole, until how awful Muslims are is all he'd talk about.

I had to end the friendship, despite my efforts to talk him out of that, because that garbage had literally become the entirety of what he was into/wanted to chat about. (Objectionable and boring, hah.)

The jump from militant atheists to Islamaphobes is not a big one. A lot of New Atheists, including very prominent ones like Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, have a tendency to single out Islam as particularly worth hating.

It was never about changing opinions. It's about

- making a statement to new users and new forums about what is acceptable and what isn't. Some times it's warranted to take some action even if only symbolic.

- making it inconvenient to be an ass. People are lazy and habitual. With luck, their preferred forum for hate disappearing mess they pick up knitting instead of looking for another forum (in the same way that preventing crime in one area doesn't move it but actually reduces overall crime.)

Off-topic:

Recently the desire to have your genitalia cut off in order to pass as a member of the opposite sex was considered a form of body dysphoria. Can you point at the scientific breakthrough that changed that? I've been under the assumption it was a social change.

In some cultures, eg areas of India, the concept of a third sex has been well established, those in such communities often find transsexualism to be strange yet accept the idea loosely described by eg "male body female mind".

So, I'd be interested in that pointer, that shows acting out genital removal is not "aberrant". Does the research also show it's not mental illness to want to become deaf, an amputee, etc.?

Direct me to one of your previous discussions if you like.

Merely the act of providing a space that is "theirs" is an act of validation of those beliefs as legitimate topics of discussion.

> I've had no success changing the minds of people who think that being trans is a mental illness despite citing numerous peer reviewed articles.

It was considered so until 2013, when Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders dropped it as a mental illness: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-transgender... Not that I think this has any relevance: many things once considered mental disorders are now considered personal traits. The point is that it's not an outlandish thing to believe, just an outdated one.