Does argument entrench or shift perspective?

[Jon]

Interesting thought. I was watching an argument between a Left and Right wing person today on YouTube. The more they argued, the more entrenched their positions became. If that is the general rule, then argumentation is futile. So you can then try agreeing. But that doesn't get you anywhere either, as you have effectively collapsed.

That leads me to the conclusion that we are all stuck with polarised beliefs that we cannot do anything about!

Am I right or am I wrong?

[Edit: If you say I am wrong, I won't believe you anyway since I will entrench my position. Those are the rules!]

 

[The_Doc_Man]

If we are talking about a knock-down, drag-out argument then it is already too late. A logical, reasoned argument works where there is doubt on either side, but once it becomes intense enough, the entrenchment has already occurred before you got to the argument.

Look, for example, at the "global-warming" crowd vs. doubters. Look at any two sets of fundamentalist worshipers of any two arbitrary religions or any religion and atheism. Look at the Coke vs. Pepsi crowd. Hell, pick ANY dichotomy you wish.

I submit for your consideration that the two people arguing on You Tube did not become more entrenched. Instead, the argument merely exposed deeper and deeper layers of just how entrenched they had already become.

 

[Jon]

The thing that particularly struck me was one of the arguers, who was particularly hostile (and offended!), seemed to take the position of opposing ANYTHING the other person said, even if they were caught initially agreeing. So for me, this is an example of not so much long established entrenchment, but rather not wanting to appear to agree to anything the other person said. They changed tack once they realised they were on the same page as the target of their hostility.

It reminds me of two examples from American politics...

"Build the wall", something considered so horrible by the left...Well, Hillary suggests you need physical barriers to secure immigration. I have also seen a YouTube video where she says, "Build a wall." So building a wall is not an entrenched position. Instead, it is a political position that disregards the needs of the country just so they can oppose anything Trump says.

Next, the Democrats want to suggest the term, "Let's make America great again" is racist and a sign of what is wrong with Trump. Here is Bill Clinton's take on it... In this short video, you can see two clips of him talking, separated by time, where he accuses Trump of being racist for the phrase, yet he said it himself! So, the "entrenched" position is rather more flexible than people would have you believe.

Naturally, there are also deep rooted entrenched positions too, that you will never shift. Take the futility of the individual vote.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Individual votes contribute, just not obviously very much. But the pressure that powers a steam engine is the contribution of quadrillions of atoms (or more, depending the displacement of the cylinders.) Your vote contributes to the political pressure that presses someone into or out of office.

 

[Jon]

Yes, while one atom contributes undetectable pressure.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

And yet if you take away enough atoms you have no pressure at all.

 

[Bee]

I've been thinking about this - and it just adds weight to your argument about voting, Jon. One vote cannot and will not influence the outcome, so it is logical to say your vote doesn't count.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Let's take a different tack here. It is the ultimate in hubris to say that your vote counts individually. However, there is the matter that in the aggregate, the direction of that aggregate is determined by its members (components?) and thus, removing enough components will redirect the aggregate.

 

[Bee]

I think that's what Jon has been saying all along?

 

[Jon]

I have never said that voting is not a good system. Nearly everybody misrepresents my arguments here, and I believe I stated this in my voting thread near the beginning. My argument always revolves around the rationality of the individuals decision-making: should I vote or not?

And yet if you take away enough atoms you have no pressure at all.

This is where that analogy breaks down. Because if nobody was voting, I would vote because my vote would then carry 100% weight. However, with the analogy, just one atom of pressure still remains undetectable, unlike me being the only voter, which is comprehensively detectable. In this instance, one is analog, the other is digital.

Question: So far, is this argument proving or disproving my original thread premise?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

We see this differently. Just as pressure is the sum of the individual atomic collisions by all gaseous atoms in a container, so an election result is the sum of the votes putting pressure towards or away from a given candidate. To remove atoms from the container reduces the pressure inside the container just as removing a vote reduces the pressure with respect to the candidates. Just because something is invisible doesn't meant it is unimportant.

Now, I remember an idea from National Lampoon magazine that maybe even Jon would vote for. When we next have an election to fill a particular office, we should put a specific choice on the ballot "None of the above." If the "none of the above" choice wins, the office becomes vacant and nobody can make new policy until the next election. The office runs purely on bureaucracy.

 

[Jon]

Just because something is invisible doesn't meant it is unimportant.

I agree with that statement. And I am not talking just about dark matter. I think probably most important things are under-the-surface. For example, the invisible forces of a religious entity, altering cause and effect, or introducing a new type of cause and effect. Probably most psychological influencers are subconscious, where intuition may trump conscious thought.

Interesting concept having a "None of the above." I might then be difficult and argue I do in fact vote by not turning up! But that is a clever option (for pro voters), where if someone doesn't turn up they have in fact voted for the default position.

Regarding my dark matter comment, that came up because I saw something on YouTube last night about the mysterious "Bootes void", a strange region in space with very few stars. It is enormous in size and is puzzling scientists. We live in interesting times...

https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/a0dhmc
Could it be an example of intelligent life creating self-replicating nanobots, where one mutates and runs out of control, turning everything into a grey goo? I imagine this scenario could happen just like a malignancy in organic life forms.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I might then be difficult and argue I do in fact vote by not turning up!

Oh, no, I won't let you off the hook THAT easily. To get "none of the above" you would have to actively vote for it.

 

[Bee]

Last Thursday, I worked an 18 hour day for our local elections as a polling clerk - the person who checks you are eligible to vote and who hands out the ballot paper. There was a discussion on a local noticeboard after the elections about who had spoilt their voting slips in protest. But this is the thing, all papers in the ballot box are counted to make sure the number of papers tallies with the number of papers issued, and (here's the important bit) spoilt papers are removed from the ballot.

That's important for 2 reasons:

1. Spoiling your vote has the same effect as not voting as your slip is removed. There is no-one looking at the spoilt papers and thinking, "Hmmm. Someone is upset about something". There is no-one looking at spoilt papers to analyse trends so they can put a whizzy action plan together. Spoilt papers are binned.

2. Removing spoilt papers has the opposite effect to the one Doc has quoted:

To remove atoms from the container reduces the pressure inside the container just as removing a vote reduces the pressure with respect to the candidates.

In this case, it actually increases pressure on the remaining votes.

 

[Jon]

I don't really understand why people spoil votes. Maybe it makes them feel good and ultimately we are selfish creatures. We can backward rationalise anything. Much debate over whether altruism is really just pay-it-forward in disguise.

However, we live in a democracy and people died to give others the right to spoil their vote. Let them spoil!

 

[Bee]

Absolutely - spoil away. But be aware it's possibly the most futile thing you can do in relation to voting. Apart from voting, of course.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

My analogy wasn't perfect. A good politician (meaning one who really cares about his constituency) would recognize that the proportion of damaged ballots would be an important statistic and would try to figure out what it was all about. On the other hand, that is about a different question, and the correct statement is that if you remove votes, the total pressure goes down just like it does for removing gas molecules. The thing that goes up is relative partial pressure. (Yes, in gas analysis, that IS a thing you can find.) The INFLUENCE or EFFECT of the remaining individual components (voters or gas molecules) goes up relative to the number of removed components vs. the total. And, if the area with spoiled ballots is "rolled up" in a national election, then the analogy holds because the partial pressure of the local results becomes less with respect to the total.

Matter of viewpoint, of course.

 

[Bee]

And also a matter of different voting systems. The UK is vastly different to the US.

 

[Jon]

Yes, and we vote along Brexit lines over this side of the pond.

 

[Bee]

Yes, and we vote along Brexit lines over this side of the pond.

Do we? Can you expand?