How To Do Politics

when people are upset by politics they

either withdraw completely into a cave

of silence or double down engaging more

and more fiercely than ever because it's

easy to get angry when there's so much

at stake but that's exactly why you

shouldn't for this video we're going to

accept to your party politicians and

positions as the right ones which makes

those who disagree wrong and when

they're very obviously very ridiculously

wrong and even proud of it you have a

right to call them what they are

ignorant reckless even dishonest so you

tweet or joke or make a video about it

but here's the problem when was the last

time someone changed your mind after

calling you ignorant reckless or

dishonest and you might say of course it

doesn't change minds it's about standing

up for what's right but living in a

democracy it means their vote affects

you and everyone you know just as much

as yours so if taking a stand is that

important to you well nobody is stopping

you just know that it comes at the cost

of the very policies that you claim to

be taking a stand for a pacifist is

committed to non-violence but a true

believer accepts violence that prevents

greater atrocities that's not abandoning

the principle it's better defending it

because defending a principle means

nothing if doing so actually impedes its

progress and fulfilling your political

goals as best you can may look to an

observer like abandoning them either

people are completely impenetrable to

all persuasion and you need not waste a

single moment convincing them otherwise

that your best interest is to recruit

not to repel

your political wishlist is likely very

long but aim for everything and you'll

probably achieve nothing supporting many

issues may feel like shooting many

arrows increasing the odds that one will

succeed but those outside your party

don't search your brochure for common

ground they gravitate towards your most

extreme arguments no matter how

reasonable your other opinions are one

poorly communicated argument can swallow

them all even if only 5% of your wish

list it'll consume 95% of their

attention every time you talk about

issues a B and C they'll always return

to the more enraging issue D and that's

if you're lucky more likely the media

will take your argument distort and

exaggerate it and watch it spread from

water cooler to water cooler for many

this will be their only exposure to your

arguments and how they know your party

why would I listen to you you're the one

that said that crazy thing never mind

that you never actually said that you'll

know you found your party's issue D when

the opposition spends all their time

talking about it yet it's only a tiny

fraction of your argument and maybe it

really is worth fighting for but it

prevents you from making real progress

anywhere else so you don't need to throw

out all your controversial opinions but

pick and choose which ones you shout so

you don't strike out

for every political issue you should

start anew do the research explore each

side and make a verdict but no one has

time for that thinking through each

issue independently is just not

cost-effective much easier to form a few

key beliefs early in life and use them

as rulers by which all else is measured

taking a position that no longer

requires days of research but a quick

glance at your ruler and as one leads to

another which leads to another and so on

the cost of changing your mind increases

exponentially why are people so

resistant to change opinions on even the

most unimportant topics because doing so

would also require throwing away years

of underlying opinions so the question

is never which is better dogs or cats

but why dogs are better than cats but if

someone is so stubborn they'll follow a

core belief any where it leads them find

a way to justify your policy with their

belief and they'll have no choice but to

follow that's the beauty of their

stubbornness if you're trying to

convince a liberal sprinkle in words

like equality and fairness and for a

conservative pride and duty to prove the

power of words there are places like

change my view where you can go explain

your opinion click Submit and wait for

others to persuade you otherwise if

someone is successful you award them a

delta which to a researcher studying

persuasion is gold because you can take

all these conversations plug them into

some fancy algorithms and see what good

arguments have in common

like for example using less extreme

language effective replies hedge their

arguments with words like perhaps or

it's possible and if you don't convince

someone after four replies you probably

never will in other words the clock is

ticking

as effective as these strategies are

there is an asterisk no matter how far

you push the political boulder forward

it will always eventually fall back down

because behind every bad law and

politician is a bad system that produced

it politicians can be removed and laws

can be retracted but these are band-aids

and pretty bad ones their replacements

will only be more deceptive versions of

the same that's the nature of politics

public anger doesn't make politicians

rethink their values only how carefully

to hide them focusing on individuals is

a recipe for eternal frustration the

only real solution is to change systems

if politics feels like a constant fire

in need of attention the solution is to

figure out what's so flammable whether

that be who can vote how elections are

run or where districts are drawn of

course if all this sounds like too much

work you can always just yell on Twitter

but you may just be campaigning for the

opposition if you enjoyed the section on

how words affect persuasion I think

you'd like a book called the stuff of

thought by Steven Pinker it's about the

interesting things language can tell us

about people and the way we think but as

much as I enjoyed the book it's a pretty

big time commitment that's why I

recommend an app called Glinka

it takes the key insights of thousands

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the stuff of thought is 524 pages but

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blink Escom slash poly matter AFF or

just click the link in the description

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subscription doing either one will

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to everyone who signs up

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