How to Convince People

And we've all felt that frustration of not being able to convince someone of the point we're making, even when that point is backed up by facts, respaldado, backed up by facts. So the other day I came across, I mean Gondrecon, I came across this article titled Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds by author James Clear, who I'm sure you're familiar with because he wrote Atomic Habits, which has sold over 15 million copies around the world.

So let's read through it together, learn about why facts don't change our minds, and of course, let's add some new vocabulary words to your ever-growing arsenal. Oh, by the way, I'm putting these episodes out on YouTube to on my YouTube channel. It's still just audio, so you won't see me, but I added the transcript to the YouTube video so you can read while you listen. So if you prefer that, go to English with Dane on YouTube and play the episode there. Okay, now that my mask seed.

So let's do this. You are listening to episode 17 of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. There's the music, so you know we have officially started the show. So let's read this article together. If you go to the description of the episode, you'll find a link to the article on James Clear's website, and you'll also find the transcript for this episode so you can follow along without missing a single word I say.

I highly recommend that you read while you listen because you'll retain much, much more information. Alright, let's do this again. The article is called Why Facts Don't Change Our Mind by James Clear. The economist J.K. Galbreth once wrote, Faced with a choice between changing one's mind and proving, demonstrando, and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy with the proof. Leo Tolstoy was even bolder, masvaliente, even bolder.

He wrote, The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man, como tonto, slow-witted man, if he has not formed any idea of them already, but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded, convencido, if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, without the shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him. What's going on here? Why don't facts change our minds?

And why would someone continue to believe a false or inaccurate idea anyway? How do such behaviors serve us? This part is called the logic of false beliefs. Humans need a reasonably accurate view of the world in order to survive. If your model of reality is wildly different from the actual world, then you struggle to take effective actions each day. However, truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter to the human mind.

Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong, pertenecer, to belong. In Atomic Habits, I wrote, quote, humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers, nuestros compañeros, of our peers. Such inclinations are essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes. Becoming separated from the tribe, or worse, being cast out, was a death sentence.

Understanding the truth of a situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe. While these two desires often work well together, they occasionally come into conflict. In many circumstances, social connection is actually more helpful to your daily life than understanding the truth of a particular fact or idea. The Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker puts it this way: quote, People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs.

So one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples rather than the beliefs that are most likely to be true. We don't always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about. I thought Kevin Simler put it well, he put it well when he wrote.

Whether it's pragmatic, so better outcomes resulting from better decisions, social, better treatment from one's peers, or some mix of the two. False beliefs can be useful in a social sense, even if they are not useful in a factual sense. For lack of a better phrase, we might call this approach factually false but socially accurate. When we have to choose between the two, people often select friends and family over facts.

This insight not only explains why we might hold our tongue at a dinner party or look the other way when our parents say something offensive, but also reveals a better way to change the minds of others. This next part is called facts don't change our minds, friendship does. Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties.

You can't expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome. The way to change people's minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially.

The British philosopher Alan de Botton suggests that we simply share meals with those who disagree with us. Quote, Sitting down at a table with a group of strangers has the incomparable and odd benefit of making it a little more difficult to hate them with impunity. Prejudice and ethnic strife feed off abstraction.

However, the proximity required by a meal, something about handing dishes around, unfurling napkins at the same moment, even asking a stranger to pass the salt, disrupts our ability to cling to the beliefs that the outsiders who wear unusual clothes and speak in distinctive accents deserve to be sent home or assaulted.

For all the large-scale political solutions that have been proposed to solve ethnic conflict, there are few more effective, bocas más efectivas, there are few more effective ways to promote tolerance between suspicious neighbors than to force them to eat supper together. Perhaps it is not difference, but distance that breeds tribalism and hostility. As proximity increases, so does understanding. I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln's quote, I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.

Facts don't change our minds, friendship does. This next bit is called the Spectrum of Beliefs. Years ago, Ben Casnocha mentioned an idea to me that I haven't been able to shake. The people who are most likely to change our minds are the ones we agree with on 98% of topics. If someone you know, like, and trust believes a radical idea, you are more likely to give it merit, weight, or consideration. You already agree with them in most areas of life.

Maybe you should change your mind on this one thing too. But if someone wildly different than you proposes the same radical idea, well, it's easy to dismiss them as a crackpot. One way to visualize this distinction is by mapping beliefs on a spectrum. If you divide this spectrum into 10 units and you find yourself at position seven, so seven out of ten, then there is little sense in trying to convince someone at position one. The gap is too wide.

When you're at position seven, your time is better spent connecting with people who are at position six and eight and gradually pulling them in to your direction. The most heated arguments, the most heated arguments often occur between people on opposite ends of the spectrum, but the most frequent learning occurs from people who are nearby. When it comes to changing people's minds, it's very difficult to jump from one side to another. You can't jump down the spectrum, you have to slide down it.

Any idea that is sufficiently different from your current worldview will feel threatening. And the best place to ponder or think about a threatening idea is a non-threatening environment. As a result, books are often a better vehicle for transforming beliefs than conversations or debates. Which is why, this is this is me, not the article, which is why when a government starts banning or prohibiting books or famously burning them, we consider it a sign of troubling times. Back to the article.

In conversation, people have to carefully consider their status and appearance. They want to save face, get out of the end, they want to save face and avoid looking stupid. When confronted with an uncomfortable set of facts, the tendency is to often double down on their current position rather than publicly admit to being wrong. Books resolve this tension. With a book, the conversation takes place inside someone's head and without the risk of being judged by others.

It's easier to be open-minded when you aren't feeling defensive. Arguments are like a full frontal attack on a person's identity. Reading a book is like slipping the seed of an idea into a person's brain and letting it grow on their own terms. There's enough wrestling going on in someone's head when they are overcoming a pre-existing belief. They don't need to wrestle with you too. This next part reads Why false ideas persist.

There is another reason bad ideas continue to live on, which is that people continue to talk about them. Silence is death for any idea. An idea that is never spoken or written down dies with the person who conceived it, que la concibió, with the person who conceived it. Ideas can only be remembered when they are repeated. They can only be believed when they are repeated. I have already pointed out that people repeat ideas to signal that they are part of the same social group.

But here's a crucial point that most people miss. People also repeat bad ideas when they complain about them. Before you can criticize an idea, you have to reference that idea. You end up repeating the ideas you're hoping people will forget, but of course, people can't forget them because you keep talking about them. The more you repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it. Let's call this phenomenon Clear's Law of Recurrence.

The number of people who believe an idea is directly proportional to the number of times it has been repeated during the last year, even if the idea is false. Each time you attack a bad idea, you are feeding the very monster you are trying to destroy. As one Twitter employee wrote, every time you retweet or quote-tweet someone you're angry with, it helps them. It disseminates their bullshit. Hell for the ideas you deplore is silence. Have the discipline to give it to them.

Your time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones. Don't waste time explaining why bad ideas are bad. You are simply fanning the flame of ignorance and stupidity. To fan the flame. So don't waste time explaining why bad ideas are bad. You're simply fanning the flame. The best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it is forgotten. The best thing that can happen to a good idea is that it is shared.

It makes me think of Tyler Cowan's quote: spend as little time as possible talking about how other people are wrong. This next part is called the Intellectual Soldier. I know what you might be thinking, James, are you serious right now? I'm just supposed to let these idiots get away with this? Let me be clear. I'm not saying it's never useful to point out an error or criticize a bad idea. But you have to ask yourself, what is the goal? Why do you want to criticize bad ideas in the first place?

Presumably, you want to criticize bad ideas because you think the world would be better off if fewer people believed them. In other words, you think the world would improve if people changed their minds on a few important topics. If the goal is actually to change minds, then I don't believe criticizing the other side is the best approach. Most people argue to win, not to learn.

As Julia Gayleft so aptly puts it, lo explica, as she so aptly puts it, people often act like soldiers rather than scouts. Soldiers are on the intellectual attack looking to defeat the people who differ from them. Victory is the operative emotion. Scouts, meanwhile, are like intellectual explorers, slowly trying to map the terrain with others. Curiosity is the driving force. If you want people to adopt your beliefs, you need to act more like a scout and less like a soldier.

At the center of this approach is a question Thiagoforte poses beautifully. Are you willing not to win? Are you willing to not win in order to keep the conversation going? This last part is called Be Kind First, Be Right Later. The brilliant Japanese writer Haruki Murakami once wrote, Always remember that to argue and win is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality. So be kind even if you are right.

When we are in the moment, we can easily forget that the goal is to connect with the other side, collaborate with them, befriend them, and integrate them into our tribe. The word kind originated from the word kin. When you are kind to someone, it means you are treating them like family. This, I think, is a good method for actually changing someone's mind. Develop a friendship, share a meal, gift a book. That was a good read. I think I fully agree with what he's saying.

Throughout my life, a lo largo de mi vida, throughout my life, I've engaged in tons of debates with friends about religion, politics, etc., as we all have. And I don't think I've ever been able to change someone's mind on something when I attack their position. In fact, it usually has the opposite effect, right? Like he mentioned in the article. They double down and get more entrenched in their view.

To double down, right, to commit even more strongly to an idea, decision, or action, especially if it's risky or controversial, to double down. When someone attacks a belief you hold deeply, it does feel like they're attacking who you are and not the belief. I think questions work best. You ask them why they believe certain things and why they think their side is right, and you just listen and ask tough questions, listen again, and move on.

Those questions will then reappear in their minds throughout the next weeks, months, years, whatever, and it's more likely that they'll change their minds from within. It sounds a bit dark and manipulative, but I honestly think it's the way to go. You can't tell someone your religion is silly without insulting their whole family, community, and tribe. That will get you nowhere. If you're trying to win the argument, you'll most likely miss the point.

It's about testing our ideas and our views to see if they hold up under scrutiny. I also wanted to say one last thing before we get to the vocabulary check. I do think it's important to go through the exercise of separating yourself from your ideas and just viewing them as these things that you think or believe for now until you are presented with a more compelling one that fits your worldview more accurately. Changing your mind isn't a sign of weakness. I think it's the opposite.

It's a sign of intelligence and understanding. If you are presented with better information or with more nuanced views, I think you should entertain them and see where they go. Let me finish by giving you some quotes about critical thinking from people that are way, way smarter than me. Aristotle said, It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. JFK said, Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

And I think it's especially true in today's age of seeing an Instagram post and forming an unbreakable opinion that you defend blindly. And last but not least, this quote from André Gide, who was a French writer, philosopher, and Nobel Prize winner in literature. He said, Believe those who are seeking the truth, doubt those who find it. Alright, quick vocab check before we finish up. There were some interesting words and phrases in this piece. First up, let's go with strife. S-T-R-I-F-E. Strife.

Strife means bitter conflict, struggle, or disagreement, bitter as in amarago, bitter. So serious tension and or fighting. The context was sitting down at a table with a group of strangers has the incomparable and odd benefit of making it a little more difficult to hate them with impunity. Prejudice and ethnic strife feed off abstraction. Next up we have an interesting verb that you might have not heard before, to unfurl. UNF URL.

To unfurl means to unroll, to open up or to spread out something that was folded or rolled, and Rollado rolled like a flag, a sail, una vela, or a scroll, un pergamino. The context was again about eating at the same table as someone, unfurling napkins at the same moment, even asking a stranger to pass the salt, to unfurl. Then we have a verb that you've definitely heard, but maybe haven't used in this context. The verb is to slip. In this case, it doesn't mean resbalat, right? To slip.

It means to pass someone something, darle alguali yin, or to give someone something in a casual, like discreet, maybe. Secret way. The context was reading a book is like slipping the seed, la semilla, of an idea into a person's brain and letting it grow on their own terms. You could also say something like, He slipped the host a twenty, so he sat us right away, so he discreetly gave the host a twenty dollars and he found us a table.

The host is the person who greets you, que te da la bienvenida o te recibe, when you come into a restaurant and finds you a table. You could say, just slip him a twenty. Slip him a twenty. This next one I really like. To champion. Yes, it's a verb to champion as in campion. If you champion something like an idea, you are a big supporter. You are a big supporter or defender of it. You stand for that idea and you help push it forward.

The context was your time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones. Maybe you champion women's rights, maybe you champion a new policy at work, maybe you champion free speech, etc. And last but not least, because this episode is getting a bit lengthy, to bleed over, bleed as in Sangrar. If something bleeds over into something else, it means that it starts to affect that thing, usually in a way that is unintentional and often messy.

The context was the closer you are to someone, the more likely it becomes that one or two beliefs you don't share will bleed over into your own mind and shape your thinking. So you can also say something like, his work stress is starting to bleed over into his personal life. Okay, una más, así rapidita. Crackpot. Todo junto. Crackpot is a slang term for someone who was like a bit crazy, a bit out of touch with reality, someone unrealistic and who often pushes wild theories or beliefs.

The context was, but if someone wildly different than you proposes the same radical idea, well it's easy to dismiss them as a crack pod. Alright, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, share it with someone who would also like it. That honestly is the best way to help English with Dane get to more people. I would really appreciate that. Let me know what you think of the show.

If you want to hear more about something, less about something, write to me at English with Dane on Instagram and TikTok or leave a comment on Spotify. And remember, I'm uploading season two to YouTube so people that don't have Spotify or other platforms can also listen. It's still just audio, but like I said, I did add the transcript to the video so you can follow along with just the YouTube video if that makes sense. All right, have a good week later.