How to win an argument with a toddler

https://seths.blog/2025/04/how-to-win-an-argument-with-a-toddler/

by herbertl • 1 year ago

728 509 1 year ago

I think this might be the first time I've ever seen a serious article reference Monty Python in a way that genuinely furthers the point.

htgb2• 1 year ago

I didn't get that reference. Thanks! Is it this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

reverendsteveii2• 1 year ago

Yep, specifically the part where they differentiate between an argument and abuse

somenameforme• 1 year ago

Nobody ever changes their opinion on things with anything remotely like a high degree of frequency, and that's not a particularly bad thing. The "real" point of an argument is not to persuade the other side (though that is what you aspire to nonetheless) but to exchange views, and often to indirectly explore your own views more deeply, at least in the scenario where your 'partner' can bring up something you weren't aware of.

Our views actually shifting is something that only happens over many years and often for reasons we aren't really in control of. Me of 10 years ago would vehemently disagree with me of today on many things, and there's probably pretty much no argument I could have engaged with him to persuade him of what I obviously think are 'more correct' views. It required, most of all, life experience that isn't going to be able to be communicated with words. If it were we'd all have the wisdom of a man who'd lived for millennia. And if not all of us, then at least somebody - but that somebody doesn't exist.

One who wants to debate while rejecting the real state of mankind is oft going to just find themselves in an echo chamber.

eitally• 1 year ago

This advice/wisdom should be included in every parenting guide!

jarbus2• 1 year ago

I've been trying to figure out how to talk to folks on the right, and I keep looking for something, anything, I can say to make them realize the danger we are in. Reading this comment was therapeutic, because I think it's completely on the money. We can't change people's minds in a single argument; we can just try and nudge them in the right direction and hope they join us eventually.

jvanderbot6• 1 year ago

One thing I've found helpful is to coax them to imagine dems in charge. You can't outright mention dems in charge, because they will (mostly correctly) point out that dems _have_ been in charge of our institutions for a long time.

You have to understand their position: They don't feel in danger. They feel in power - the opposite of danger. Asking them to perceive danger is asking them to give up their feeling of power - tantamount to admitting everything they voted for is void.

But the path I found was to tease out that expansion of powers are permanent, making any changes from expansion of powers temporary. And we don't want temporary positive changes, do we? With all this legislative power, couldn't we just, you know, pass laws?

I've also come to accept that we should (for the sake of progress past issues) just:

* build the border wall, but suddenly nobody seems interested - what gives?

* slash costs to balance the budget, but suddenly nobody seems interested, what gives?

etc

The problem with true discussion of these issues is that you find yourself mostly in agreement with each other's viewpoint (at least subject to their "axioms"), and have to mellow out a bit. You can't really stand still and say "Come over here" all the time.

otherme123• 1 year ago

Is this ironic? Because if this is serious, note that maybe you are the stubborn person here, the one that is wrong, the one that must be nudged to the right direction and join them eventually.

mattmaroon7• 1 year ago

Is it possible the danger you think we’re in isn’t real? And are you open to that?

I’m not really what you’d call “on the right” but my left-leaning friends seem convinced democracy is teetering and to me that seems to be mostly just propaganda.

whiddershins• 1 year ago

"i can't understand my son, he doesn't listen to a thing I say!"

-- Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

whatnow373732• 1 year ago

You are framing it as danger which preloads the discussion immensely. I find this is common in these situations. This already ends the talk before beginning it. Imagine starting negotiations with Putin with “How come you are such a waste of valuable oxygen?”

I am not “on the right”, but I do have the ability to entertain the idea my “opponent” is actually right and I am wrong. This can be a valuable exercise to get you in a more .. sympathetic frame of mind.

Let’s try to loosen you up. Let’s say we are actually not in danger and you and all the rest of you - excuse me, it’s for the exercise - “pearl clutchers” are actually ridiculously overreacting and misreading the situation. The world is dangerous right now and singing kumbaya is not going to cut it. Trump is weird and we all dislike him, but nothing you can offer will improve the situation.

Try to see that viewpoint. Try to feel it. Try to imagine a world where you are wrong and your “opponent” is actually right and you were “suppressing” them all that time and in your righteous might caused tremendous harm which resulted in this correction.

Next time enter the discussion with “These times are complex and there sure is a lot going on. Let’s talk because I’m confused!” instead of “I am right and why do you take so long to see that I am clearly knowledgable and you should definitely heed all my warnings (which with 98% probability come down to ‘you are basically stupid’)”

pmarreck7• 1 year ago

I have slipped to the right enough to be almost like a "translator" between leftwing and rightwing viewpoints. Put it this way, I can laugh at parodies of both of them...

I see some error patterns that both sides seem to uniquely make, for example. Just 1 for each side for the sake of brevity here: Rightwingers idolize success without acknowledging the systematic boosts (or pure luck) that have often assisted it, while leftwingers are not only disgusted by success but consider it heretical. Leftwingers constantly compare a situation to some unattainable ideal and are therefore constantly complaining about the current state of affairs without offering a realistic solution; rightwingers fail to acknowledge the very real injustices that a more purely authoritarian approach to things often causes (see: three-strikes laws).

Speaking as one who tests politically center, I believe that the danger is neither nonexistent nor is as high as you may believe. Note that there is some merit to the rightwing claim of "MSM bias"; harping on the same cherry-picked injustice stories for outrage clicks over and over again seems to be the last remaining successful news business model (and this should worry EVERYONE).

alabastervlog5• 1 year ago

I'm a long-time politics nerd and spend more time than most people digging into the right's "evidence" for various things they believe.

So much of it's simply made-up that any attempt to engage one of them is incredibly tedious, and it's the exact same bullshit every time you start talking to a new one. You'd need weeks, at least, of consistent and very-careful engagement to fix the fact-gap so you can even begin discussing actual issues. For each one of them.

It's like trying to talk politics with someone and they keep bringing up how the real problem is the lawless Rebel Alliance and we need to trust Emperor Palpatine to set things right, and after a while you figure out they aren't joking or just trying to get under your skin and sincerely believe we live in Star Wars, so now you can't even talk about actual issues in the real world until you manage to convince them that they do not live in Star Wars. You try to talk about crime & policing or whatever and they start talking about how we need to clear all the criminals out of the pirate moon Nar Shaddaa, and... what the fuck do you even do with that? It's disheartening.

[EDIT] Real world example: Local republican politician comes to my door while campaigning and is talking about how local crime (in our amazingly safe, rather rich small town) is WAY UP and out of control and that's why we need more money for the police. I have my strong suspicions based on practically every other time this claim has been made by a Republican, and also the fact that our town is conspicuously safe and rich, but I don't fact-check her on the spot and just let her finish the spiel and politely disengage, but that was like half of her message (the rest was, I shit you not, about trans athletes, JFC).

Of course the police department's own stats fail to back up any of what she was saying, when I check right after the conversation. I mean, obviously they do, there was no reason to expect otherwise, but I did check, because that's how I roll.

Without even digging into the other half of what she was presenting, half of her message right off the bat, half of what she chose to present as important, was over a completely made-up issue. Not real at all.

gowld3• 1 year ago

"You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themself into."

iinnPP2• 1 year ago

Given the downdittles: I mention two leaders at the end and am not referring to Trump for either.

As someone who loves to converse with either side, it's more often one side than the other that will listen to reason, and argue outside of logical fallacies.

I get vastly more violent threats/lame insults from one side.

I get an overwhelming amount of definition problems from one side. Which are easily solved using any dictionary (though this is becoming less true)

I get things like "True X, Y, Z or Proper X, Y, Z" overwhelmingly from one side.

And I get vastly more conspiracy theories not grounded in any reality from one side.

I know of many people from both sides that hold disgusting views such as: I want to do X,Y,Z but am mad if anyone else does this exact thing to me. Every one of these people do so on protected grounds (in Government) of one form or another.

Recently, I have noted people who scream at a leader and bootlick another while claiming each are of the other's style of governance. It's quite remarkable.

arminiusreturns• 1 year ago

As someone who has completely straddled both worlds (Arizona/Texas redneck raised, worked in woke VC/SV companies, with a social circle across the board):

I view it as planting seeds, and harvesting them later. Before that can be done though, a person generally has to understand how entrenched a person is in being a stenographer. I have found on both "sides", there are a certain amount of people that literally do no thinking for themselves at all, and only regurgitate. I've tried for years to work different angles on them, and those seeds mostly still lay dormant and un-sprouted...

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies... is a foolish idea. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.” - Carroll Quigley

dclowd9901• 1 year ago

I've found that putting arguments into simple, general terms tends to make people rethink their positions.

I had an argument with my dad a while back about single payer health care. A lot of people on the left might frame it like "don't you think everyone is entitled to access to health services?" But an idea like this is like nails on a chalkboard to my dad, who believes everything should be merit based, even access to health care.

Instead, phrasing it as "wouldn't you prefer it if we paid the same amount of money every month and when we go to the hospital we don't have to worry about any out of pocket costs?" This really nailed the point home to him. It's not about entitlements or whatever. It's about people not being destroyed financially by bad health. We skip over the feely stuff, we skip over the specifics of cost. We can both agree that this mechanism makes a lot of sense for most people, and the current system is rather arbitrary.

Anyway, he's still firmly a MAGA trumper but I do think on the aspect of health care, he does see single payer as a viable alternative.

pmarreck7• 1 year ago

I don't completely agree. (I know... How meta.)

I have worked to be as rational as I will personally tolerate, and it has been difficult, but I've achieved some success. The key is to divorce your identity from your beliefs about the world, and to realize that the opposite of never admitting you're wrong is "always being right", which is of course impossible, so if you are TRULY interested in becoming MORE right, then the only reasonable option is that you must sometimes lose arguments (and admit it to both of you).

Are most people interested in doing this? No, and in that sense you have a point. But it's available to everyone, and who wouldn't want to be more right?

The other difficult thing to do is to aim this at yourself with full candor and work through that. Interestingly, now that ChatGPT has access to all the conversations you've had with it, and assuming you've opened up to it a bit, you can ask it: "You know me pretty well. Please point out my personal hypocrisies." If you want to make it more fun, you can add "... as Dennis Leary/Bill Burr" etc. What it said when I tried this was fascinating and insightful. But also difficult to read...

nluken• 1 year ago

divorce your identity from your beliefs about the world

I understand not totally subjugating your personal identity to ideology, but I'm struggling to see how someone could practically completely separate these two things. To use a somewhat trite but personal example, I'm gay, so that aspect of my identity will necessarily affect my perspective on certain issues. Conversely if someone were to convince me rationally that homosexuality was wrong, it would necessitate a pretty dramatic change of my identity no?

Not every issue exists on that clear a spectrum, but you can imagine the views necessitated by different pieces of personal identity adding up over a lifetime.

Etheryte2• 1 year ago

Out of curiosity, why do you think being as rational as you possibly can is a goal in and of itself. Mark Manson has a whole bit on this, in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck if I recall correctly, that lobotomized people would fit that description pretty well, purely rational. Except it turns out that once you take the emotional side out of the person, what's left is merely a hull that doesn't care about anything, because rationally, why would you. I don't think being more right is a noble goal. We all know the type, people who pick at every little thing to be technically right, but mostly they're just asshats who miss the forest for the trees.

olau• 1 year ago

One thing that helped me was reading a book on good political discourse. It basically said what the GP said, that good discourse is about exploring the world. It also pointed out that vilification in its many forms is counterproductive. It undermines trust.

One of the examples used was of a party that I did not agree with - that most people didn't agree with. You'd see mainstream politicians declaring them to be bad people.

But the book pointed out that before this party existed, nobody was representing the people who were now voting for it. If you believe in democracy, how can you be disrespectful of representation?

Suppressing my value judgement also later helped me see that when the party got into a coalition and managed to get some of their politics put into law, some of those laws actually did help the rest of us, because they addressed issues that the other parties were not willing to address.

meany• 1 year ago

One thing I think that can help in this is trying your identity to being someone who strives to be as open minded and introspective as possible. You can turn changing your mind into a psychological reward, rather than an ego loss.

timcobb• 1 year ago

Nobody ever

apwell23• 1 year ago

The "real" point of an argument is not to persuade the other side (though that is what you aspire to nonetheless) but to exchange views

to me real point is just entertainment

geye12343• 1 year ago

It takes time to have a serious debate. You both need to figure out what your unstated premises are. If you disagree on these, you won't get anywhere by arguing downstream of them. Politics is even worse, because you are supposed to have an opinion, but at the same time, most matters require a detailed understanding of the facts that few people have the time, brains or inclination to understand. Add the tribalism and this gets even worse. It's incredibly rare to find someone whose general political opinions are well thought-through. Mine certainly aren't. I could regurgitate the argument for the free market or for heavy gov control of the economy, for example, and even understand them as internally-consistent syllogisms, but really all I'm doing is linking concepts together in my mind; I doubt any of them apply to any really-existing concrete situation that any given country is in. Hence I try not to comment on political threads.

2OEH8eoCRo02• 1 year ago

I've almost never changed my mind in an online argument but I do regularly offline. Why is that?

I think it's because online nobody acts in good faith. There is no connection and trust.

layer84• 1 year ago

Are you saying your comment here is in bad faith? ;)

marcusb• 1 year ago

I had a customer once who would just absolutely berate people over email for the tiniest thing. Totally unbearable and unreasonable. So, whenever he would go off, I'd tell him 'look, I'll be in the area [this afternoon|later|whenever]. You going to be around if I stop by?' Any conversation with him that could be deflected to an in-person discussion could be peacefully resolved in short order. Trying to convince him of anything over phone or email was an exercise in frustration control.

I heard somebody say at a conference one time, talking about how much more productive in-person meetings are in reaching agreement, "there's a lot of bandwidth in a room". I think there's a lot of truth to that.

0 - ironically, this was at a ISP network engineering conference

pitaj• 1 year ago

I think you can have two people who, both acting in good faith, can completely lose it over textual communication. Even a phone call can make the same discussion ten times easier.

rhines3• 1 year ago

I have changed my mind on things in online discussions. Usually in the form of them saying something I disagree with, me trying to articulate why they're wrong or searching for evidence that they're wrong, and then coming up short or finding information I wasn't previously aware of. I find this is more likely to happen online than IRL since you don't really interrupt IRL conversations to go spend 3 hours looking for sources, though I do also get what you mean about a lot of online comments being so blatantly hostile that you just don't engage.

harrall• 1 year ago

I notice people tend to argue about X when it's actually a proxy argument for Y, but they don't know themselves that it's Y.

Y is a legitimate concern or fear, but X may not be. But everyone wastes each other's time arguing about X.

If you figure out Y, you find common ground and compromise and that's when you find solutions.

dpig_2• 1 year ago

In my experience the Y is often the even more profound disagreement between two people, and explicit discussion of Y could be enough to obliterate a relationship completely.

anon84873628• 1 year ago

Nobody ever changes their opinion on things with anything remotely like a high degree of frequency, and that's not a particularly bad thing

For a great discussion of that, cue Slate Star Codex "Epistemic Learned Helplessness"

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...

mppm• 1 year ago

The "real" point of an argument is not to persuade the other side (though that is what you aspire to nonetheless) but to exchange views.

Maybe this is just a matter of definitions, but for me the point of an argument is to convince or be convinced. When two incompatible views exist on a subject, at least one of them must be wrong. Some topics of conversation allow for diverging views or values, but then we are just talking or sharing experiences, not arguing.

That said, it is my experience as well that actually changing someone's (or my own) mind on an important issue is unlikely. Especially on complex topics with partial and uncertain information, like political issues, our life experience and cumulative knowledge significantly influences our selection of sources and interpretation of the facts, so converging on a common point of view may require the exchange of a prohibitive amount of information, even among rational arguers.

Productive argument usually occurs in a sort of semi-echo chamber, with people who mostly agree with us on the context, and are only arguing about the top layer, so to say. But when trying to argue about the deep stuff, we are mostly just "exchanging views", in the end.

Bjartr• 1 year ago

When two incompatible views exist on a subject, at least one of them must be wrong

This isn't strictly correct if the source of incompatibility is differing assumptions / axioms. Both views can be correct in their own context and incorrect in the other context.

Vegenoid• 1 year ago

When two incompatible views exist on a subject, at least one of them must be wrong.

Rarely can any significant argument be boiled down to something so simple that this is the case. What if there are two incompatible views on the course of action that should be taken to lead to some desired outcome? You really can't just say that one of them must be wrong. There is a whole web of tradeoffs, assumptions, and odds to consider - you can't simply determine "right" and "wrong".

Cheezemansam• 1 year ago

When two incompatible views exist on a subject, at least one of them must be wrong.

There are a lot of things that do not exist on a binary truth spectrum, although I agree with your point about open mindedness.

hattmall• 1 year ago

I feel like I change my opinion more than my outfit, but after reading that I'm not so sure. Maybe I stick to my guns more than I realized.

htgb2• 1 year ago

The article in general, and final paragraph in particular, reminded me of this essay:

https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

Edit: if the connection isn't clear, I mean the aspect of it being difficult to argue rationally about opinions you've made part of your identity, since changing the opinion would be difficult.

AnthonBerg• 1 year ago

This post captures very well some mechanisms I learned about in the past years, the psychological mechanisms behind the behavior that people show towards people going through a high-risk pregnancy in a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

To my great surprise.

9rx20• 1 year ago

If you’re not changing your mind, it’s likely you’re not actually having an argument

If you've made up your mind (even if, theoretically, it could be changed) why would you have an argument about it in the first place? Discussing the already settled is rather boring. Unless one is grandstanding for some other purpose, people move on once they've made up their mind. They don't keep exploring the same ideas over and over and over again once they've settled.

Argument is there to explore that to which you have not yet made a mind. Your mind won't change because there is no basis on which to change from.

filoleg4• 1 year ago

If you've made up your mind (even if, theoretically, it could be changed) why would you have an argument about it in the first place?

Because, in most of those cases, my mind is made up given the information I’d had access to and the points I’ve seen/heard made regarding the topic up to this point. If an argument brings up new (to me) points and information, it is all a fair game, and I am not holding onto my “already made up” position that dearly. If I consider a position “already made up,” it is usually due to me rarely encountering anything new on that topic. But I am not going to pre-emptively declare “my mind is made up, and nothing can change it,” all it could take is a single piece of new info or a new point that I was yet to encounter.

TLDR: the entire meaning of “my mind is made up on this topic already” to me personally is “over a course of a long time, I am yet to encounter any new materially relevant info on the topic that could change my mind, and all i keep hearing is the same stuff I heard before (but I am willing to change my perspective if there are any new and relevant points), so I expect the likelihood of my mind being changed on this to be low (given the low likelihood of any new relevant info being introduced)”.

Argument is there to explore that to which you have not yet made a mind. Your mind won't change because there is no basis on which to change from.

Agreed wholeheartedly, except i would completely remove the “that to which you have not yet made a mind” part.

9rx20• 1 year ago

I am not holding onto my “already made up” position that dearly.

Perhaps this is just semantics, then? I wouldn't make up my mind until there is effectively no chance of there being an alternative I've overlooked. I'm confident enough in the available information to make up my mind that 1+1 does equal 2 (a topic I would find no interest in discussing further at this point; there is good reason we don't sit around all day talking about that), but for most things I don't have a mind made.

If you can't hold it dearly, is your mind really made?

endominus5• 1 year ago

This response is indicative of a completely different perspective on the idea of "argument" (and "making up your mind," a phrase that does not appear in the than the original article and would not fit with the framework of understanding expressed therein). The belief that your mind should or even can be "settled" on an issue - that you can examine the evidence, weigh it, judge it, come to a definitive conclusion, and then never think about it again - is not universal.

There exist people who think probabilistically; issues are not definitively decided in their mind, but given some likelihood of being one way or another. Such people tend to have much more accurate understandings of the world and benefit greatly from constructive debate, revisiting the same issues over and over again as new evidence is brought up in these arguments. If you'd like to know more, I recommend reading the book The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef.

9rx20• 1 year ago

"making up your mind," a phrase that does not appear in the than the original article and would not fit with the framework of understanding expressed therein

While it does not explicitly appear, a mind cannot be changed if it was never made. Change, by definition, requires something to already exist.

revisiting the same issues over and over again as new evidence is brought up in these arguments.

Right. But they can't change their mind as they never established something that can be changed. This is the state before a mind is made. It is possible that a mind will never be made. For complex subjects, it is unlikely that a mind can be made.

padjo• 1 year ago

This is quite a close minded position that leaves you vulnerable in changing circumstances. Very little is known with absolute certainty outside of mathematics. I think a better default is to revisit topics every now and then, listen to the counter arguments and change your position if you think it is warranted.

9rx20• 1 year ago

Very little is known with absolute certainty outside of mathematics.

Absolutely. As you've read in other comments, mathematics is of the few areas where I have found room to make up my mind. For everything else, straight up: I don't know. The only way to change my mind from "I don't know" is to make it "I do know", but, as you say, outside of mathematics that realistically isn't going to happen. We collectively don't know and it is unlikely that we will ever know.

This is quite a close minded position that leaves you vulnerable in changing circumstances.

Okay, but what in the mathematics that I have made my mind up on do you believe is prone to change? Do you anticipate that we will eventually determine that 1+1 actually equals 4 or something?

I will change my mind if in the unlikely event that incontrovertible proof does somehow come to be. I accepted it is theoretically possible to change minds. But, as I said, which is key to the whole thing, I will not spend my days arguing that 1+1=2 until I find out different. I am confident enough that 1+1=2 that I don't have to make that case to myself in front of others.

Argument is a device for when you are unsure of something and want to learn more. There is no mind to change as you haven’t established a mind yet.

kqr• 1 year ago

"What would it take to convince you otherwise" is a question I've asked in the past, but I'm less and less convinced of its utility.

If the counterparty knew the answer to that, they would sit down with Google, not engage in an argument. Debate is mainly information sharing, but also to some degree about exploring the answer to that question.

Rayhem• 1 year ago

In the same vein, I've been keen to try out "What would the world look like if..." and then show that we do or do not observe related phenomena. It seems like the best way to meet someone on their terms (because they get to write the "rules" of the world) and then you just apply them towards one conclusion or another. But I haven't had enough exposure to really test this out.

NitpickLawyer• 1 year ago

I also like "steelman the other side first" to see where they are and how much they know about "the other side" of an argument. But this only works with people you know and trust to want to go there, not on the internet.

a3w• 1 year ago

For me, it is really useful: should I talk to this person never again, since they cannot be convinced by any evidence they themselves would find.

Or with close family, should I never bring up this topic again since they perhaps have nothing to gain from changing their opinion, but a lot to lose.

criddell• 1 year ago

For lots of people, logic and facts don’t have much power compared to emotion. Often it seems there’s no argument to be won.

YurgenJurgensen2• 1 year ago

A better phrasing is ‘If you were wrong, how would you know?’. It has the same end state, but positions things as an internal revelation rather than a potential loss of face, so is less likely to trigger a defensive response.

speak_plainly• 1 year ago

One thing that helps is to be charitable.

Ideas in general are difficult to express and people struggle with conveying them separately from their private ideas, personal experiences, and personal reasons for believing what they believe.

If you want to be a good interlocutor, you have to deeply absorb what the other person is thinking and sometimes even help them develop their understanding with the hope that others can do the same for you. We are all toddlers at times.

LiquidSky3• 1 year ago

Eh...all of this is premised on good faith engagement, which in the current age is a very questionable premise.

nonethewiser• 1 year ago

Every argument is premised on good faith though. If there isnt good faith you should disengage.

jvanderbot6• 1 year ago

You might be surprised to find that, in person, people are quite amenable to good faith discussions. It's the internet where slam dunks reign.

cryptopian2• 1 year ago

It's why I found platforms like Twitter tended to have such volatility because the platform structure itself takes every opportunity to remove that charitibility.

If you come across an argument, people are writing in a limited space, you're presented with the most engaged with replies first (i.e. either towing the party line best or the most inflammatory opposition), accounts are pseudonymous, and your performance is numerically displayed below the post.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF3• 1 year ago

And everyone is strangers, so there's no tit-for-tat and no long-term strategies, just hit and run

feoren3• 1 year ago

The author is silently switching between two definitions of "argument" depending on which point he's trying to make. An argument with a toddler is about whether they should brush their teeth, put their toys away, or stop sending American citizens to El Salvadorian prison camps. You win the argument if they do those things. And you can win some of those arguments, by ethos, pathos, logos, deal-making, bribery, or force.

That's not the same kind of argument where people are trying to change their minds. Those are the ones you can't win or lose, because "changing your mind" is not black and white. I've had plenty of arguments where my understanding changed by a few inches, and their understanding changed by a few inches, but we were still far apart in our opinions. That's fine! That's a successful argument.

The author's world is one where there are two takes on every topic and one person is arguing Black and the other is arguing White and you should flip to the other binary sometimes when you're wrong. No. If your opinions are regularly flipping from one binary to the other, then your opinions suck. The world is much more complicated than that. Opinions are much more contextual than that. I'm never going to switch from "evolution is real" to "all life was custom-built by God" after a conversation with one person -- no matter how persuasive they are -- because my belief that evolution is real is not that fragile. It's intertwined with all my other understandings about how the world works, and I can't just flip it independently of other things. My goal when I have an argument is to improve my understanding of the world just a little bit, even if it's merely "why do people believe this shit?" If the person I'm arguing with isn't trying to do the same, they're the only one that's losing.

dingnuts• 1 year ago

stop sending American citizens

the person who was sent, and who should not have been sent, was a Salvadoran citizen and a legal resident alien of the US.

Please refrain from hyperbole in these times. If/when US citizens start getting sent to prison camps, we need to be able to tell each other that it is happening, and if you cry wolf now, nobody will believe you when it does actually happen.

It is bad enough that it happened to a legal alien. It's more important than ever that we be precise.

feoren3• 1 year ago

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/trump-wants-deport-so...

Nothing is hyperbole with Trump. "He hasn't done that yet" is the refrain from every Trump-apologist right up until he does the thing. This cycle has happened dozens of times.

sys32768• 1 year ago

Do you mean Abrego Garcia? What's your source that he is "a legal resident alien" ?

This says he is illegal and shouldn't have been here in the first place: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/04/14/icymi-dhs-sets-record-st...

Or is there another person?

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF3• 1 year ago

I disagree with this perspective because this case had a really obvious and flagrant violation of due process. The planes were in El Salvador before the courts had determined his citizenship/resident status.

It's moot that he wasn't a citizen because the response to it happening to a legal alien suggests that, if this happened to a citizen, the administration would claim that it is impossible to return him while Bukele talks about how absurd it would be to smuggle terrorists into the US, all while people are arguing over whether or not he's even a citizen, let alone what crimes he committed to justify detention and deportation in the first place.

palmotea• 1 year ago

Toddlers (which includes defensive bureaucrats, bullies, flat earthers, folks committed to a specific agenda and radio talk show hosts) may indicate that they’d like to have an argument, but they’re actually engaging in connection, noise, play acting or a chance to earn status. It can be fun to be in opposition, to harangue or even to use power to change someone’s position.

Honestly, this article is now very good, because he doesn't seem to realize one of the most common reasons for "folks committed to a specific agenda" to play-act an "argument" (or a "discussion" or a "conversion") is persuasion, and not any of the other childish things he outlines.

Maybe he spends to much time in immature online spaces.

draw_down• 1 year ago

I'm afraid you are too late! For you see, I have already depicted you as the impatient and stupid toddler, and myself as the rational, mature adult.

kelseyfrog5• 1 year ago

There's a downside to loosening up the mental resistance to mind-changing - you're more susceptible to cult indoctrination.

You can look no further than the Rationalist community who have internalized this to such a degree that cults are endemic to the community. Sure, there's positives to being open to changing one's beliefs, but like all advice, it's contextual. Some people probably do need to loosen up, but they are the least likely to do so. Those who hold their beliefs too loosely, could stand to tighten that knot a little more.

weakfish• 1 year ago

Can you elaborate a bit more on the rationalist community’s perceived cults? I’ve only dipped my toes into places like LessWrong, so I am curious what you see there.

kelseyfrog5• 1 year ago

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/pQGFeKvjydztpgnsY/occupation...

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...

https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-res...

https://maxread.substack.com/p/the-zizians-and-the-rationali...

The last link and especially the second half expands from examining the latest example into the broader landscape of Rationalist cultism.

Workaccount22• 1 year ago

Probably referring to the Ziz cult which was born out of the rationalist community, which recently murdered bunch of innocent people.

jcranmer• 1 year ago

Rationalism is essentially a tech-flavored self-help movement, and the people who tend to gravitate towards self-help in general tend to be emotionally vulnerable people who are strongly susceptible to cult techniques (there's a reason so many cults start out as self-help movements).

On top of that, given the tech-flavored nature of Rationalism, its adherents seem to gravitate towards strongly utilitarian ethics (evil can be justified if done for a greater good) and an almost messianic relationship towards artificial superintelligence (a good so great it can justify a lot of evil).

Finally, it seems to me that Rationalism is especially prone to producing tedious writers which create insularity (by making it impenetrable to non-insiders) and lots of schisms over minor disputes that, due to insularity, end up festering into something rather more cult-like that demands more immediate and drastic action... like the Zizians.

Matticus_Rex• 1 year ago

So I'm open to changing my mind on this, but — having already been familiar with the evidence you posted below and having been adjacent to these circles for a long time — I'm very skeptical of both the claim generally that cults are endemic to the Rationalist community, and even moreso, specifically that it has anything to do with Rationalists holding beliefs loosely.

The Zizians are absolutely a cult. But did they get there by changing their beliefs too easily?

I think that's a really tough case to make -- one of their chief characteristics is their extreme slavishness to some particular radical views. These weren't people who jumped around often ideologically. Several of the Zizians (of whom there were never many) also weren't rationalists first. Where's the case that this is a result of Rationalism influence, or particularly that holding beliefs loosely was the problem? A handful of (the many) ex-rationalists forming a cult doesn't seem like strong evidence.

Leverage was certainly a high-demand social circle, and some people came out with some damage. I know others who were involved briefly, got no cult vibes, had no issues, and had a good experience with Leverage programs. Note also that a number of the "cult" claims came from Ziz and Ziz's friends, who even separately from Ziz influence have not tended to be particularly stable people — this doesn't mean they're wrong, but I do update a bit based on that. And Vassar definitely had a penchant for seeing vulnerable people near crisis and suggesting that they take drugs, which is generally stupid and harmful.

I don't think it's particularly useful to call leverage a "cult" even if there's some overlap, but if it is, is it because of Rationalists' willingness to change their minds? Again, I'm very skeptical. Vassar looked for people who were a little bit crazy/unstable, and did influence them to change their minds. But he didn't do this because he was looking to prey on them, and often engaged in ways that don't seem cultish at all — he did it because those were the people who understood him, because he was also a bit crazy/unstable!

Alternatively, what other explanatory factors are there for two cults closely adjacent to Rationalism? 1. Base rates. Have you been to the Bay Area? Cults are everywhere. Seriously, I suspect Rationalists are well-below the base rate here. 2. Very smart people who are also atypical as thinkers seem to be more susceptible to mental health issues, and in many cases these people from otherwise-vulnerable groups (e.g. almost all of the Zizians, many of the Leverage people). You definitely get some high-octane crazy, and groups of people that can follow certain types of reasoning can insulate themselves in a mental cul-de-sac, and then get stuck there because their blind spots block the exit and few others can follow the reasoning well enough to come in and get them. 3. Young people are easily influenced. As one Lesswrong commenter put it, "the rationalist community is acting as a de facto school and system of interconnected mentorship opportunities."

There's a lot of related discussion on these topics catalogued here, with Rationalists carefully dissecting these issues from various angles to see what the risks are and how they can make the community more resilient to them: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...

nicolas_t• 1 year ago

Cult indoctrination could be explained by this but could also be explained by the fact that a certain number of formerly gifted kids, who have been ostracised during their childhood and have low social skills tend, to gravitate around the rationalist community. I do believe that those people are more likely to be indoctrinated.

From my readings of the Zizian, they also don't seem to easily change their mind, they instead have had a tendency towards very radical opinions that progressively become more extreme.

kelseyfrog5• 1 year ago

I argue that having opinions that progressively become more extreme is in fact changing one's mind. That might not be the kind of mind changing we immediately imagine when we think about changing one's mind, but it is mind changing nonetheless.

I'm not trying to be clever; the fact that this flies under the radar just means we might be looking for "changing minds" in one form when it's mostly occurring in another.

cryptopian2• 1 year ago

People who feel ostracised or underappreciated tend to make good marks for cults and extremist groups in general. Another commenter pointed out that changing an opinion is a more emotional process than we'd like to assume.

jvanderbot6• 1 year ago

An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.

Is this where we are now?

kelseyfrog5• 1 year ago

Creative, but no.

YurgenJurgensen2• 1 year ago

Shockingly, in a world where both eating too much food and too little will kill you, as will too much or too little water, heat or oxygen, the solutions are rarely found at the extremes of any continuum.

ordu• 1 year ago

I wonder what is the cause and what is the effect? If Rationalism promises mind changing, I bet it attracts people obsessed with mind changing. Rationalism promises a chance to touch the eternal Truth, or at least to come closer to it, so naturally people who seeks such a truth will try to become rationalists.

This overall can easily lead to greater then average concentration of people susceptible to cults.

You see, I was engaged in lesswrong.com activites 10+ years ago, and I didn't become more "cultist". Probably even less. If I look at changes in me that happened due to me reading Yudkowski and talking with other people who read him, I'd say that these changes were coming in me in any case, the lesswrong stuff played its role and influenced the outcomes, but even before my lesswrong period I was:

1. Interested in arguments and how they work or do not work 2. All the time tried to dismantle laws, social norms, rules morale to find an answer "why do they exists and how they benefit the society", "how do they work?". Some of them I rejected as stupid and pointless. 3. I was interested in science overall and psychology in particular.

I learned a lot from that time of how arguments work and I was excited to see Yudkowski take on that. His approach doesn't work in reality, only with other rationalists, but I like it nevertheless.

OTOH, I need to say that Yudkowski by himself have a lot of traits of a leader of a cult. His texts are written like they are his own unique ideas. He refers sometimes to Socrates of some other person, but it doesn't help and his texts looks like he is a genius that invented a new philosophical system from ground up. I didn't know the history of philosophy enough to see how far from the truth the picture is. The bells begin to ring in my head when I get to the "Death Spirals" where Yudkowski talked about cults and why lesswrong is not a cult. It is highly suspicious as it is, but his arguments were not good enough to me, maybe because they were worse than usual or maybe because I was more critical than usual. "Death Spirals" failed to convince me that lesswrong is not a cult, on the contrary they made me to wonder "a cult or not a cult" all the time.

And this question led me to a search for information everywhere, not just lesswrong. And then I've found a new "sport": find Yudkoswki's ideas in writings of thinkers from XIX century or earlier. Had he conceived at least one truly original idea? This activity was much more fun for me than lesswrong and after that I had no chance whatsoever to become a part of a cult centered on Rationality.

The point I'm trying to make is Yudkowski's Rationality doesn't deliver its promises, people get not what was promised but what they had already. Rationality changes them somehow, but I believe that it is not the reason, just a trigger for changes that would come in any case.

Tijdreiziger• 1 year ago

And this question led me to a search for information everywhere, not just lesswrong. And then I've found a new "sport": find Yudkoswki's ideas in writings of thinkers from XIX century or earlier. Had he conceived at least one truly original idea? This activity was much more fun for me than lesswrong and after that I had no chance whatsoever to become a part of a cult centered on Rationality.

Do you have any interesting references? :)

broof2• 1 year ago

Yeah I see your point but the median person probably falls on the side of needing to loosen up.

directevolve2• 1 year ago

As a counterpoint, rationalist writing and online community participation was critical for me in helping me get my life together and becoming a healthier person back in 2018 or so.

I don’t write much on LessWrong anymore, but I do appreciate LessWrong for the positive influence it had on my life at that time.

kgwxd• 1 year ago

Am I using this site wrong? All I'm seeing is basically a tweet with nothing remotely resembling an original thought.

Exoristos• 1 year ago

I think the relevant question would be, Are the owners of the forum exploiting it effectively?

csours• 1 year ago

I feel like we're in the middle of a crisis of satisfaction - that is, the human mind seeks satisfaction, and the internet provides satisfaction of all sorts.

For instance, there is a very satisfying story about the origin of a certain pandemic. I can think about how I would gather evidence about origins of an infectious disease, but I can't actually gather that evidence because that would require a time machine.

So, instead of any significant evidence we have a satisfying story. In the past we've called this kind of story a Conspiracy Theory; I would prefer a name like Low Information High Satisfaction Theory.

apercu• 1 year ago

If you can't change your mind when presented with new evidence, you _are_ an intellectual toddler.

aeternum• 1 year ago

but evidence doesn't matter because I am morally right!

hn_throwaway_99• 1 year ago

While I agree with the high-level point of this post, that is "You can’t (win an argument with a toddler). That’s because toddlers don’t understand what an argument is and aren’t interesting in having one", I found then the obvious follow on question "OK, if you can't win this argument, then what do you actually do when people in great positions of power are having these fake arguments/tantrums?" not even addressed.

For example, when some of the most outlandish and obviously false social media conspiracy theories first hit the scene (e.g. QAnon, the totally bizarre "JFK Jr. is alive" theory, etc.) I thought "OK, this is just bad fan fic, best to just ignore it." But then I was amazed and pretty depressed about how these theories gained traction, and sometimes in the highest levels of power. So I feel like the advice of "Just ignore toddlers having a tantrum" is pretty counterproductive when you realize those tantrums are actually serving a very useful (and in my opinion scary) purpose for the people throwing them.

woopwoop• 1 year ago

Totally unrelated, but this reminds me of my favorite title of a math article: "How often should you beat your kids?" (it's about a certain simple combinatorial game)

https://people.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/zagier/files/math-mag/63-2/f...

(My favorite line: "Levasseur analyzes the game and shows that on average you will have a score of n + (sqrt(pn) - 1)/2 + O(1/sqrt(n)) while the kid will have exactly n. We maintain, however, that only the most degenerate parent would play against a two-year-old for money, so the question should be not by how much you expect to win, but with what probability you will win at all.")

ccleve• 1 year ago

Oddly, I thought this discussion would be about actual toddlers.

There is a way to win an argument with a toddler. You find out what's bothering them, usually something emotional, and you validate it. "Yes! It's fun to stay up late! Yes! You don't want to eat your vegetables!" Once they feel heard, you've got a shot at getting them to do what you want.

That's a good way to win an argument with a non-toddler as well. Acknowledge that what they want is legitimate (if it is). Concede points of agreement. Talk about shared goals. Only then talk about a different path to the solution.

tombert• 1 year ago

My parents did that; they managed to win the "go to bed at a reasonable time" argument, but never were terribly successful with the "eating vegetables" one. It didn't help that my dad almost never ate vegetables and even fairly young I was able to point out the hypocrisy.

I still don't eat a lot of vegetables; my health vitals are generally fine when I do bloodwork, as is my heart health when I get that checked so hopefully I don't end up in an early grave.

jjulius4• 1 year ago

It's a different approach for us (am parent of a 5 and 3 year-old). Every type of food is equal, nothing gets put on a pedestal. Candies, snacks, ice creams, vegetables, fruits, legumes, meats, seafood - it's just "food". We highlight that you shouldn't eat too much of one thing all the time because your body likes a good variety, but that's about all the pressure we put on them. They're learning about sugar, for instance, in their preschool and we've talked about it in that context.

If they don't like something, fine. Totally cool, we don't care. The second you pressure a kid to eat a vegetable or a fruit, it becomes a fight and they will dig their heels in. Just keep serving whatever you cook, and either they'll come around or they won't. After all, they're human just like we are - we all have foods we like and dislike, and that's OK. No point in striking a deal, just keep exposing them to a wide variety of stuff and eventually they'll try it all - if they like it, great, if they don't, oh well, at least they like other stuff.

I can't speak for any other parents but myself, but this approach has worked wonders for us. Our kids definitely do shun certain foods or look away, but they eat a very wide variety of food. We don't have to bring a PBJ with us to a restaurant, or chicken nuggets to a friend's house, because they'll usually eat most of what is served. We've had grandparents bring "treats" over - we'll put them on their dinner plate with the rest of their food and, hand to god, last night my 5yo ate half her candy bar and left it there while asking for multiple helpings of peas and devouring her entire turkey burger. Only thing left on the plate was the candy.

Everyone's mileage may vary, obviously.

/shrug

tmountain2• 1 year ago

We have been redirecting our toddler pretty successfully in most “conflict” situations. Instead of telling him what he can’t do, give him a few options of things he can do. It’s not appropriate for all situations but a great strategy for drawing focus away from whatever is causing contention.

chambers• 1 year ago

^ This is the real advice. Approach a conflict as a choice the child needs to make, and the options the parents need to give. Be flexible but hard where it counts.

Children need grounding. "I need to win arguments with my own kids" is a vanity, that gives up a lot of the ground kids need for growing up.

nemo44x• 1 year ago

Yeah very often it’s about feeling like they have some control. Consider their day to day they are constantly being told where to go and what to do. They’re still people and do want to feel like they have some agency. Of course we can’t let them choose to do whatever they want. But by giving them options they now feel like they’re included in the decision making process.

Not always appropriate but very useful in many situations. And if used proactively, possibly limit episode occurrence when not under your control.

deadbabe• 1 year ago

That’s a good short term solution but long term you just screw your kid up.

There’s some things you simply cannot do, and nothing else can be done about it. You have to learn the lesson that sometimes you lose a conflict and that’s it. You don’t get anything else. Sucks? Yea welcome to life.

bcrosby952• 1 year ago

As an aside, this worked for 2/3 of our children. For one of them if we gave them choices like that they would just scream back "NONE". We never really found what worked for her, usually we just let her cry it out a bit then offer a metaphorical olive branch (oftentimes our oldest would let her play with one of her toys, which tended to make her happy, but only if you let her be upset for a long enough period of time first... otherwise she would just reject/throw it).

Anyways, kids are people. Try different things.

decimalenough• 1 year ago

This is known as the "red pants, blue pants" strategy, and it's employed in places like customer support as well. Basically, instead of telling your toddler "you have to wear pants!", you give them the option of choosing between red pants and blue pants.

card_zero• 1 year ago

Mutual preferences, very Dale Carnegie.

jvanderbot6• 1 year ago

I'm lucky that my kiddos accept deals.

"Yeah, vegetables are kinda yucky, how about just the corn, then we can go play after"

I also feel like "deals" are basically how the world works. Positive and negative deals clearly stated.

sitkack2• 1 year ago

I made too many deals and am now weaning us off (greatly reduced) of deals, the danger is everything becomes transactional.

It is also important to set norms around expectations that don't have a tangible reward.

Tade0• 1 year ago

My experience as a parent so far is that treating everyone beyond a whitelist of certified adults like toddlers works tremendously well.

Also there's the realisation that I've been effectively treated like one much more often than I would like to admit.

dr_dshiv• 1 year ago

We might be saying the same thing, but one reason toddlers act so ridiculously is because they are emotionally responding just as an adult might, if they were treated like a toddler. Ie, “because I don’t think you have a valid internal POV, I’m going to just decide for you with no explanation”

This perspective comes from the book “how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk,” which is one of my favorite parenting books of all time.

Xcelerate• 1 year ago

find out what's bothering them, usually something emotional, and you validate it

This is a common refrain of counselors and the field of psychology in general, and yet I can't help but think there's some selection bias at play with regard to the type of personality that is likely to recommend this approach as advice and how well the advice actually works.

Personally speaking, I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions (and I often view such attempts as a bit patronizing or insincere). There's a problem to be solved, so let's attempt to solve it or at least compromise in good faith. The resolution to the problem is the most likely way to elicit positive emotions from me anyway.

(I do understand however that some people prefer this validation, and if that's what they want, then sure, I'll attempt to do that.)

ziddoap2• 1 year ago

There's a problem to be solved, so let's attempt to solve it or at least compromise in good faith

Of course saying "I validate that you are feeling upset" is going to come across as patronizing and insincere. But I don't think that's because they validated your feelings. It's because of the way the validation is said.

Part of what makes a conversation good faith is hearing out what the other person is saying and agreeing where there is common ground to build from. That necessarily includes confirming the pain points each person is feeling.

spencerflem7• 1 year ago

In some sense though- every 'problem' is emotional. As in, if your problem is someone not doing the dishes your problem is that you feel like you deserve a clean kitchen and what your roommate is doing isn't fair. There's logical steps inbetween but the start of it is a feeling of being hurt and bothered. Same with any other problem, if you are dispasionate enough things cease to be problems and just are.

So to me, I see validating emotions as another way of saying: 'we share the same goals, there is a problem and we agree on what it is, so we can work towards a solution together'

hiAndrewQuinn2• 1 year ago

The problem can't always be resolved or even compromised on satisfactorily, however. So you have a game theoretic 2x2 matrix of options:

* Validate emotions + solve the problem: Most people consider this excellent service, and some people consider it at least adequate. Very few people will complain about this.

* Do not validate + solve the problem: Some consider this excellent, most consider this adequate, some consider this a slight even though the problem is solved.

* Validate + not solve: Most people will be annoyed, but at least be civil about it because you've been civil to them. A few will lash out, but they were going to anyway.

* Not validate + not solve: Virtually nobody likes this.

The game theoretic optimal solution for a service provider is to always validate, and hopefully solve the problem as well.

InitialLastName• 1 year ago

You, as an adult in a society, have presumably been able to make yourself understood (including to yourself) for a long time, so "we understand what each-other are saying and can imagine one another's feelings" is a basic subtext of essentially every conversation you have.

Toddlers, on the other hand, are still working on gaining enough linguistic capability to make themselves understood and understand what others are saying, and are still gaining self-awareness of their feelings, needs, and the way the world around them works. Remember that within very recent memory they could only make their needs known by screaming. Validating their emotions and needs confirms that you actually, mechanically understand what they want, and in some cases helps them recognize in fact what they want, both of which can undermine the frustration at the root of the tantrum.

kimbernator• 1 year ago

It definitely sucks when "validation" feels more like pandering and a means to an end. I think it's probably fair to say that you want to establish trust and fairness in a discussion about solving a problem though, yes? And in my opinion validation has more to do with reaching a baseline agreement about the problem itself. I think a lot of people, myself included, just overanalyze what validation itself is or how it should be deployed.

adornKey• 1 year ago

I've heard, that this approach works very well with "troublemakers". Maybe this is the selection bias. For communication with less emotional non-troublemakers there's less demand for professional advice.

dartharva2• 1 year ago

If you ignore the subject's emotions, you risk completely losing their interest and willingness to engage productively.

ciconia• 1 year ago

Being a bit of an asperger’s case, I have developed over the years a practice of listening to people talk and at the same time try to process in my head the mood of the speaker, because sometimes I'm not able to do it instinctively. I am getting better with practice though.

Sometimes I respond to my interlocutor by naming the emotion they're expressing, not necessarily directly ("oh you're angry!?") but rather stuff like "oh it must be infuriating what happened!"

I find people do respond positively to that, and that it opens a deeper connection.

There's the practice of Non Violent Communication [1], which has inspired me, though I'm not a zealous follower of the technique. It can seem condescending at the hands of the wrong person.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

Edit: to me this is not about validation. It's about being more attuned to what the other person's going through. It's about empathy and compassion.

oconnor663• 1 year ago

There's a problem to be solved

"valid"

runjake• 1 year ago

Personally speaking, I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions (and I often view such attempts as a bit patronizing or insincere).

I think that speaks more about you (and me, I’m the same way). Most people respond positively to that tactic. I’ve learned use it myself!

Garlef• 1 year ago

I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions

I feel you! It's so nice to be independent and not subject to one's own emotions.

But have you considered that it's possible that you're just not observing yourself well enough?

After all: "Advertisement works on everyone... except for me!"

poincaredisk• 1 year ago

I think the advice is sounds, but "validate emotions" is not a perfect way to talk about it. Saying out loud "I understand that you want to stay up late" is a good way to start the discussion and avoid misunderstandings of what the problem actually is.

kmoser• 1 year ago

Interestingly, this method of validation is also used as a tactic for negotiating with terrorists and hostage-takers. But it would be an oversimplification to lump toddlers, bully politicians, and terrorists together since they have vastly different abilities to understand and communicate, as well as limits to how far they'll go to achieve their ends.

I agree with your sentiment that it feels patronizing or insincere when somebody seems to be trying to "validate" my emotions (I'm not being patronizing here, just pointing out that I agree with you!). But I'd bet you and I are prone to thinking logically, and don't usually engage in emotional high-stakes games--two traits you won't find in most toddlers, politicians, or terrorists.

bitshiftfaced3• 1 year ago

The best explanation I have seen comes from the book "Supercommunicators." The author says that it's not so much about the type of personality, but the type of conversation that's occurring. He says there are three main types of conversations, and problems happen when the people are having two different conversations. Here, you're talking about a "practical/problem-solving" conversation, and the other person might be having a "what are we feeling?" conversation.

I'm like you (and maybe a lot of other HNers) who tend to think they're in a problem-solving conversation when I'm talking about a problem. But I've found that the great majority of the time, other people actually are in the "what are we feeling" conversation.

The author then makes the distinction of when conflict occurs and talks about "looping back" what the other person said. It's basically acknowledging their emotions but also repeating back what you heard, asking if that's right, and then asking more questions. The idea is that when there's conflict, you have to take an additional step to prove that you're actually listening and understanding what they've said. When you do that, then it's more likely they'll listen in turn and have a more productive conversation.

Looping back sounds kind of ridiculous, but I have actually found that when people are in an emotional state and on the defensive, they don't perceive this as ridiculous. It can actually speed things along because once you've shown you understand, then they're less likely to keep going over the same material again.

phkahler• 1 year ago

> There's a problem to be solved, so let's attempt to solve it or at least compromise in good faith.

Validating their position is a form of acknowledgement that we understand it. That's a prerequisite to a "compromise in good faith". If someone feels we don't understand their position, they will not feel we are arguing in good faith.

> The resolution to the problem is the most likely way to elicit positive emotions from me anyway.

But when you lose an argument does it feel better (less bad) if the other person understood your point rather than just ignoring it? It kinda sucks more to make a concession when the other person doesn't even know we've made one.

richardlblair• 1 year ago

I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions

I doubt you recall being 2yrs old vividly. Or even 3. Around this age feelings get really really big. There is no concept of emotional regulation yet. That's on the parents to teach. I don't know you, but you did say that solving problems feels good for you. Eventually, just working through problems would have taught you emotional regulation.

From my own experience with my toddler, validation doesn't always work. Sometimes feelings are just big, and we just need to be in them for a moment. That's also a nice lesson for them. It teaches them that big feelings come and go, which teaches them not to be afraid of big feelings.

I'm on a tangent now - the hardest part isn't necessarily helping them calm down. It's getting them to hear you and see you in the hard moments. If you can't get them to hear you (in a calm way) none of this works.

dkarl3• 1 year ago

The "validate and problem-solve together" approach doesn't work reliably with adults. For people who are single-mindedly out to get what they want, it's not the first time someone has tried this on them, and they've learned the counter. When they realize that validating their emotions is a priority for you, they'll insist that your validation is insincere unless you give them what they want.

"It's easy to say you care about my feelings, but since you aren't [giving me what I asked for], I see what you're really about."

"If you really cared you'd...."

"If you really understood you'd...."

Toddlers haven't learned the next step of the game.

mikepurvis8• 1 year ago

and I often view such attempts as a bit patronizing or insincere

It shows up as well in modern parenting guidance, including long term studies claiming that parents who prioritize validation over correction produce children who end up not just more mature, confident, and self-assured, but also with much better adult relationships to those parents.

That said, as a parent myself, I can't help feeling some skepticism that there's a little reporting bias going on with this type of thing— that happy and successful adults report their parents affirmed and loved them unconditionally, and bitter and frustrated adults report resentment and dissatisfaction with how they were raised.

There's no question that kids need emotional safety at home, but it's also clear even in the relatively short term that allowing them the freedom to do whatever they want and then telling them afterward that none of the consequences are actually their fault and they can at any time walk away from anything that makes them feel sad or scared or overwhelmed is not the way either. Even things that should be non-negotiables like going to school have become subject to the whims of a child's day to day emotional state— are the teens who now take a "mental health day" for "self care" every time they oversleep going to eventually turn that around and be able to commit to a desk job? Or are they carrying those expectations into adulthood with them?

MetaWhirledPeas• 1 year ago

Personally speaking, I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions (and I often view such attempts as a bit patronizing or insincere).

The solution is to be sincere. As to the reasoning behind it, it's not merely to appease the other person, it's to actually consider their point of view, because they might be right. If you don't consider their point of view then you're not considering all options, and more importantly you're willfully ignoring an option being presented by the person you are communicating with. That's not just dumb, it's disrespectful.

lamename• 1 year ago

The point of this, particularly for children (e.g. as a parent), is to build emotional bonds and stability, not to get them to do what you want. That can be a nice side effect in the moment, and is indeed more likely over the long term with this approach. But the chief goal is emotional safety, validation, etc.

pjmorris• 1 year ago

Based on my own experience, YMMV, I find that those who need the validation before working directly on a solution are more annoyed by missing the validation than those who don't need the validation but get it anyway. Of course, it's good to learn the working styles of those you work with frequently.

latexr• 1 year ago

Personally speaking, I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions

Picture a situation where someone is running a loud machine within your earshot. It’s been a while and it’s getting on your nerves, so you ask them to stop. Now imagine the answer is either:

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise someone was so close. I know this is loud but could I ask you to bear with it for just ten more minutes? I promise I’ll be over by then. It’s important I finish now because <valid reason>.”

Or:

“Fuck off, asshole. I don’t give a shit about you. I’ll be done when I feel like it.”

Allow me to suggest you’d appreciate and care for the first answer more. You’d probably even have a better day with it, even if the first person ended up taking twelve minutes while the second took eight.

(and I often view such attempts as a bit patronizing or insincere)

I propose this could be a version of the toupee fallacy¹. The attempts you view as patronising and insincere are the ones which are obviously so. Perhaps from people who read a self-help book about how to control others and get what they want. Or like when you call a company for support and the agent repeats your name over and over. But there are people who are genuine and do it reflexively and honestly because they truly care about their fellow human being.

There's a problem to be solved, so let's attempt to solve it or at least compromise in good faith.

That’s not the default state for most people. It should be, but it’s not. One reframing I like to give, e.g. when people ask me for advice on an argument they’re having with a spouse, is “remember it’s not you against them, but you and them together against the problem”. Simple and highly effective with reasonable people, as it allows them to take a step back and look at the issue from a more rational vantage point.

¹ https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/toupee_fallacy

wwilim• 1 year ago

I'm 31 this year and it works on me, so...

hex4def6• 1 year ago

Personally speaking, I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions (and I often view such attempts as a bit patronizing or insincere). There's a problem to be solved, so let's attempt to solve it or at least compromise in good faith. The resolution to the problem is the most likely way to elicit positive emotions from me anyway.

I assume ads don't work on you either, right? You buy purely based on a logical calculus of requirements and whether a product is fit-for-purpose. I assume the obverse must also be true; if they invalidate your emotions it doesn't affect you either?

Imagine you lose your parking receipt and have to pay for the whole day. An attendant that says: "You were stupid for losing your ticket. It says in 1-ft letters at the entrance 'lost tickets pay full day.' We don't make exceptions for people that can't keep track of their stuff."

"Damn dude, that sucks. You're not the only one today -- previous woman had her wallet stolen as well. Sorry I can't help, boss doesn't let me make exceptions"

Of course people validate other's emotions. You are affected by it. You only notice when someone does it poorly. Your perception of whether an exchange in which you had to compromise went well or not is highly colored by the attitude and "fluff" that the other person presented.

ignoramous• 1 year ago

It is just one of the techniques made popular by the book How to Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen so Kids Will Talk.

Summary: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/summarise-chapter-by-chapte...

RangerScience• 1 year ago

The validation is that you're having the experience you're having, not that it's, say, an intractable problem, or necessarily the emotional experience you're having about it.

It's this:

1. You: I am having problem X 2. Them: You are having problem X. 3. Them: Here are possible solutions.

There are lots of variations on this. There are also multiple reasons to do it: validation and calibration being (AFAIK) the main ones. One way to look at it is that validation says I'm not going to fight you about your subjective experience.

Contrast:

1. You: I am having problem X 2. Them: Here are possible solutions.

This can come across as "your problem will be fixed but you do not matter".

Contrast:

1. You: I am having problem X 2. Them: You are not having problem X.

Now it's an argument.

skobes• 1 year ago

Are you sure you are not experiencing some selection bias yourself, where you only recall the validation attempts that landed as patronizing or insincere, and do not notice when they are adeptly executed?

jkaptur• 1 year ago

Validation can serve the purpose of communicating that one person deeply understands the other's problem.

Cthulhu_• 1 year ago

The problem a lot of people in our field / on the internet have is that they think every problem is purely a logical problem to be solved, and that the person that has the problem is completely rational about it. But that's not the reality, and a lot of problems are emotional in nature - or, elicit an emotional response, which can't be resolved by just ignoring the emotional aspect and focusing on the functional. Because sometimes there just isn't a logical / functional problem to be solved.

And you're making the assumption that you can play a part in solving the problem, but what if that removes someone else's agency or responsibility? They will feel belittled, passed by, ignored, or they will not learn anything.

zizee• 1 year ago

Better than what some people do: argue that the problem you have raised doesn't exist.

korse• 1 year ago

>but think there's some selection bias at play with regard to the type of personality that is likely to recommend this approach as advice and how well the advice actually works

Correct. As previously stated, this advice works wonders on toddlers. Congratulations on not being a toddler!

tehjoker• 1 year ago

It depends on the situation, but when you have a disagreement with someone, for example of a different political tendency about serious issues, if they acknowledge my perspective and don't just talk past me, I'm more likely to engage with them more seriously. The acknowledgement lets you know you share some kind of reality to discuss even if you disagree. It's not only about feelings (though that can be part of it), it's combating the assumption that you don't see what they see and therefore your words are spoken out of ignorance and can be dismissed.

h2onock• 1 year ago

Personally speaking, I've never cared whether someone "validates" my emotions (and I often view such attempts as a bit patronizing or insincere). There's a problem to be solved, so let's attempt to solve it or at least compromise in good faith. The resolution to the problem is the most likely way to elicit positive emotions from me anyway.

It is so refreshing for me to read this because that's how I feel a lot of the time. I actually don't want someone to say "I understand where you're coming from", if they don't. That happens often in professional life and nearly always feels insincere. I'd much rather someone asked for clarification or for me to expand on what I've already said so that they can actually understand my viewpoint so that they can consider if properly before pushing through their "better" idea.

helle253• 1 year ago

this reminds me of something that happened to me just yesterday:

i was at the playground, trying to convince my daughter to go down the slide on her own.

She kept saying it was too scary, so I went down first to show her it wasnt scary. Then, still not convinced, she said there were monsters in the slide! I, of course, told her I got rid of them on the way down. She pondered for a moment, then decided it wasn't so scary anymore. Shortly thereafter she went down the slide herself!

It was a funny, insightful moment, negotiating her fears without invalidating them.

tdb7893• 1 year ago

Even in engineering it's important for people to understand what people want and to make sure people feel heard and validated. I've found that especially when dealing with people up the management chain understanding what they want and even using the techniques you describe is very effective. My experience is that pretty much everyone, but especially people in engineering fields and data driven science fields (me included), vastly overestimates how "logical" they are. At the end of the day we are all just a species of ape

karaterobot• 1 year ago

What's a different path to the solution of getting a kid to eat vegetables and go to bed? I'd say if you can get them to freely choose to do those, then you've won the argument. If it comes down to the equivalent of telling them "because I say so" in such a positive and constructive way that they don't freak out, you haven't won an argument. You have gotten what you wanted, but not by winning an argument, because the kid's opinion didn't change, just their response.

Now, what you're talking about is an extremely valuable skill—much more valuable than trying to argue with toddlers—but it's not the same thing in my opinion.

kristianc• 1 year ago

It's what Chris Voss calls tactical empathy.

scott_w2• 1 year ago

This is only useful if the person is arguing in good faith, something a quick listen to Nick Ferrari, Nigel Farage, Ben Shapiro or any other shock jock will quickly disabuse you of.

dfltr• 1 year ago

I think there's an additional step of "Find out what they want" that was left out of the original comment because the desires of actual toddlers are (usually) not fundamentally evil.

Do they want to exterminate your loved ones? Do they want to ship dissenters off to concentration camps? Do they want to simply profit off of the people in power who are doing those things? If so, the whole process has an early return case that's more along the lines of "Antifa rally at Omaha Beach."

melenaboija• 1 year ago

if it is

This is the crux to me.

And more than that is how much of my truth (not absolute truth, if such thing exists, but my point of view) I want to give up to enter a common territory to discuss.

subpixel• 1 year ago

My wife has found this is also quite effective with me.

BrandoElFollito• 1 year ago

I usually talked with my toddlers asking them "why"? Why do you want to stay late? why don't you want to eat carrots?

They were usually thinking about trading and I was patiently waiting.

They do not like carrots (me neither btw), ok, so you get to pick a vegetable.

They want to play longer, ok, you play in your bed. Etc.

Of course this did not work all the time, especially when I was tired and maybe not that patient so more traditional ways of persuasion were used (no, nothing violent, just "do it because I said so")

MadcapJake• 1 year ago

As a parent, I often found that if I actually explained why instead of the usual "Because I told you so", then I got a lot further in making them rationally arrive at the right behavior themselves (as toddlers are wont to do). I suspect that the "I told you so", not only does it completely nullify their desire but it also forces them to accept not learning and hurts their pride (which is where the tantrum comes from). These are undesirable outcomes and since parents use this trick all the time, it leads to learned behavior. Disclaimer: This is just my own analysis and I know there are times when it's too challenging to do this but it's a principle you have to focus on.

elif• 1 year ago

I'm lucky enough that I get to take my tyke to the zoo 5 days a week and while I agree with your take, I also have seen enough of the parents making the mistake outlined in the original post to know that it was actually talking about toddlers.

You would be shocked to see how many supposed adults engage in one sided arguments with crying children, usually centered on the parents feelings.

mik09• 1 year ago

multi-layer perceptrons are more complex than that lol

bloomingeek• 1 year ago

I agree, however that will never work with a person like MTG. (Yes, I know she only wants to fight. Who voted for her again?)

aredox• 1 year ago

That "good way" is tolerable because you knwo your toddler (you have an emotional attachment towards, too) will grow out of it.

Now imagine your toddler never grows, and you are stuck with it. You many years will you resist before you strangle it?

brainzap• 1 year ago

funny, this is core of “non violent communication”

nswest23• 1 year ago

I think you missed the point of this post. Wildly.

zeroc8• 1 year ago

I thought it would be about Trump ;)

Workaccount22• 1 year ago

If you don't think you would be able to fool the person that you have the same views as them, you probably will not be able to have a productive argument with them.

i.e. if you couldn't sit at the table with a bunch of (insert ideology) adherents and blend right in, you probably don't understand their views well enough to dissuade them from it.

erichocean• 1 year ago

Jonathan Haidt's finding from The Righteous Mind that conservatives tend to understand liberal moral foundations better than liberals understand conservative ones is an important example.

His research shows conservatives operate across a broader range of moral foundations—care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty—while liberals lean heavily on care and fairness

This gives conservatives an easier time modeling liberal views, as they already incorporate those priorities. Liberals, however, often struggle to grasp the weight conservatives place on loyalty, authority, or sanctity, seeing them as less "rational."

The author is an example of this: he views his opponents as less rational—literal "toddlers"—and thus their arguments can be dismissed.

pmarreck7• 1 year ago

“What sort of information would make it likely you could see this in a different way?”

That's the argument to falsifiability, put in human terms.

mattmaroon7• 1 year ago

“If you’re not changing your mind, it’s likely you’re not actually having an argument (or you’re hanging out with the wrong people.)”

Or you’re the toddler. We all are at some point

firefoxd• 1 year ago

When you reach "The cliff of Irrational Arguments" you need to stop and reevaluate what is the purpose of the discussion.

There was a joke about the man who was threatening to jump off a cliff. No professional could convince him otherwise with sound arguments. It took a another mental patient to make an irrational threat, cut the cliff down, to scare him off.

Edit to add link: https://idiallo.com/blog/the-cliff-of-irrational-arguments

miltonlost• 1 year ago

If you’re regularly having arguments with well-informed people of goodwill, you will probably ‘lose’ half of them–changing your mind based on what you’ve learned. If you’re not changing your mind, it’s likely you’re not actually having an argument (or you’re hanging out with the wrong people.) While it can be fun to change someone else’s position, it’s also a gift to learn enough to change ours.

What kind of arguments are these? Are these "this episode of TV was not good" or "the earth is flat" or "I think rent is too high"? This statistic seems a) made-up, and b) as simplistic as conflating all "arguments" into one group of indistinguishable arguments.

blacksqr• 1 year ago

I recommend the book How To Talk So Kids Will Listen And Listen So Kids Will Talk.

The same basic techniques work on toddlers, teens and many adults.

porphyra• 1 year ago

So, whenever you fail to change someone's mind, you can just dismiss them as being a toddler. This mindset explains how the current state of, say, US politics became so polarized and extremist.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF3• 1 year ago

I think it was actually a combination of online propaganda, social media addiction, the demise of third places, and most of all lack of a land value tax

bdcravens• 1 year ago

Gotta admit, I was certain this was going to be another article about tariffs.

1832• 1 year ago

I'll remember this for my Faceit solo Q lobbies.

mattlondon• 1 year ago

Much to the same opening as the article I have a little saying I have to myself:

Don't get into a battle of wills with a kid - they don't even know they're taking part.

jvilalta• 1 year ago

For those actually trying to talk to a toddler, I recommend Adele Faber's How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk.

Also maybe useful for talking to middle aged toddlers.

bitshiftfaced3• 1 year ago

This book isn't actually appropriate for toddler age children, but there is a "sequel" that focuses on toddlers. While there are some nice ideas in the book, it tends to ignore the most challenging parts of parenting. If you're going to spend the time reading a parenting book, I'd recommend a research-based parenting program.

slig2• 1 year ago

I'd recommend a research-based parenting program.

Can you share the ones you liked, please?

sepositus• 1 year ago

It probably doesn’t pay to argue over things we have chosen to believe as part of our identity.

In a world where things are increasingly becoming a part of our identity (i.e., Democrat/Republican), this presents a real problem. I agree it hardly does good to argue with people about these things, but the problem is that the list of valid things to argue over seems to be diminishing yearly.

nashashmi• 1 year ago

Toddlers are smart enough To know you are putting on a show of an argument and do the same.

penguin_booze• 1 year ago

Mandatory reference to the argument clinic: https://youtu.be/DkQhK8O9Jik.

slackfan• 1 year ago

Clickbait title, clickbait article, in itself arguing in bad faith.

theGeatZhopa• 1 year ago

The knowing has lost against the believing every single time in the whole history of antroposophic argumentation. No chance to stand 3 rounds against the believers

01HNNWZ0MV43FF3• 1 year ago

Is there any value in "tactical believing", then?

jt-hill• 1 year ago

Classic mistake theory vs conflict theory. Just being right is not a good enough reason for someone to believe you. They have to believe you’re on their side.

dartharva2• 1 year ago

The world wouldn't have progressed if everybody'd had this attitude. To actually bring real change you don't have a choice but to engage with the toddlers.

Those who don't, will lose. E.g. Democrats in the last election.

sherburt3• 1 year ago

Demeaning and applying labels to people who disagree with you are not really conducive to the healthy arguments the author is looking for.

skwee357• 1 year ago

I gave up trying to change people’s mind in this widely divided world.

For starters, I will be arguing with a dozen of “social media influencers” who shaped the opinion and identity of my opponent.

And in the end, most people are not really interested in changing their opinion. They want me to change mine, or validate theirs, but would conveniently dismiss anything that does not match their world view.

al_borland• 1 year ago

That last part is where my head was going while reading this piece. If both people are of the mindset that the other should change their mind, which is usually the case, it goes nowhere.

The person most open to having they mind changed is often the least likely to need it changed, as they’ve likely already looked at both side in good faith. That said, they may have a blind spot, or haven’t considered a particular view.

jchw• 1 year ago

Toddlers (which includes defensive bureaucrats, bullies, flat earthers, folks committed to a specific agenda and radio talk show hosts)

If you've already decided your peer is a "toddler", correctly or incorrectly, you're definitely going to struggle to have any meaningful kind of dialog, that's for sure.

If you’re not changing your mind, it’s likely you’re not actually having an argument (or you’re hanging out with the wrong people.)

Well, why do people argue in the first place?

Ultimately, it is probably something along the lines of "to spread one's own opinion", a cause not particularly noble in and of itself. Still, it is probably necessary. Most people are not aware of how seriously one's own perception is subjective; it feels like human nature, yet it's apparent if you look across enough people and enough culture that almost everything about our perception of issues is strongly impacted by culture, down to the language we use (though to be clear, I am not a believer in force-feeding the euphemism treadmill; fixing problems you manufactured isn't a net win for anyone. But I digress.) With that in mind, I think the importance of argument is apparent.

On an individual level, we have issues important enough to us, that we have formed opinions on. When we hear or see an argument that we disagree with, sometimes we feel enticed to debate it. In a public space, it's often more a performance than it is an actual argument between two people, but it's still an argument at its core.

In truth, there is not that much to gain from most arguments as they boil down to people who actually believe the same things but have a different framing of the situation, leading to a different outcome. You might change someone's mind by arguing with them, but only if they are both factually wrong about something and have the humility to admit it (and I think it is genuinely hard to sometimes, humans are just like that.) If they see the same exact factual information and have a different viewpoint, the real argument is one of trying to demonstrate which viewpoint holds more water. That's the real difficulty.

I don't really wind up having a lot of private one-on-one debates with people anymore. The reason is not because I don't want to grow or learn, it's because I've had a lot of debates about the issues most important to me and I feel like I understand the opposing viewpoints enough. I don't agree with them, but not because I can't figure out how someone could justify it.

Granted, there are viewpoints that I have an explanation for that I think holders of those viewpoints would not find to be particularly charitable, but that's not my modus operandi and I do adjust this when possible. In a lot of cases, e.g. abortion, gun rights, fiscal policies, I can see fairly reasonable arguments going different ways, and it often depends on what things you think are most important. This even extends to stuff that is less controversial that I have strong opinions on, like privacy rights and cryptography. The less charitable views are mostly reserved for the kinds of silly arguments you find spreading primarily from one moron to another, like conspiracies, or anything driven primarily by outrage bait.

I can see why you wouldn't argue with those people, but personally I think there are cases where you should. Ultimately, I think public debate is better than the ominous viewpoint suppression systems that modern social media deploys. (In many cases, both are worse than simply having reasonable moderation that can make subjective calls.)

Ultimately, I don't really think conspiracy nuts are toddlers or especially emotionally immature. I think a lot of them feel a disconnect from society and a distrust of authority, and find connection and possibly even a weird sense of security from conspiracy theories. Sometimes having someone to blame and grand explanations for why things are the way they are just makes us as humans feel better. But should you argue with them? At the very least, probably not for your sake or theirs, but maybe for other people's sakes sometimes.

Or maybe even more, it might be worth asking what it really means to "win" an argument. Changing the other person's view is not the definition I'd go with.

klinquist• 1 year ago

I assumed this would be about prompt engineering. I often feel like I'm arguing with toddlers when interacting with LLMs :).

dkarl3• 1 year ago

Toddlers (which includes defensive bureaucrats, bullies, flat earthers, folks committed to a specific agenda and radio talk show hosts)

I think people are unfair to bureaucrats. Bureaucrats have a job to do: they carry out policy determined by other people and encoded via a dizzying array of rules that combine specificity and vagueness in unexpected ways, many of which have a history of harm, exploitation, and public debate behind them that ordinary people have no patience to learn.

People are only interested in their own situation, and they are convinced that their situation is different. Sometimes it is. Sometimes they're suffering from an entirely natural partiality towards themselves. So they want the bureaucrat to be creative. They justify it by saying that the rules can be bent just for this circumstance, just for them, it doesn't have to apply to any other circumstance. Why can't the bureaucrat relax their rigid bureaucratic brain enough to realize that every circumstance is unique and the rules were written for other circumstances, not this one?

But that's exactly what the bureaucrat is not supposed to do. The public, their elected representatives, their interest groups, and other policy stakeholders expend incredible quantities of time in campaigns, pubic debate, open meetings, closed meetings, collection and collation of feedback, et cetera ad infinitum. It's not the bureaucrat's place to second-guess the results of that process or innovate outside the bounds decided on during that process.

In the gray areas within those boundaries, yes, the bureaucrat is happy to listen to arguments and make decisions based on reason and evidence. That's their job. Gray areas where bureaucrats get to apply judgment are inevitable, often even intentional, but the gray areas aren't always where you want or expect them to be. Bureaucrats don't have latitude to decide that a rule that went through two rounds of public feedback, got debated until 11pm at a public meeting, went through multiple rounds of drafting and review by the staff of an elected official, and was finally signed off on and announced as a shiny new policy in the media, should be changed for you because the way it applies to your situation doesn't make sense to you. They can't invent a gray area where the political process provided a bright line.

You can argue that a lot of rules were hastily dashed out by a junior aide and made it through the rest of the policy-making process without any further scrutiny. That's true. But it's not like when you become a bureaucrat they give you a special pair of glasses that show you which rules were just one person's ill-informed guess and which rules emerged from decades of painful history or hours of public debate and compromise. That would be nice to know, and sometimes bureaucrats know that information because they were around and paying attention when the rules were made. Sometimes they can bend a rule because they know that this particular rule is not important to anybody. But just because they won't bend a rule in your case doesn't mean they're narrow-minded, stubborn, or petty.

pphysch• 1 year ago

Hence the "defensive" qualifier. Defensive bureaucrats hide behind the "just doing my job / following orders" excuse. This is problematic when it is at odds with ethics, especially in civil service organizations.

Following protocol is critical to the function of large human organizations, but it's not everything. People who blindly follow protocol without heed to societal values and ethics are no different than killer robots.

Adolf Eichmann was a defensive bureaucrat.

Arubis• 1 year ago

"There are three ways of dealing with opposition. The recommended and stupid way is to directly engage it in a cooperative spirit. This never works unless there is genuinely some sort of misunderstanding that can be easily clarified." (Venkatesh Rao, Be Slightly Evil)

prvc• 1 year ago

Before asking "How to win an argument with a toddler?", first ask:

  1- "Might the toddler be right?" 
  2- "Am I the toddler in this interaction?"

immibis2• 1 year ago

This is the stated reason that Vaush (some Twitch/YT zoomer political commentator) stopped doing debate streams. He said they were only having the effect of elevating the people he was debating with rather than conveying information or changing minds.

henlobenlo• 1 year ago

99% of people have zero epistemic foundation for any of their views so debated on the facts mean nothing

LinuxAmbulance• 1 year ago

A terrifying amount of views are held on the basis of how good they make the holder feel.

subjectsigma2• 1 year ago

I don’t think this should be terrifying, this is how it works and how it’s always worked. Understanding this is more helpful than pretending people are rational machines and if they don’t agree with your reasoning, that means they are defective and therefore dangerous.

weregiraffe• 1 year ago

Is "trust science" a good epistemic foundation?

YesThatTom2• 1 year ago

This is how Trump will win and become king.

dumbfounder• 1 year ago

Everyone is capable of being a toddler. This article frames it like there are a bunch of idiots out there that are always wrong. I think he is acting like a toddler when he points out the people that are always wrong. It is good to analyze your own actions and try to minimize when we act like toddlers. Because we all do. But yes, some more than others.

jmward01• 1 year ago

I think there is a difference between having a discussion and having an argument. You are in a discussion if you are actually open to change and seeking a better understanding. You are in an argument if you are just out to change the other side. An argument is a fight so knowing when to argue is critical to winning the fight. The challenge, I think, is that often people get themselves into a discussion when the other side is having an argument with them and don't realize it. That seems like a point this article is really driving at towards the end. The missing advice though is that if you recognize the other side is just going to be in an argument and not switch to a discussion then you probably need to back out.

cess11• 1 year ago

I get the impression that this person is using toddler as an insult and find it rather off-putting.

AndrewOMartin• 1 year ago

An argument, though, is an exchange of ideas that ought to surface insight and lead to a conclusion.

No it isn't.

hingusdingus• 1 year ago

Ice cream usually works for actual toddlers. (Didn't read the article yet.)

SamBam• 1 year ago

An argument, though, is an exchange of ideas that ought to surface insight and lead to a conclusion.

No it isn't.

benrutter• 1 year ago

I have a sort of recipe for openly discussing disagreements with someone:

1. Demonstrate that you understand their point, and concede ground where necessary (what you think is attractive about what they are saying, what it explains well, etc)

2. Explain (not tell) why it is that in spite of that, you don't hold the position they do (maybe it leads to some other conclusion, maybe there's another core principle at work)

3. Ask, with genuine curiosity, what they think about the problem you raised, how to they resolve it in their mind?

I don't think that'll necessarily make you more likely to change their mind, but you'll certainly be more likely to learn something.

And if they aren't actually interested in discussing, and are just engaging in some kind of show boating etc, it will become immediately clear because you are only leaving open the possibility of curious, open dialogue.

alganet5• 1 year ago

There are many kinds of arguments. Some arguments are psychological, not related to "winning" but understanding what makes the interlocutor tick.

The article is formulaic. It doesn't make it inherently bad.

The presenting of a persona interaction, followed by a recipe on how to deal with that, is one of those discussion tricks. Whoever answers must put itself in either the toddler's position or the adult position. Both positions are disfavorable (they're flat stereotypes)

The author is actually playing neither, it is acting as an "overseer" of silly toddlers and silly adults that engage in arguments all wrong.

It is a curious thing how far these things went.

Tantrums can happen for all kinds of reasons, and adults can engage in fruitless argument for all kinds of reasons too. It's a human thing. Sometimes, even in perfectly reasonable discussions, no one learns anything. That is also a human thing.

Changing one's point of view is something dramatic. To expect that in an argument is unreasonable, it's too high of a goal.

Just making the other part understand the subject is a lesser, more attainable objective. They don't need to agree. Sometimes I feel glad when I notice that the other part found the core of the discussion, even if they are in opposition to my view. It means that they understood the subject, which is something rare these days.

PathOfEclipse• 1 year ago

An argument, though, is an exchange of ideas that ought to surface insight and lead to a conclusion.

That's one definition, I suppose, but it's not the definition you'll find in any dictionary I've seen. The author here seems to be assuming that the only valid reason to argue is to learn. People argue for many reasons other than that.

If you’re regularly having arguments with well-informed people of goodwill, you will probably ‘lose’ half of them–changing your mind based on what you’ve learned

Again, the author's unspoken presupposition begs to be questioned. Why do most people actually argue in the public sphere? For instance, why do we have presidential debates? The candidates certainly aren't there to learn. They are not even trying to persuade their debate partner. They are arguing to convince or persuade their viewers of something. These could be undecided viewers, or they could be viewers who have already made up their mind but may either feel strengthened about their beliefs or weakened after listening.

Similarly, if I'm debating someone online, it's often less to convince that person and more to convince anyone else who might be reading. I have heard of people in real life who have read debates I've engaged in and expressed both gratitude for my willingness to do so and that they were strengthened in their beliefs on the subject.

mooreed• 1 year ago

Post reminds me of the absolutely lovely Monty python skit [1] that is not only humorous, but has a lot you can learn from.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

renewiltord• 1 year ago

Sure. You should converge viewpoints over time in a sense of Aumann's Agreement Theorem. If you aren't, something is different about the argument purpose.

subjectsigma2• 1 year ago

People write articles like this and then wonder why we are so politically divided.

I do agree there’s a point past which someone is ideologically unable to be reasoned with. The classic example is neo-Nazis, of course. But also of course, there are redeemed neo-Nazis.

Coming from a conservative family and living in a deep blue state I’ve had my fair share of arguments on both sides. As other commenters have stated, it’s all about emotions. If you can make the other person feel like they are being heard and assuage their fears about X, Y, or Z, then you can make progress, even if it’s small progress.

rhines3• 1 year ago

It is an unfortunate side-effect of spending too much time online I think. Or online in the wrong spaces.

Everyone has a different tolerance for dealing with unreasonable people, but there is a breaking point for each of us. And if you hit that, you will be prone to throwing your hands in the air, exiting the space where you found these people, and decrying them all to be braindead. I have hit that point multiple times and it has resulted in my making callous generalizations of people after.

It's hard to imagine that people you interact with in an online community are the vocal minority of that community, when you cannot find the silent majority. But I suppose the silent majority doesn't tend to spend time on forums for their viewpoints.

disambiguation• 1 year ago

I don't think I've ever had an argument that I remember being a good use of my time.

lokar• 1 year ago

I think it’s rare to actually have minds change in an argument, and that’s fine.

What you should be doing is understanding each position and reducing the disagreement down to one (or a few) points that are either knowable (you could find the data, run an experiment, etc) or are a judgement call.

techright752• 1 year ago

Useless article that further demonstrates the leftist movement of what was once a great and fairly neutral site called Hacker News.

rexpop2• 1 year ago

flat earthers, folks committed to a specific agenda

I find it hard to think ill of a "leftist movement" that opposes "flat earthers," but pretty much every reasonable adult is, to a greater or lesser extent, "committed to a specific agenda"—leftists no less than the rest!

techright752• 1 year ago

That's not the piece I'm referring to, you're just referring to the one piece of a long statement that basically bashes Republicans, Libertarians, Trump Supporters etc. But folks like you HAVE to go to the extreme because your ideas are losing badly.

MathMonkeyMan• 1 year ago

Tell me about other strongly-held positions you’ve changed as the result of a discussion like this one…

Fair point, but if somebody were actually to say that to me during a disagreement, I would assume that they were not acting in good faith.

Now instead of disagreeing about politics or whatever, you're asking a rhetorical question that insinuates "you are unreasonable."

gs17• 1 year ago

Agreed, it feels like something someone who had never had a conversation with a human being that strongly disagreed with them would write. If it was an introspective question meant to question the framing of trying to convince people through arguments in general, it might be meaningful.

I think it's fair to try to establish if the person you're talking to has an unfalsifiable belief and walk away if you're arguing with a brick wall, but that's definitely not the way to go about it.

bdangubic• 1 year ago

my dad won everyone one of them… with a belt (or threat of the belt)…

jumploops• 1 year ago

One of the surprising benefits of raising a toddler is gaining the ability to instantly tell when another adult has fallen into a "toddler-like" state (myself included!).

Before having kids, I would try and explain someone's behavior in a logical sense.

Toddlers, however, are mostly driven by their current physical needs (hungry/sleepy) and whatever they're currently doing (autonomy).

We've found the most success in avoiding all boolean questions. Do you want to read a book? (when playing with trains before bedtime) Obvious no!

Do you want to read this book or that book? Oh... a decision!

It's striking how well tactics like these work outside the realm of toddlers.

sethammons• 1 year ago

We had a VP make a similar observation during an all hands. In the following all hands, he had to apologize because people felt they were being insulted by being compared to kids. The irony of the situation was not lost on some of us

Quarrelsome• 1 year ago

illusion of choice is extremely effective on c-suite as well. I recommend it for engineers trying to push changes up corporate ladders. Give them three options, the one nobody should ever do, the compromise solution, and the "whale" option. Just like product pricing.

For very young toddlers distraction is also extremely effective but it stops working at some point. Not sure about how effective it is on c-suite someone will have to do some testing.

barryrandall• 1 year ago

Never present an option you wouldn't want to live with. The internet teaches us that what "nobody should ever do" isn't obvious to everyone all the time.

torginus• 1 year ago

I dislike this line of reasoning - it's the presumption that I'm just too smart for my audience and unwillingness to recognize where they are coming from, even if some of their thinking seems to be irrational and biased - at the same time it's the refusal to acknowledge that I might be prone to biases and my thinking might be flawed and perspective incomplete from the point of others.

It's literally giving up, declaring victory and then projecting passive-aggressive superiority.

teekert• 1 year ago

Was hoping it was about actual toddlers. I keep having these discussions with my kids. I know they’re just whining but they always reach this point where I think: “That’s indeed quite reasonable”. My wife says I shouldn’t be a push over but I just want to be open minded.

f33d5173• 1 year ago

If you're losing half your arguments then you're doing somthing wrong. That would imply you and your opponent are both picking your initial positions via a coin flip, so that you're both discovering which side is "correct" for the first time in the midst of the argument. Rather, the first time a person encounters a subject, they won't have an opinion on it, so instead of arguing over it they will usually do some research or listen to other people's perspectives. Only once they feel they have gathered enough information to form an opinion will they tend to get into arguments over it. At that point they should be about, say, 90% confident in their opinion, so they should lose arguments about 10% of the time.

But that's really an idealized view of opinion forming that has little to do with how people actually develop their beliefs. Usually people don't want to become part-time experts in every field under the sun prior to developing an opinion on a given subject. So they will take the shortcut of acknowledging some expert or authority whose opinion they have some reason to trust. When they get into an argument, they still argue their opinion in terms of object level facts, but their actual reason for holding that opinion is largely disconnected from those facts. If their interlocutor presented an extraordinrily strong case (usually alongside some reason to distrust experts) they might still change their view. Otherwise, they will exit the discussion either feeling more confident in their view owing to the impotence of their inquisitor, or they will leave feeling uncertain in their view due to the strong front put up by the opposition. Even in the latter case, they will seldom admit to having "lost" the argument. They will rather change tacts midway through the discussion - ceding what they discover to be an inadequate line of attack for one they deem more defensable. That will often come across to the opposition as a forfeiture, an admission of inadequacy. But since they were never strongly taken to a given reasoning for their view (beyond, as I said, trust in experts, but the expert opinion does not change midway through an argument), they are indifferent to whether a given line of reasoning bears out.

I should emphasize that this is all really unavoidable, and that this is grounds for us to argue that even non toddlers (in fact we might argue, especially non toddlers) should not admit to having "lost" an argument any more than a small fraction of the time. This reflects that the goal of an argument is not usually to change minds, but rather for both sides to develop their understanding of the subject and to become more aware of why others would disagree with them.

Since I assume that the present discussion is a propos recent US political issues, what has occurred there is that some portion of the population considers trump to be an "authority" (as I have used the term above). That is, they feel that trump must necessarily have good reason for believing what he does, and furthermore that whatever actions trump takes must have good reasons behind them; this jutifies to them their choice to believe the same things and to believe those actions are good. This is questionable in the first place because trump has done very little to establish himself as an authority on political matters. He is first of all lacking in political experience prior to his first term, and second of all demonstrated during that first term very little talent for statesmanship. So to say that the policies he is implementing now must be well thought out, owing to his history of thinking out policies prior to implementing them, is not concomitant with the evidence.

In the second place, there is a clear demonstrated disconnect between trump's beliefs and his actions. He tends to take actions by justifying them in one way, but will later change course by giving an unrelated justification for his prior action (none of this to say that either are really his true reason). If we defend some position on the grounds that trump agrees with it at one point in time, we are liable to end up arguing against that position some time later on the same grounds. If the likelihood of contradicting ourselves is so high, then we cannot reasonably assign a high probability to the correctness of whatever position we are initially defending. (Or in other words, whereas I previously stated "the expert opinion does not change midway through an argument", this is liable to be false when we take trump as the "expert")

We might attempt to persist in defending trump on grounds that we agree with his actions rather than his words. I would find that questionable as well, since he has never been reliable in acting in a single direction. His recent flip-flop on illegal immigration, which previously seemed like a core issue of his, seems like a good demonstration of this.

Given all this, we come to the conclusion that those defending trump are defending the personage of trump rather than any particular belief or policy. He has developed, in other words, a cult of personality under which his followers will agree with anything he says or does (with some very limited exceptions like vaccines), even if they previously argued in strong terms against those same actions or beliefs. Such a cult of personality is not necessarily toddlerish, but is nonetheless highly regrettable.

cycomanic2• 1 year ago

An excellent text about engaging with extremists... (I don't agree with the authors simplification as toddlers) is the book "Subversive Denken, wie man Fundamentalismus diskutiert" (Unfortunately it's only available in German). The author distinguishes between different types of fundamentalists and makes the point that discussions with the convinced fundamentalist is often not possible, because even agreeing on facts is impossible as denying some facts is a proof of faith in the fundamentalist ideology. The discussion is then about convincing listeners instead via different techniques. Despite the title it is not primarily about religious fundamentalism but also political (quite timely at the moment) and the author gives historical examples of the type of techniques employed against fundamentalists.

spongebobism• 1 year ago

"Wie man mit Fundamentalisten diskutiert, ohne den Verstand zu verlieren: Anleitung zum subversiven Denken", by Hubert Schleichert

Uzmanali• 1 year ago

If someone is emotionally invested in “being right,” logic is just background noise.

motohagiography• 1 year ago

I often ask, "what new fact could change my opinion about this?" it isn't a simple question. it requires you go upstream of your opinion and consider why or what caused you to think it, and then ask -even upstream of that- if there is some principle or axiom that is yielding an interpretation of that cause.

questions like: would I still think this if I were happier; do I have a belief about my status that the circumstances do not reflect; do I share an ontology with this being at all; do I fear other consequences of agreeing with them?

the irony of authority is it usually means dealing with someone who doesn't have the authority to compromise, and if you don't humiliate them for this fact that hangs over everything they do, they will often at least use their discretion.

quantadev• 1 year ago

The mainstream media in America has turned half the country into proverbial "Unthinking Brainwashed Toddlers". I think the key problem about "Toddlers" is that they think with emotions rather than with logic and reason. They're old enough to know they're mad about something, but too unwise to reason about root causes and potential solutions, often unaware that THEY are the CAUSE of their problems.

If you think you might be in the political party that's thinking in this way, then congratulations, you're probably right, and you should start using reason. To the other half, don't worry it's not you. The people I'm talking to know exactly who they are, and I don't even need to say which side it is, because at this point, in 2025, it has finally become utterly obvious to most.

didgetmaster• 1 year ago

There are a number of highly contentious subjects where the other side seems to be a bunch of toddlers to us, no matter which side we find ourselves on.

Abortion, climate change, free market capitalism, tax policy, racism, or identity politics are just a few. Even though both sides generally have some valid points to support their side; rarely does anyone's argument or debate cause someone else to switch sides.

Too often both camps are firmly entrenched wIth many who feel that anyone in the other camp is not just wrong, but is evil.

Neither side wants to give an inch in the public sphere, lest it be taken as a sign of weakness. This leads to the most shrill, radical voices taking center stage on both sides.

The most extreme positions are promoted and reinforced. There are a number of vested interests in the media and political arenas who like it that way.

talkingtab• 1 year ago

Very wrong headed in my opinion.

It assumes we are talking about a toddler and we are not. People find "ways" to survive - even toddlers. I knew a three year old. He found a way, and knew how to use it. It was very interesting to watch - until you realized the back story.

If something bad happened, as in he might be in trouble, he would run around the room as fast as possible and on the way create mayhem. He would knock over a paint jar, purposefully or not. Bump into another kid, knock over a chair. Soon all the adults in the room were dealing with an overwhelming set of emergencies. Todd was forgotten

This happened over and over again until the pattern clicked. Some adult had to keep focused on Todd.

It was a genius thing he came up with. He never faced consequences. One had to wonder how such a set of behaviors would evolve? Was he a bad kid? No. Mean, no. If you step back what you see is a survival skill for a very difficult situation. My guess is that the physical or psychological cost of being "caught" were so threatening that this response evolved as a life saving skill. In a three year old.

One has to think about how this person would be if they did not have some intervention. Would they evolve this particular skill into an increasingly sophisticated way? Certainly inherent in the success of this mode is a fairly strong sense of contempt for people in general. And perhaps this contempt is well earned when given by a three or even four year old. After all where was everyone else when he was in the original situation? But in an adult? Pitiful.

Fortunately for Todd, people took the time and had the care to help him feel safe without that mechanism. Unfortunately, this does not always happen, as we are seeing.

The response to this kind of pattern is the same though, for any age Todd - three or not three.

First the adults in the room have to focus on the source of the problems. And if not stopped, the blame must fall heavily on those so called adults.

Second, the distraction thing has to be addressed. The problem is not this or that is broken. The problem is the Todd.

So where are the adults in the room? We need to ask why the people in the room are not doing their job? And if we have no adults we need to get rid of the people in there. All of them.

aucisson_masque• 1 year ago

It's very hard to make someone else change his mind, even with the best arguments. See all the Russians believing they are freeing Ukraine from nazi, even when told the cold true facts it takes weeks of constant discussion to get them to actually understand it's all propaganda.

And that's something that is quite easily dismissible.

When I care enough about someone, first of all all I don't make a point to change their mind but think of having a discussion like a way to enrich both knowledge and point of views, at the end it's not the result but the journey that's interesting. How both people develop and adapt their reasoning to arguments.

Of course you got to be two willing people to make that happen, won't ever happen on Twitter for instance.

And if I'm dealing with someone who believe something completely and utterly stupid by all standards, like the earth is flat, and I need to change his mind. The best way is to plant a seed, listen to his reasoning, think of something that doesn't fit in his story but also can't be felt as aggressive. For instance, with flat earther, I would ask, looking interested what the edge of the earth look like then. If he can show me.

Popeyes• 1 year ago

The neurodivergence meter is in the red zone for this thread.

broof2• 1 year ago

I have changed my mind in deeply personal ways a few times in my life. After going through this experience a few times it’s strange to think about what beliefs I hold now that are wrong, and which of those will actually change in the coming years. This applies to cultures and groups just as well as individuals

lr4444lr• 1 year ago

This is neither a new, nor profound insight.

Public speaking has been about specious arguments to persuade, bamboozle, and appeal to the crowd instead of to reason with them since its very inception with the Greek Sophists. Some later Roman orators tried to redeem those skills for public service, but it's obvious in the extant manuals on the topic that professional argumentation had only to do with "exchanging of ideas" to lead to an "insight" as an unanticipated side effect.

The author's preconception sounds not just modern, but even a bit naive.

xwolfi• 1 year ago

This is absolutely wrong: you cannot have a proper argument if you're ready to change your mind at the first sign of challenge. You "win" an argument if you convince a crowd of your position, challenged by an antagonist. You "change" your strategy, maybe your core ideas after the argument, slowly and silently, after reflection.

For instance if you debate, I don't know, the virtue of legalizing illegal immigrants. One would take the position that if they didn't obey the law in the first place, why reward them: they might never care for the law if disobedience is followed by reward, and the rest of society might follow too. The antagonist would argue to be pragmatic, we need labor, they're already there, they disobeyed the law to help their families not to steal from anyone. Both points are valid, both people are right, none of them can "win" in the heat of a debate - but their arguments might move the crowd listening maybe, and they can use various tricks to this effect (humor etc), to obtain a positive vote at the end.

Both opponents, after the debate and seeing the result on the crowd, will adapt their arguments for next time, or maybe shift a little if they were shown something surprising, but after a lot of further debates with further opponents. And fundamentally, a legal fundamentalist cannot be transformed into a pragmatic economist overnight, or over a lifetime quite often.

whydoyoucare• 1 year ago

Where the argument is rooted is helpful in determining if there is any sort of compromise or "seeing other's viewpoint" can be had. - Beliefs: Lowest level, simply held to be true. Arguments at this level cannot change anyone's mind and are pointless waste of time - Values: Higher up, what you value more. Still deep, but some middle ground possible with lot of effort - Morals: Right or wrong, middle ground and compromise or change of mind possible - Ethics: Top level, just morals into action. Easiest to argue/change mind.

dennis_jeeves2• 1 year ago

Related corollary quote:

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it - Max Planck

If most 'scientists' rarely change their mind, there other mortals are a far cry.

musicale• 1 year ago

An argument, though, is an exchange of ideas that ought to surface insight and lead to a conclusion

No it isn't.

https://python.mzonline.com/sketches/argument/

moi2388• 1 year ago

I can win almost any argument with almost any toddler in the same way I can win it against a politician. Pancakes. And it doesn’t have to be pancakes, any bribe will do.

alanh• 1 year ago

For a lot more specific suggestions on how to have actual arguments that can lead somewhere (not a tantrum) read “how to have impossible conversations” by Lindsay and Boghossian

hoseja• 1 year ago

I'm quite sure there are basic statistical facts that mister Seth Godin would not let persuade him no matter what.

isaacremuant• 1 year ago

I thought this would talk about actual toddlers, I'm which case I didn't think an argument was necessary to be had.

Instead it just uses an all too familiar mechanism of labeling/ad hominem to immediately dismiss people.

Hey, bureocrat (?), I posit you're a toddler therefore you're wrong.

Great job, man. "Folks committed to a specific agenda" is just fantastic. Says who? Of course he starts with flat earther so you will say yes to the rest.

well-informed people of goodwill,

This person is putting a show of civility but very likely he'll get mad at anyone not discussing in the constraints in the overton window of the "current year".

HN can do Better.

vismit2000• 1 year ago

A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still! (From "You Can't Win an Argument," in Dale Carnegie's popular book, How to Win Friends and Influence People)

How to win an argument with a toddler

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