Mental battles with unarmed opponents

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Today I found myself surrounded by a lively debate(what it was about is not important) involving several coworkers. I don't claim to know everything, but I have a lot of domain knowledge about the subject they were discussing. Because of this knowledge, I knew for a fact that both people in the debate were totally, factually wrong. I chose to remain silent because experience has proven to me that these people cannot be convinced by superior evidence or by debate. They are both locked in to their positions and nothing short of screaming will make them listen to opposing points of view. I'm curious if anyone else here would've attempted to debate them, or if you would've come to a similar conclusion as I did. That there's no purpose debating someone who will not allow his views to change.

Last edited by johnsmcjohn on 26 Jul 2011, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes. Use your knowledge, if it's not favorably received then forget about them, maybe they will receive it favorably next time.

I am ever so slowly learning to walk away from these very futile situations It is pretty hard for me to do, but I try.

I find trying to show someone something is nearly always futile. However, when I do succeed it is by asking the right questions.

I tend to act in what I call "Auto-Mode". I know against all better judgement that my input on someone else's debate, however factually wrong they may be, will always be viewed as "Mr. Know-It-All", but I can't stop myself from spewing factoids into the fray.

Just recently, a co-worker of mine was telling my boss about how much she loves energy shots (miniture B-vitamin and caffeine supplements). I popped into Auto Mode and explained the health dangers of too much Niacin, a B vitamin, has on the skin and heart.

In my mind, this input was vital. The co-worker in question is, for lack of a non-insulting term, not healthy in appearance. I live by the simple logic to never take health advice from someone unhealthy.

My comment was labeled as my "Fun Fact For The Day", and dismissed casually. This infuriated me.

Situations like these often have me asking my friends for advice on how to beat down my IQ to a socialy acceptable level, without causing mind splitting headaches.

My friend, Carl, said, "Ignore everything unimportant." That may sound easy for someone unlike the typical Aspie. But I want to examine everything.

I find the best advice is to simply follow that golden rule "If you can't say anything nice..."

I try to mask my comments within complimentary speech. Instead of saying, "Your stereo is too loud", I say "That stereo is great! I can hear it from across the hall!"

I'm not always successful, like in the story above, but it has saved me more than once from sticking my foot in my mouth.

There are so many people who follow the 2nd part of this, both AS and NT. I can sometimes, but try not to.
If it's someone else's argument, I'll try to keep it that way. It's hard enough trying to convince someone when you're debating/arguing with them, but trying to convince 2 people arguing with each other when they are both wrong is very rarely worth the effort.

Gentle persuasion. Battles never work. No one ever changed someone's mind or heart through military action.

we changed the nazi's minds.

I find that if people really, seriously insist on being utterly wrong about something it's easier to just leave them to it.

"we changed the nazis minds" sure now the threat from the middle east comes from Muslims as opposed to Jews.

ps they didn't change thier minds they just found new targets and approaches, notice how quickly it changes from being a terrorist attack when the Norwegian perp was white, to being a reason we should see why he was angry.