Have you given up trying to persuade people

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I have a theory and I want to know if it holds up. As someone on the autism spectrum, how proficient are you at tailoring arguments to individuals in order to change their minds? How likely are you to try to persuade others of taking your perspective? I.e. going beyond letting the facts speak for themselves?

I have completely abandoned attempting to persuade NEURO TYPICALS.

They possess
Zero
Ability to understand

We
Need not ever persuade our own kind

We innerstand one another

I’m 40. Life blows

I have a hunch that what seem like differences in opinion aren't really differences in opinion. Some are just differences in values.

I think I could be good at getting to the bottom of differences, but the (online) conversations never get far enough for me to do much. I need to know why people think certain things to tailor any argument for them, and I haven't managed to get that far with many people.

There are certain kinds of people I don't bother with: basically, people who think a certain way mainly because they like to think that way. There's no arguing with personal preferences. I can only argue with conclusions that are based on a line of reasoning. Also I will stop or avoid the conversation if the person says something that indicates really poor reasoning skills. Can't reason with someone who doesn't recognize correct reasoning.

Sometimes I don't bother just to avoid becoming frustrated. I discussed these kinds of things with people a lot more when I was younger, and I racked up so much frustration that I finally had to force myself to stop.

I am not sure if i always succeed but i do try to persuade people into seeing my perspective.

Not getting emotional or aggressive and staying detached definitely helps in my opinion.

I have a theory that people don’t want to change!

The last time I tried to persuade someone of something in real offline life it didnt go well.

A coworker who was kind of a friend, or potential friend.

A low level supervisor lady who would say things to her crew that made no sense, and set (what I thought) was a bad example and which I thought was kind of "unprofessional".

Suggested in private that she stop. It just became a running debate. Finnally when it was obvious to her that she had no counter argument to any of my many arguments she literally broke down and cried. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she just looked down and away and just repeated a certain phrase.

I guess its my fault. I actually expected her to say "by golly you're right. I was having a temporary brain fart, and the approach I used to take was indeed boneheaded and sets a bad example to the newly hired".

Despite being totally illogical this thing she would do was apparently something she was emotionally invested in -like a religion.

I’m never even confident enough to present facts as-is, anything even remotely resembling a debate and I’m nowhere to be found.

I have to see what kind of person I'm talking to and what they do with facts.

If they're people from a previous era, possibly bronze age, who happen to drive, use cellphones, etc. and their assembly of facts are strictly tribal heraldry - there's no point, they aren't playing the truth game but rather the tribe game.

If they're people who seem to actually care what's true I have to be careful about where their lines of rationality and irrationality are. For example plenty of generally rational people have ideological commitments, ie. global concepts where their whole sense of identity and self-worth, has hinged on a set of ideas. In that sense they're tribal along particular angles and I have to understand where they're amenable to reason, where they aren't, and how far out their protection mechanisms circle the wagons around those core beliefs that they hinge their identity on.

It's tricky because very few people fully care what's true regardless of the consequences, and quite often times they have to be in that second group because those fictions or fixed beliefs are load-bearing, letting go would destabilize things they depend on and they could fall pretty hard and pretty far.


I'm not really sure what else to say about it other than the majority reaction to saying anything that people find novel or different in any way is that you'll be ignored - that people won't believe what you're saying until they hear a handful of their own experts agree with it, and then they'll do their level best to forget that you ever said it first (and to give some credit - there is a danger to believing whoever's out there being the voice in the desert on something that the general public hasn't caught on to yet or which the experts haven't given their imprimatur that it's okay to beleive 'x' fact).


So hardly anyone trusts anyone's radar and even if you do it right you'll be largely ignored unless you have multiple degrees and all kinds of peer reviewed papers from the right institutions, and even then if you're saying something that people don't know what to do with yet you'll still be ignored - ie. when there really isn't a way for society to coopt whatever it is you're saying into an agenda that helps vested power interests.

A lot of the time but not always. I wish I were better at debating. I am in my head but I rarely actually do it because I'm impatient and confrontation-averse, partially because my temper got me in trouble when I was a kid. I like discussing ideas but when it comes to persuasion I mostly limit myself to correcting people on individual facts.

Whether or not I'm capable of persuading people, whether or not I can or cannot prove or argue -- I get by with what I receive from them, and use it.

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I have misgivings about the idea of persuading people. If I think they may be lacking in some relevant information that might affect a decision they're making, something they're doing, or an opinion they have, then I might offer that information, but I prefer to leave it up to them and I don't really hold with "selling" people anything. If I personally want them to do something for me I might ask, and I might offer something in return, but if they don't want to do it then I'll usually respect their decision.

And I don't much like it when anybody tries to persuade me. All they need to do is to explain why they think a certain way and leave me free to reconsider my own view if I see anything salient to the question of whether I'm right or wrong, or to tell me that they'd like me to do this or that, hopefully with reasons, and leave me free to decide whether or not to comply. Anything beyond that just feels invasive. I don't see people as having much of a right to get a bee in their bonnet and dog others into compliance, particularly when it comes to what a person things is true or false, because what I think feels rather out of my conscious control, it's just a product of the information I have, and when somebody is clearly and energetically trying to change my mind, I begin to distrust what they're telling me if they're getting passionate about it, because I think that's when reason takes wings.