You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Dentin comments on Thwarting a Catholic conversion? - Less Wrong Discussion

8 Post author: Jay_Schweikert 18 June 2012 04:26PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (201)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Dentin 18 June 2012 09:29:41PM 6 points [-]

I'm getting to be quite old, and I have very little tolerance for people with strong political beliefs. For people I meet in passing, I generally ignore stupid beliefs and simply transition the conversation elsewhere - it's not worth the time and effort.

However, for anyone I'm going to spend more than passing time with, I usually ridicule and/or contradict what I consider unproductive beliefs if they are expressed strongly. This puts the target on notice that I don't approve and that they had best not talk about it in my presence; occasionally, it gets rid of the target completely, a fact for which I have been grateful many times.

My reasons for so blatantly violating social norms centers largely around the fact that no matter what action I take, I will have at best minimal impact on this person. If I support their view, it is reinforced. If I do nothing, they assume I don't have a problem with it, and it is likewise reinforced. If I directly contradict their view, it also reinforces it, as discussed repeatedly in the articles on this site.

Quite frankly, I have limited time remaining, and better things to do with that time than try to fix an occasional broken belief system in a low- or normal-functioning person. If you're not going to lead and you're not going to follow, then get out of the way.