Persuasion is not coercion, and it is also not an attempt to defeat your intellectual opponent with facts or moral superiority, nor is it a debate with a winner or a loser. Persuasion is leading a person along in stages, helping them to better understand their own thinking and how it could align with the message at hand. You can’t persuade another

“What I’m trying to say is that times of great distress prompt great change.”

people tend to clash at the level of positions instead of interests. Our positions are what we say we want, and our interests are why we want them. Often, our positions are antagonistic, but our interests align.

What motivates them? Are they knowledgeable? Are they distracted in some way? For facts to work, we need to move them onto the central route and keep them there.

“As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.”

That’s what an epistemology is: a framework for sorting out what is true.

When we feel as though accepting certain facts could damage our reputation, could get us ostracized or excommunicated, we become highly resistant to updating our priors. But the threat to our reputation can be lessened either by affirming a separate group identity or reminding ourselves of our deepest values.

When people’s reasons for rejecting a message are more about the communicator than the message itself, presenting it from multiple sources can sometimes turn a failure into a success.

Once it seems like you’ve received confirmation that you are correct, you don’t go looking for disconfirmation just to make sure.