Ask Lemmy
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Very often on Lemmy, and maybe social media in general, discussions are pointless. People are not there to see the other side, they are there to fight for what they already think.
All these keyboard warriors think they are fighting a battle, weather its about defending trans rights or fighting antivax opinions, or whatever.
The discussion usually is for the benefit of lurkers and rarely results in changing the opinion of the opponent.
This is all true. it's something that crosses my mind whenever I spend (i.e. waste, probably) any time at all in debate. In person too, BTW, although text feels even worse because of the way it disembodies your interlocutor.
And yet. Open debate is all we have. The alternatives cannot possibly be better. I tell myself that even if 99% of it is useless, that remaining 1% can make a lot of difference statistically. I can certainly think of occasions when I've changed my mind, or at least seen things in a new light, because of a single comment someone made in debate. But yes, it's rare.