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Casually discussing the monkeypox fiasco with a coworker, when another coworker walks up and gets involved in the discussion. She eventually steers the conversation toward abortion with the statement, "Kids wouldn't be getting hurt if Biden wasn't forcing us to have them."

Naturally this launches a debate. First I correct her on the Biden detail, then I state my pro-life position. Woman was utterly mortified and jumps into the rape cases and mother-endangering arguments. I acknowledge her concerns and explain that those are the rare and unfortunate cases, and that most women advocating for abortion perhaps need to just stop having sex (pissed her right off lol). She tells me men need to stop jacking off and killing kids that way, I say those aren't kids, she says fetuses aren't kids, yadda yadda. Usual abortion arguments. I had to stop arguing with her, my efforts seemed futile.

How do I get through to someone like this? She doesn't even hear herself deny the fetus is a life and proceed to say she'd kill her next pregnancy if it happened.

Left out some of the specifics of the debate, this isn't a play-by-play post.

Casually discussing the monkeypox fiasco with a coworker, when another coworker walks up and gets involved in the discussion. She eventually steers the conversation toward abortion with the statement, "Kids wouldn't be getting hurt if Biden wasn't forcing us to have them." Naturally this launches a debate. First I correct her on the Biden detail, then I state my pro-life position. Woman was utterly mortified and jumps into the rape cases and mother-endangering arguments. I acknowledge her concerns and explain that those are the rare and unfortunate cases, and that most women advocating for abortion perhaps need to just stop having sex (pissed her right off lol). She tells me men need to stop jacking off and killing kids that way, I say those aren't kids, she says fetuses aren't kids, yadda yadda. Usual abortion arguments. I had to stop arguing with her, my efforts seemed futile. How do I get through to someone like this? She doesn't even hear herself deny the fetus is a life and proceed to say she'd ***kill*** her next pregnancy if it happened. Left out some of the specifics of the debate, this isn't a play-by-play post.

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[–] • 4 pts

These aren't rational people, you can't reason with them and you will never change their minds through debate. They respond to social pressure and emotions. If you can get them in a situation where all their peers believe something, they'll believe it eventually too. You might be able to work through their emotional reasoning and guide their feelings, but the best way to get through to them is to find a way to get two of their feelings about an issue to contradict each other so that it creates severe enough cognitive dissonance which forces them to process the conflict rationally in order to resolve it. Easier said than done, though.

[–] • 3 pts

... find a way to get two of their feelings about an issue to contradict each other ...

That's the easy part.

... so that it creates severe enough cognitive dissonance which forces them to process the conflict rationally in order to resolve it.

That doesn't work because they are not only used to live with severe cognitive dissonance (doublethink, as George Orwell called it), but it's part of their training as cult members. They don't feel the need to resolve the conflict because their peers don't do that either.

They are all part of a gigantic Ash experiment and can only change when their peers do it first, or by changing their peer group. Maybe you can change their coworker peer group one by one, but most likely their online peer group is much stronger.