From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Fri Jun 04 1999 - 07:12:46 MDT
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky [sentience@pobox.com] wrote:
>I'm curious. Have you ever once converted an anti-gun person to
>pro-gun?
Yes. I've had people mail me after discussions on mailing lists to say that
they've looked up the facts and studies I've pointed out and that's changed
their opinion on the issue. I can't think of any occasion when one of the
people participating in such a thread has changed their mind, but several
lurkers have. Nor can I think of an occasion when someone's admitted to
starting out pro-gun and being convinced by the anti-gun arguments.
The big problem with this idea that the pro-gun folks on the list should
be nice, reasonable people and refuse to respond to irrational, unreasonable
anti-gun posts is that when people who've never seen the pro-gun arguments
continue to not see them because us nice, reasonable people refuse to point
them out, they continue to believe the anti-gun arguments; you don't convince
people by keeping your mouth shut. The correct response by those who don't
like gun debates is for them to jump on the anti-gun posters as soon as they
try to start one, not to complain about us when we respond; I can't think
of any occasion when a pro-gun poster has started one of these debates.
Mark
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