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igenlode"When did someone last change your mind?": an interesting question on this week's Radio 4 "Any Questions", that initially stumped all the panellists (according to the presenter's observations!), and which of course they all then proceeded to dodge/spin into political dogma -- with the exception of the Conservative peer, who thereby gained some respect in my eyes. Because yes, it *is* hard to think of any occasion in which someone else's opinion/arguments have honestly changed yours -- most of us are exceedingly stuck in our opinions, once we have actively formed them, which means that change, where it happens, tends to be experienced on an emotional level as the result of a violent apostasy or sense of betrayal. People are 'converted' from their opinions rather than simply changing their minds as a result of someone else's argument... (Which is one reason the jury system tries to go to some lengths to pick jurors who haven't heard all about the case in advance, and why press coverage is limited as soon as there is a case to be brought, in a nowadays fairly vain attempt to avoid bringing in a jury whose minds have been influenced by advance knowledge, potentially presented by those with biased opinions...)
Like the "Question Time" panellists, I too drew an immediate panicked blank in the face of that particular challenge; I'm not sure I can honestly think of *any* case in which an opinion of mine in one direction has been changed as the result of someone else's representations. Like most people, I cling to my prejudices even if battered by a tsunami of vociferous opposing arguments, which may shut me down but don't actually change my belief...
I think the best example that comes to mind, though it is not the result of anything that anyone else actually said to me, is my reluctant relaxation of my kneejerk distaste for Real Person Fiction. I could never understand why there would be any attraction in it at all; having now been lured by morbid curiosity into reading some (mainly because there was next to no *non*-RPF for that particular fandom, with only a handful of fics in existence overall) in a situation where I had a sufficiently detailed background knowledge to be able to appreciate the sources that were being drawn on and the very recognisable character dynamics... yes, I can say that I appreciated it and now realise that it *can* be done without being grossly offensive. Though I still wouldn't want the people involved to read it (as to be fair I understand that most of the writers wouldn't) and still find the attempted erotica neither convincing nor appealing; I did find the non-erotic interactions charming and funny, though, and can see that they were written from a position of affectionate --even if, in the most entertaining example, very silly!-- fandom.
So someone, or someones, did change my mind, albeit not by arguing out their case (which to be frank I don't think would have had any effect, just as pro-slash arguments don't make me like slash any the better) but by practical demonstration, which is probably the only way to do it.
Like the "Question Time" panellists, I too drew an immediate panicked blank in the face of that particular challenge; I'm not sure I can honestly think of *any* case in which an opinion of mine in one direction has been changed as the result of someone else's representations. Like most people, I cling to my prejudices even if battered by a tsunami of vociferous opposing arguments, which may shut me down but don't actually change my belief...
I think the best example that comes to mind, though it is not the result of anything that anyone else actually said to me, is my reluctant relaxation of my kneejerk distaste for Real Person Fiction. I could never understand why there would be any attraction in it at all; having now been lured by morbid curiosity into reading some (mainly because there was next to no *non*-RPF for that particular fandom, with only a handful of fics in existence overall) in a situation where I had a sufficiently detailed background knowledge to be able to appreciate the sources that were being drawn on and the very recognisable character dynamics... yes, I can say that I appreciated it and now realise that it *can* be done without being grossly offensive. Though I still wouldn't want the people involved to read it (as to be fair I understand that most of the writers wouldn't) and still find the attempted erotica neither convincing nor appealing; I did find the non-erotic interactions charming and funny, though, and can see that they were written from a position of affectionate --even if, in the most entertaining example, very silly!-- fandom.
So someone, or someones, did change my mind, albeit not by arguing out their case (which to be frank I don't think would have had any effect, just as pro-slash arguments don't make me like slash any the better) but by practical demonstration, which is probably the only way to do it.
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Date: 2026-03-29 05:51 pm (UTC)For one thing, we would continue to innovate our energy harvesting technology, as time went on (even today, photovoltaic cells and batteries are a lot more efficient than the technology was 50 years ago, and that's even "green" tech has been developing in a culture still hostile to it, instead of a culture dependent on it), so that, by now, we could be powering a lot more with solar, wind, and geothermal than we could in 1980 (the going back to the 1940s technological level would have mostly been a transitional phase). And for another thing, the Internet we have now is so power hungry because it's been invented around the energy generation available to it. If we had switched to a fossil-and-nuclear free 40 years ago, we'd have developed an Internet that doesn't demand as much energy as the one you and I are using now.
*(or really, the 1970s --thanks to the oil embargo back then, and gasoline rationing here in the States, we were already headed that way during the Jimmy Carter administration, that was immediately undone under Reagan)