Preaching to the Choir?

[Timothy C. May]

At 7:44 PM 7/22/96, hallam at Etna.ai.mit.edu wrote:

>Your analyses are almost always junk because you only analyse one
>side of the argument and deny that there is another side. You are
>great at preaching to the choir Perry, problem is that you don't
>convert anyone who isn't already converted.

I think there is very little "converting" of those with well-developed
views, of whichever side. Thus, solid libertarians are not converted by
liberal/left arguments on this list, solid liberals are not converted by
libertarian arguments, and so forth. We've had Religious Right folks
(though not vocally in a long time), Greens, and several other flavors.

(We also have several professional lawyers, law professors, economists, and
the like, and I doubt the beliefs they have settled on in 10 or 20 or more
years of thought will be changed by our arguments.)

What _does_ happen is that people who have not given a lot of thought to
some issues get exposed to views and can decide for themselves. Many
student types arrive on this list with various half-baked ideas about the
role of government, the effectiveness of laws, etc.

_These_ folks are often influenced by persuasive points made here--they
usually recognize the "common sense" in the best arguments presented. (At
least this is what folks have told me, that they came to the list having
ideas that crypto-privacy was important, but not realizing the full
ramifications of the libertarian outlook until exposed to many people
discussing them here.)

So, I don't expect to convert David Sternlight to my views, nor to convert
Phill H.-B. Nor do they, I am sure, expect to convert me. But I _do_ hope
that the arguments here will have an effect on the thinking of many.

--Tim May

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