Why debating is a waste of time
Bad choices cannot be countered by good arguments. At least not very often.
If a group or individual is taking a bad decision even after all the good arguments and logic are readily available, they are making the choice intently, irrespective of what the results may be.
In elections when people choose sides, it is rarely in favour of good arguing and proper analysis; if that was so then we wouldn’t have needed such expensive elections but just some very good analysts. It is because people prefer feelings and emotions more than pure logic, that we either in bad faith or blinding love choose that which moves us deep down.
Even in ideologies or still smaller moral choices- everything is powered by something less than pure logic. You can go on arguing and debating such a person and it will come to no good end. Debates of religion, politics and morality are almost always long drown out wars where neither side is trying to kill but to dodge.
No amount of great arguments can change people’s views. Not very often or in the short term at least.
Even in the professional world of jobs, businesses and investments, people go on making bad choices because they are not ready to see the world from a logical perspective. They get involved in markets, office politics, ego and short-term gain so much that they don’t see the consequences of their bad choices.
It is an addiction like any other, no amount of cancer warning can stop people from smoking.
Hence, the next time you find yourself debating such people, remember that you cannot change them. You will definitely increase your understanding of the world and will improve your knowledge and arguing skills but achieve little else than that.
Bad choices can only be countered by catastrophic results.
Whenever a wave of extremists like Hitler has come, people learned when everything got destroyed in the aftermath. They learn only when choices go shrinking. They learn only when the utopian dream they thought would be a reality because of their choices- gets shattered to pieces. They learn only, if they ever really do, when they die.
As they say-
The value of freedom is not realized until it is lost.
A generation that is ruled by bad choices lives the rest of their lives mending the wrong done. It is only the dawn of the next one that takes a lesson and moves on. Religion, extremist politics, and ignorant morality are all bad choices of our times. They will go someday but not because something better came to replace them or because people won the debate against them.
They will go when bad things happen. And that is the price you pay when you sway away from logic, the only good choice there is in the world.
