Show HN: How to discuss with opinionated people using the Socratic method[video]

I like the method because you can learn why people believe something along the way. Sometimes you might even change your own view based on their reasoning.

I do this in person and in online forums like this one. I'm not trying to guide someone to my own conclusion, and I might not have enough information to have an educated opinion, or I might be ambivalent about the subject. It takes the form of me asking for clarification in a non-antagonistic fashion.

I would say I most often use this strategy to force people to justify their own opinions to me when I have no opinion at all. I even do this to people I agree with.

Exactly. And this becomes very clear in the video. The interviewer harps on about the "reliability of faith" without really listening to what Antony is saying. Different people who are having different faiths but still believe in the same thing is only illogical if you wish to see it like that. All programs in your computer, for instance, can safely assume that memory does exist. There is no point for a program to find out whether something like memory is real. I am not talking about finding out whether space is left etc. I am merely saying that a piece of software does not need a science library to investigate the existence of memory. Sure, sometimes you don't receive something from memory when you need it, sometimes bad things happen when you work with the bits it gives you and so on. But questioning the existence of memory is besides the point.

Now lets imagine another program which also "believes" in the existance of memory The user uses this program to remove the other program. In other words, two programs who have the same "faith" kill each other. This is not a contradiction.

Someone should do the Socrates on him to elicit why "reliability" is something one has to discuss when it comes to faith. I am pretty sure his answers would also be contradictory within a short amount of time.

It seems that it is a method for discussing ideas.

It's often used to find the root of a problem or set of values when the questioner doesn't know the issue with enough precision to fairly discuss it with the subject.

And most of the time the theoretical "goal" is to examine a belief or potentially invoke doubt on a belief previously considered solid rather than reach any conclusion.

Anecdotally I recently fell into this line of discussion with an anti-vaxer friend of mine. Instead of trying to persuade him he's wrong I asked questions about his beliefs and asked him to justify his decisions. Questions like "You were vaccinated, did that negatively impact you?" or "Do you worry about your children getting those sicknesses?"

Questions meant to clarify or examine, not persuade. In the end neither of us changed our positions on the topic, but if we're honest that was never on the table.

At least now I have a clearer understanding of his perspective and he was willing to share some of the more vulnerable details of his beliefs that he wouldn't have admitted had I come at him persuasively.

Before I knew this method existed I noticed a colleague had this approach with my claims and it did wonders :D

Effective discussion or debate should take place over time such that each participant has time to logically organize their thoughts or gather more evidence/ evaluate the evidence presented by the opponent.

"Ambushing" average people on the street in their sweats headed to a math test isn't exactly fair. To be honest, it isn't much different than what your typical atheist purports to oppose. I have found that people are typically against faith based religion because it's pushed on youth by families and takes advantage of their malleable mind.

You should probably allow for people to be in the correct state of mind for these discussions, not take advantage of their unpreparedness. This video makes it seem like he can only engage these people when he clearly has the upper hand.

Comforts insistence on "kinds" is not based on any science. He just claims that because we only see a bunch of small steps, A->B, B-C, E-F, etc. changes in genetics, we will never see A-Z changes. That is, we can only witness incremental changes in DNA, therefore large changes cannot happen because reasons. He's given and shown multiple examples of the process of natural genetic drift, change, etc. and then proclaims that it can only go so far, up to "kinds" without providing any evidence for this limit. Also without defining what a "kind" is.

Sorry but this man irks me. He is not honest.

He also is known as "banana man" for this pretty weak argument from design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqJuITAVWc

I'm having trouble coming up with an example of a kind of pure intuitive experience that I've had along the lines of what I think you're talking about. If you can give a good example of what you're talking about, I think that would be helpful.

I say all of this as a former atheist who has recently converted to some form of theism that I haven't quite figured out yet.