I definitely have. But this tends to involve a more involved dialectical question-and-answer process than what I often encounter here. My mind changes all of the time anyway, because I assume no static ground. Lacking any “givens”, all we can do is re-invent everything from first principles, based upon our current evidence and impressions.
With regards to “hard sciences”, people seem to be able to take or leave what I say with some consideration, while inviting me to do the same. But when the discussion is about social sciences, it typically just results in people telling me that they feel justified in snarky personal attacks against me simply because they dislike what I’ve said.
What I suspect is that many participants are more accustomed to dull partisanship which lacks and real communication of ideas. Maybe that’s why people shit bricks when I simply mention “militant leftists”, because it doesn’t fit the boxes they are using to frame the issue. I honestly have no problem with people disagreeing with anything that I say. But what irks me is when people insist that it is off topic when their remarks indicate that they don’t understand my actual position at all. Meanwhile, while the same few people glibly accuse me of a lack of clarity, they make a big joke out of refusing to answer any of my many questions which could clarify their own supposed positions. It’s a lame rhetorical device which leaves me either 1. leaving the topic misunderstood, with people trying to characterise me in weird ways, or 2. trying to clarify to the nyah-nyah crowd and wasting a lot of time and topical space. Neither seem fair or particularly good.
Usually the stuff that people foam at the mouth that I must understand in order to (whoopee fucking doo) be taken “seriously” runs counter to my own personal experience. If I am a militant leftist myself, why should I concede when somebody tells me that “there’s no such thing”? It’s not that I am averse to having my mind changed - the problem is that if that insistence is their whole argument, it doesn’t persuade me! I can agree to disagree, but some need to turn it into a populist game of shouting me down. It happens in practically every topic here on social issues. When there is discussion of homelessness, genderqueeritude, sexual assault, police state, racism, politics, etc it usually amounts to people telling me that my input is not welcome because I have unpopular opinions, despite having some actual experience with all of these things.
Great, I can appreciate being told that I need to listen. But that shouldn’t be code for “STFU because everybody else’s experiences are more important than yours”. But that is basically what I get told. “Nobody who has ever really been homeless would say that.”, “No real rape victims could possibly agree with you.”, etc, etc, etc. All the way to, yes, being told effectively that one factually cannot be a militant leftist simply because "that’s not a thing.
Basically, people constantly telling me that my life cannot be what it is, and my positions cannot be what they are gets tedious. But people are welcome to counter with their own experiences. Or even tell me about how mine may not be relevant to them. But people simply trying to change my mind (I guess) by complaining and dismissing my accounts doesn’t do anything to refute my experiences, nor explain their own. It really feels more like many seem invested in putting me in a conceptual box, and complaining when I don’t fit it.
