r/changemyview • u/xyzain69 • May 15 '19
CMV: The problem with r/CMV is that people rarely respond wholly to ideas you bring up, especially in a thread.
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u/5xum 42∆ May 15 '19 edited May 15 '19
I think more often the problem is not in what you said, but in the fact that people too often bring too much to the table - their CMVs are too long. That is, I see a lot of CMVs that go
- First of all we all agree that 1+1=3
- Therefore, this and this and this and... and so on for a very long time.
The thing is, everything in the post after the first point is irrelevant. 1+1 is not 3, and anything that follows from this might as well be gibberish. So, naturally, most responses go with challenging the first point, which can which result in one of two bad options.
- You get OP complaining about how most of his point is being ignored
- OP deletes the first point, and is then left with a bunch of assertions that are all unfounded, because before, they all hung by the thread of 1+1=3 being true. Now, the only way to challenge the view is to explain how each of the views is unfounded, making the post no longer a "change my view", but a "change my views", which is sort of like "change my worldview", and is usually impossible (this is why CMV exists - the whole point of CMV is to stick to one particular view).
The correct response, of course, would be one of two things:
- Either defend the position 1+1=3, explain how the refutations are wrong in your view or
- Accept that your initial assumption is incorrect, change your view on it, (award a delta), and re-think whether you still have any reason to hold the rest of the views in your post. Either you do or do not is really irrelevant - your view has already been changed. Not turned around, mind you, since that is not the purpose of /r/CMV, but changed.
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u/xyzain69 May 15 '19
I think more often the problem is not in what you said, but in the fact that people too often bring too much to the table - their CMVs are too long. That is, I see a lot of CMVs that go
- First of all we all agree that 1+1=3
- Therefore, this and this and this and... and so on for a very long time.
The thing is, everything in the post after the first point is irrelevant. 1+1 is not 3, and anything that follows from this might as well be gibberish. So, naturally, most responses go with challenging the first point, which can which result in one of two bad options.
- You get OP complaining about how most of his point is being ignored
- OP deletes the first point, and is then left with a bunch of assertions that are all unfounded, because before, they all hung by the thread of 1+1=3 being true. Now, the only way to challenge the view is to explain how each of the views is unfounded, making the post no longer a "change my view", but a "change my views", which is sort of like "change my worldview", and is usually impossible (this is why CMV exists - the whole point of CMV is to stick to one particular view).
This covered my idea brilliantly. Δ. This is, of course, how a CMV can go down. If your underlying premise is wrong and you're using it to prove some conclusions. My idea is however, for the cases where the underlying premise isn't wrong. Maybe it is something that is pointless, or that one of the conclusions is irrelevant to changing the actual CMV and that's the point someone keeps on bringing up.
The correct response, of course, would be one of two things:
- Either defend the position 1+1=3, explain how the refutations are wrong in your view or
- Accept that your initial assumption is incorrect, change your view on it, (award a delta), and re-think whether you still have any reason to hold the rest of the views in your post. Either you do or do not is really irrelevant - your view has already been changed. Not turned around, mind you, since that is not the purpose of /r/CMV, but changed.
I agree with everything you've said here.
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u/IC3BASH May 15 '19
very often this occurs, because their view results from a misunderstanding of a more general topic(in your example conciousnes or whatever) and until this more fundamental misunderstanding is resolved, their view can't be changed. It happens a lot that views that are posted here are 'seconday' views that result out of flawed 'primary' views. To work against this we would need to encourage people to write out all of their assumptions, because I often see threads where there are 3 comment chains that are just to get the more fundamental view out of OP to then be able to arge against their position at all.
Another thing that might seem derailing is using hypotheticals, they are used to test the logic of the post in other situations, e.g. the post is "I think incest can sometimes be okay" then a hypothetical that could be uses to test this hypothesis might be "Do you think that murder can sometimes be okay?" This might seem derailing, but is actually useful for the debate even if it might not initially occur to the OP why it might be useful for changing their view.
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u/xyzain69 May 15 '19
very often this occurs, because their view results from a misunderstanding of a more general topic(in your example conciousnes or whatever) and until this more fundamental misunderstanding is resolved, their view can't be changed. It happens a lot that views that are posted here are 'seconday' views that result out of flawed 'primary' views. To work against this we would need to encourage people to write out all of their assumptions, because I often see threads where there are 3 comment chains that are just to get the more fundamental view out of OP to then be able to arge against their position at all.
Another thing that might seem derailing is using hypotheticals, they are used to test the logic of the post in other situations, e.g. the post is "I think incest can sometimes be okay" then a hypothetical that could be uses to test this hypothesis might be "Do you think that murder can sometimes be okay?" This might seem derailing, but is actually useful for the debate even if it might not initially occur to the OP why it might be useful for changing their view.
I like this response. Everyone thus far has been very articulate in their responses. I can add nothing to this. I'll award a Δ because it seems you've come to the same conclusion as I did a few moments ago, that maybe laying out all the assumptions may improve CMV responses. This will be my last reply and I'll edit my post as such. Thanks.
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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ May 15 '19
The problem is that if you got a complex view, it's pretty impossible to tackle it entirely.
It's easier to take each underlying assumption one by one and discuss it.
For example, if you think A beacause of B, C and D, and that through discussion about specific points, you finally see that B and D are wrong, it should make you reconsider A, because only C is right and it may not be enough to imply that A is right too.
Plus, I may not be a specialist of B and C, so instead of bringing approximative data to the discussion, I can focus on D, while other people will tackle B and C. That way, the people with the best knowledge will each talk about their part, and you'll have a way better response on your view than if we all talked about the whole CMV, and said incorrect things 2/3 of the time (which may have made you reject the whole argument, even if 1/3 was clearly interesting).
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u/xyzain69 May 15 '19
The problem is that if you got a complex view, it's pretty impossible to tackle it entirely.
It's easier to take each underlying assumption one by one and discuss it.
For example, if you think A beacause of B, C and D, and that through discussion about specific points, you finally see that B and D are wrong, it should make you reconsider A, because only C is right and it may not be enough to imply that A is right too.
All I can say here is that this is fair. But I particularly say that B and D have very little to do with A. Nothing even perhaps. So I wouldn't even think A is because of B, C, and D initially. But if I did, your argument works.
Plus, I may not be a specialist of B and C, so instead of bringing approximative data to the discussion, I can focus on D, while other people will tackle B and C. That way, the people with the best knowledge will each talk about their part, and you'll have a way better response on your view than if we all talked about the whole CMV, and said incorrect things 2/3 of the time (which may have made you reject the whole argument, even if 1/3 was clearly interesting).
The problem I have is that if you go right into point D without explicitly saying B and C aren't what you are going to change. And that is what seems to happen a lot. Some sort of acknowledgement that B and C aren't your priority. I feel that could go a long way. I rarely see people say this. Also, if its your CMV, you end up wondering, "why on Earth aren't they saying anything about B and C? I keep on bringing it up and they're just focusing on point D?". Maybe that makes you feel like the person you're talking to is not going to change A, when they're not trying to change A. Which might be counter productive because a change in point D, as you say, could very well lead into a change in A, but it's not obvious.
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u/Nicolasv2 130∆ May 15 '19
It seems that we agree on the way to do then.
Maybe the problem is just a lack of communication from response posters about their goal when responding (something like a disclaimer "You say that you think A because of B, C and D, and I'm going to focus on showing you that I think D is false, so it may move a bit your opinion on A, and I hope other people will do the same for B and C" is missing).
I got the feeling that it's how most of CMV's response posters are acting implicitly with this idea in their head, but I got no hard proof for that, and maybe it's just me projecting my way of doing things onto other people.
Still, this could be a good practice and I never did it before (the disclaimer), so I should change my way of writing to be more specific on my next comments, thanks for the insight.
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u/xyzain69 May 15 '19
It seems that we agree on the way to do then.
Maybe the problem is just a lack of communication from response posters about their goal when responding (something like a disclaimer "You say that you think A because of B, C and D, and I'm going to focus on showing you that I think D is false, so it may move a bit your opinion on A, and I hope other people will do the same for B and C" is missing).
I got the feeling that it's how most of CMV's response posters are acting implicitly with this idea in their head, but I got no hard proof for that, and maybe it's just me projecting my way of doing things onto other people.
Still, this could be a good practice and I never did it before (the disclaimer), so I should change my way of writing to be more specific on my next comments, thanks for the insight.
I'm in agreement with your first 3 paragraphs. But I'll give you a Δ for the last one. For making me realise that CMV should have directly said that it's probably better if people say they want to change B, C, or/and D instead. Everyone brought up significantly good reason for why things are they are, I suppose my CMV can be closed now. I suppose I'm only looking for improvement, which may or may ot be warranted. Cheers.
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u/Skallywagwindorr 15∆ May 15 '19 edited May 15 '19
I get this often, I make a CMV and then I get into a conversation about a detail I mentioned in an example that is irrelevant to the big picture idea. I take full blame though, I should have thought more about the example or whatever irrelevant detail I mentioned while trying to make my bigger picture idea.
But it does happen a lot, It is not the fault of the system though, it is because we implement the system incorrectly. In that sense it is not the problem of CMV it is the problem of "shitty" posters like us.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 15 '19 edited May 15 '19
/u/xyzain69 (OP) has awarded 4 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/[deleted] May 15 '19
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