Sounds more like stuff you need to do if someone doesn’t trust you / take you seriously as a source of information. Cause you can find people repeating talking points from their talk show, news whatever, that they watch, and some of those shows are essentially a person in a suit talking authoritatively about allegedly factual things that have happened. So if they can listen to those people state “facts” plainly, but not you, why is that?

I am also skeptical about the “I” thing, if that is universal, or if that’s something coming from dealing with individualist culture. I’d think a “we” message would land better with people who are of a collectivist mindset.

I do generally agree that debate is not productive though. I always try to go for discussion over debate, but sometimes I get caught up in the moment. I suppose this is one area where stating things as plain facts can occur, is if someone thinks your “fact” is wrong, they might try to start a debate with you. But I’ve seen plenty of times people argue about “opinions” too. Sometimes I’m inclined to argue with someone’s “just an opinion” myself.

For what we want to accomplish, I think it’s probably most effective to be thinking about what people’s needs and desires are and investigating in that realm, and then going from there. And also asking questions to get a sense of what is most important to them. Not to use it against them as a manipulator would, but to be able to make a case to them how organized scientific socialist efforts can accomplish it. Sometimes we may think we want the same things, but we don’t? I think it’s safe to assume people have the same basic set of needs, but beyond that, it’s not necessarily all the same. So understanding what fulfills people and drives them beyond the basics. For example, some people really like to do Christmas lights during Christmas and get into the mindset of the season. Some people don’t find that important at all. For some people, religion is the foundation of their life. For some, they don’t believe in any. Why is that? How much do they actually need to change in beliefs to get to a more socialist place? Are they selfish and believe in capitalism, or already largely of a communal mindset but have been led to believe capitalism is the only viable system? How do they approach the world in terms of making a difference in it and what skills do they already have that can be put toward socialist efforts, rather than needing them to develop entirely new ones from scratch? What is the most frictionless path to get them closer to community and communism (in substance of material conditions, not just in belief)? No path will be without any friction, especially when the state notices, but I guess what I’m getting at it, there’s no “uphill both ways in a blizzard” that people have to go through to prove themselves as proper socialists/communists. If it’s an easy process, that’s fine.

And empowerment is part of that goal. The goal is not to trick people into waking up one day and realizing they’re socialist and are surprised that they are. The goal is for them to embrace it with conscious conviction for reasons that are not only materially helpful to themselves and those that they love, but also takes into account the material needs of the broader working class and the colonized and imperialized peoples across the world.

My older brother is a redditor and a liberal

It’s been frustrating trying to get him to move beyond liberalism, but he’s started to criticize capitalism so there’s progress

It’s hard work but it’s possible