Rex Kerr
1 min readOct 30, 2024

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At this point you're mostly arguing with things you have imagined I've said or must mean rather than anything I actually did, so they don't bear repetition.

Your overall stance contravenes research on successful relationships from Gottman, Johnson, Ogolsky, and others, unless you take a peculiarly antagonistic definition of terms like "persuasion" and "convince"--which you do, so that just makes it hard to tell to what extent you're aligned or not.

FRIES is like Jesus--great ideal, hard for actual humans to implement perfectly in the actual world where every single dimension is blurry. I have no qualms with the ideal, but given that people tend towards a vibe/connection-based approach to intimacy, it mostly doesn't help people where they're at. (Throw in some jargon like "situated realities" if you like.)

Of course it's important to lay off and not pressure people.

But note that if you inform someone more, and they realize they had the wrong idea, and they change their mind and freely, reversibly, enthusiastically, and specifically consent they have been convinced using normal usage of the word "convinced". You persuaded them by better informing them.

The problem isn't that I'm being obtuse, or that I don't know what the best advice is. The problem is that you won't listen to what I say, neither use standard definitions nor define yours clearly enough so I can even be confident of what you mean, invent an opponent who has a different outlook and various different personality flaws, and keep sending messages meant for fictional opponent to me instead of them.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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