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How to Change People's Mind

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Today, I stumbled over a TEDx talk by Emily Calandrelli: "Making science nicer, stupid".

She is using the example of people of West Virginia. While growing up in West Virginia, industrial propaganda finances lots of material to embrace cloal mining as a wonderful thing while downplaying or even opposing the huge role of coal related to the climate change.

Clearly, being stupid or uneducated can not be the one and only explanation why people in West Virginia are positive related to coal mining.

The important question when trying to convince people about something is: Is your goal to be right or is it to change people's mind?

In the talk, Emily is explaining how to communicate with other people by learning about their values and being nice instead of rude. While this may sound as a no-brainer, I'm sure that everybody has lots of personal experience violating that rule big time. She even explains the biological mechanism in our brain why we fall for this bad habbit.

Please watch this 16 minute video as it makes its point very clearly and addresses a common issue we have to avoid almost daily:

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