porphyrogenitusI’ll be happy to add people from here on Facebook. ^_^
I’m http://www.facebook.com/james.ruhland.7 there.
But I doubt I’ll participate in many facebook discussions on other people’s pages, especially ones involving third-parties.
1) facebook is a time sink.
2) I used to discuss/debate things like this with people all the time in various random forums, but it’s almost always a waste of time trying to convince anyone. (I think Tom made this point on his blog awhile back, too); you can beat your head against the wall and not get anywhere. Not that it *never* happens; some people are open to good, persuasive arguments. And non-participating lurkers may very well be convinced. So I don’t want to push that point too far. And you’re more likely to be successful with your friends than a random individual would be.
2a) I’ll recommend this which I’ve seen “studies show” works best – asking people questions about their beliefs and asking them to explain why they hold the views they do, and continuing to ask in regression form (“ok, so you believe x because of y, but why do you believe y? You said you also believe n, how does that fit with y? Doesn’t it contradict it?”) can help. But I’m never very patient with that, I tend to just write out where they’re wrong and why and what I think is correct. Not very Socrates of me, but, then, Socrates was the world’s foremost pre-internets troll, and where did that lead him? (That’s what happens when you push your trolling too far. . .I mean, trolling them to give him free foods for the rest of his life?)