To tell someone they're wrong, first tell them how they're right
Good article and great advice. But I wish to make a qualification to the statement: To tell "someone" they're wrong, first tell them how they're right and make sure that the "someone" is not a psychopath or sociopath or a brainwashed person.<p>Still as a liberal, I would start with an open mind (null hypothesis) but I will keep my analysis running and will keep on adjusting the hypothesis accordingly. Also depending on what is at stake, I will cut the analysis shorter and come to conclusion faster (and potentially wrong) so that I can take some action that is needed in time.<p>Unfortunately, there are enough people in the world who are completely convinced of their superiority or of the superiority of their views/beliefs and if you tell them they are right they just use your statement as a testament to their advantage and if you later even try to tell them they are wrong then they will not hesitate to kill you. Some examples that come to mind are Hitler (blinded by Nazism) [1], prophet Muhammad (blinded by Islamism) [2], Stalin (blinded by communism) [3].<p>Because with such people it doesn't matter what you tell first or later. Sadly, that's the main reason why we need (have to face) wars.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.faithfreedom.org/understanding-muhammad-free-download/" rel="nofollow">http://www.faithfreedom.org/understanding-muhammad-free-down...</a>
[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin</a>