Alex Epstein and Persuasion

[william.scherk]

I came across an interesting couple of videos by Alex Epstein (via an organization called STRIVE) ... tied into Objectivist philosophy, and with his own unique perspectives (on 'energy' among other subjects). This one is all about 'intellectual persuasion' and lays out step-by-step instructions.

"Alex Epstein is the author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and founder of The Center for Industrial Progress. At OCON 2017, he gave a talk for STRIVE sharing the biggest lesson he's learned about how to persuade people of controversial - but true - ideas."

See also Epstein's "How to Leverage Objectivism to Become a Leader in Your Field."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

This one is all about 'intellectual persuasion' and lays out step-by-step instructions.

William,

Thank you for posting this.

It was far, far better than I thought it would be based on my familiarity with other ARI speakers.

Alex really did his homework and it's refreshing to see someone on the Randian side take persuasion seriously. I love it that he learns from sales people and marketers. This shows a level of intellectual humility not normal for folks more in love with their certainties than they are with observing things, which describes a lot of fundies.

Alex uses his own jargon  when he says "context bridging," but it's a legitimate tool that people influenced by Rand tend to suck at big-time. This is normally called "seeing through the eyes of the other person" and things like that. He's injecting the need for this skill into the Objectivist culture and, even using jargon, I am all for it

If you add story to his processes of context bridging and reframing, you can even get seeds planted in the minds of who he calls dishonest people. All that is missing is to get the folks who learn Alex's ideas on persuasion (and/or think along those lines) the capability of formulating a good entrancing story and I expect many of them will shine in their respective fields.

Cool...

Michael