[slowmover]

"dig in your heels when confronted with overwhelming dissent"

Sorry, sticking to this one.

Call me anti-social if you want, but facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker in an echo chamber. Being that one guy who's always prodding the hivemind with a pokey stick has value in my opinion (though you will end up getting stung on occasion).

[asdfman123]

The more important question isn't "are you correct," it's "does it matter to be correct right now?"

Maybe you do actually know better than everyone else, but why do you have to prove it to others? You can just quietly make your argument and shut up. It's their loss, and people may remember that you were right.

Maybe it's about an important decision at work, but if your correctness pisses everyone off, no one is going to listen to you again. You've won the battle but lost the war.

People shouldn't be that way, but they are.

[zero-sharp]

I like this answer. For me it's not about showing others that you're correct. Instead, it's about feeling like you're being heard/acknowledged.

I'm not trying to be the "lone free thinker". But if I see a hivemind, I occasionally insert my opinion with the intention of having a different perspective be recognized.

[asdfman123]

Thank you.

It's important to feel heard, but an issue in an argument is that no one is being heard and you're yelling past each other. You don't feel heard by more strenuously arguing your point; you make a calm, genuine effort to hear them, and then hopefully they'll reciprocate the favor. At the very least, you break out of the doom loop and walk away.

[SoftTalker]

> You can just quietly make your argument and shut up.

This is generally the right approach, unless you're on the hook for the consequences of whatever the group decides. Continuing to argue a point that you've already made isn't likely to change any minds that weren't open to it the first time you said it. I think that's even in the HN guidelines.

If you're the one responsible for a decision, listen to what others have to say but if you still feel strongly that your contrary view is correct then go with that and live with the responsibility.

[xg15]

Was recently at a demoscene presentation, where, after one particular demo where the author was recently deceased, one person just didn't stop applauding, even long after the rest of the audience had done. Someone sitting next to him was trying to reason with him, but he just responded that he had been a friend of the author (so I guess this was his way of honoring them?)

Eventually the other person got somewhat aggressive and told him to shut it, to which he just responded "no, why?".

Finally he was led out of the room.

I'm not sure how the thinking process of that guy went, but I was honestly strongly siding with the second person. Keeping on clapping as a sign of honor may be a heartfelt gesture, but here it came over just as plain obnoxious, as it held up the entire presentation.

That being said, if it's about political or other differences of opinion or debates on courses of action to take, I'd be with you - there can be herd mentalities (or active manipulation) and if you have good support/evidence to back up your opinions, it's worth sticking to them.

But if I see that my immediate behavior is causing discomfort, I'd always stop and try to reflect.

[derangedHorse]

Sometimes it's not about being the "free-thinker," but just fitting in. If you're in a setting where there can be 'overwhelming dissent,' I would say it's prudent to pause and consider what your goal is with pushing a certain idea. It's almost certainly not going to get the consideration it deserves to be accepted if a mass of people have a negative knee-jerk reaction to hearing it.

[chasd00]

> facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker

You just better be right. If you're wrong then no one will ask for your input ever again.

[intrikate]

Isn't this basically exactly the behavior described?

[palmotea]

> Call me anti-social if you want, but facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker in an echo chamber. Key word is : may. If you're facing overwhelming dissent, you should probably retreat and re-evaluate your position. Maybe you're right, but maybe you're just missing something the other's see.

> Being that one guy who's always prodding the hivemind with a pokey stick has value in my opinion (though you will end up getting stung on occasion).

When done deliberately, it's called the "tenth man rule": when 9 people agree, the 10th man is obligated to figure out a way to disagree. I learned about it from this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777175 (pretty great comment, IMHO).