I've read certain (lame) self-help books that often insist that persuasion requires modifiying your behavior so the person you're try to persuade can be more comfortable with you. That may be true, but it also seems to contradict my continuous desire to maintain my own freedom and self-determination.

Yes! Persuasion is like a snowball's chance in the solar corona. With the solar corona being the super-heated plasma that surrounds the sun and is estimated to be 2 million degrees even though the surface of the sun is an estimated 10,000 degrees, a snowball in the solar corona is about as likely as my ability to persuade. Since I don't modify my behavior so that people will feel comfortable around me, I can't persuade. My inability to persuade is so bad that I couldn't persuade Ann Coulter to vote Republican! I have a better chance of building a perpetual motion machine that works than I have of persuading people! Lack of persuasion means restritions. Restrictions like I can't date the woman I'm attracted to. Or I can't get the job I want. Or I can live on the planet I want. (Earth sucks too much!) I fully understand that you can't always get what you want. But that also means you can sometimes get what you want. In today's modern dystopia, life seems to be too much about placing needless restrictions on your life, and not enough about allowing you the right to freedom and self-determination.

I've long ago determined that when people say no, they mean no forever. Therefore you have no right to try to persuade someone to say yes. If you try to persuade someone to say yes after they've said no, that makes you a maximum asshole. But in this double-standard dystopia, I've noticed that whenever I say no, people often tell me I'M the asshole. As if I don't have the right to say no, but they do.

As you might know by now, I want to change the world. Yet ironically, I can't change the world if I can't persuade people. Further proof of how weak and powerless I am. And as always, it reminds me of the war between the Earth Alliance and the Minbari Federation – and I'm the Earth Alliance!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth-Minbari_War
If you can't persuade, you are often forced to modify your life according to the demands of the more powerful people who are interfering with how you want to run your life. This contradicts my demand for freedom and self-determination.

My current solution to this lack-of-persuasion problem is to associate only with the people who are likely to say yes to me. That way I won't have to use persuasion to get them to say yes. Besides, some people are already comfortable around me, therefore I won't need to modify my behavior with them. “But that's not how life works, Yul! You're supposed relate to people the way they want you to related to them.” That's not entirely true. If it's my life, then I should live it accordiong to my rules. And if you don't like my rules, DON'T FOLLOW THEM!! Perhaps some miracle might happen and I'll actually become persuasive some day. But as things are now, persuasion is an act that violates the laws of physics as far as I'm concerned. Like Homer Simpson says, anything that's hard to do is not worth doing. And persuasion is hard to do.

Debate and Discussion.

Debate and Discussion.

DEBATE AND DISCUSSION.

How many times do your stupid threads need to be moved before you get it right?

Do I need to modify my behaviour so you feel comfortable and stop posting in the wrong forum?

No wait, I couldn't do that, because I'm not so boring I have to write essays on shit no one cares about.

Die please.

You need a blog :/

I get more easily persuaded if the person encourages you to find other sources of information outside of him/her.

I get turned off on absolutist beliefs though. Both ends of the spectrum. The hardcore religious fanatics and the hardcore atheists.

Mmm. Somebody needs to learn which subforum to post in.

Also:

My current solution to this lack-of-persuasion problem is to associate only with the people who are likely to say yes to me. That way I won't have to use persuasion to get them to say yes.

The current solution to your problems is to surround yourself with yes-men (and women)? …. Interesting.

Your little “essay” seems to raise no particular question - in fact, it's hard to see what it achieves aside from saying “Persuasion is hard, and therefore, I won't try!”. Get an LJ.

timelike01, we know what you are doing. You are posting the the GENERAL forum hoping to get more attention to your thread. See, the thing is, the D&D forum is FULL of people that like to debate and discuss. The General Forum may not be.

What you are doing is can per perceived as just a measly step higher than spamming.

I can't believe we may have to do this, but if you keep persisting in posting threads in the wrong place just to garner more attention, we may have to forum ban you. Please don't force our hand on this. Thanks.

*LOCKED*