 Do you ever just sit back and just notice how as a species we are just such ridiculous creatures? And some of you right now, you're like, what? Not me. I'm not ridiculous. Well, if you give me about 10 minutes of your time, I'm gonna prove that you're just like the rest of us. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, typically what I do is I take different topics from the YouTube community or pop culture and try to see what lessons we can learn from them. But something I absolutely love is psychology and just our behaviors and our thoughts and all that stuff. So sometimes I do videos on that. But anyways, if you're into any of that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul. So yeah, the title of this video, why arguing with people is absolutely pointless. So if you're like me, you get baited, right? You get sucked into these things. Like how many times have you ever been in an argument with somebody, whether it's a random person online, whether it's on Facebook or it's on Twitter or the YouTube comment section? And you're just like, God, why did I waste my time? And then you do it again and you're like, how did I fall for it again, right? Because we go into these things, thinking we're gonna change the other person's mind or they're gonna see our side. But in this video, we're gonna discuss why that doesn't happen, all right? And we're gonna dive into the psychology behind it. But real quick, and I'll remind you of this later as we dive into the solution, like always remember this, it's a lot easier for us to fix us than it is to try to fix the rest of the world, all right? So acknowledging this about human nature, it can help us improve ourselves. Chance is all we're not gonna fix anybody else. All right, so anyways, for all of you who think that you're so different, all right? Let's do a quick little experiment, okay? So on a scale of one to 100, okay? One being terrible, 100 being the best. How would you rate yourself as a driver compared to other people, all right? On a scale of one to 100. Second question, how would you rate your leadership abilities on a scale of one to 100, okay? Any number, any number between those. So you have two numbers in mind right now. I will bet all of you, and I have no idea how many people are gonna see this video, but I will bet all of you $5 that you picked a number over 50, all right? Now statistically, I'd have to be an idiot to take that bet, but do you know why? I'll take that bet, because based on what we know about human nature and psychology is you all picked a number over 50. And you know why? It's something called the better than average effect, all right? And this is something that psychology and social sciences has proven time and time again through a ton of studies, all right? Some of you know I've just been binging the hell out of different books on psychology and philosophy and everything like that, and this keeps coming up. Like I'm just fascinated by human nature, right? Some of the books that you wanna check out, like that little experiment I just did with all of you, I pulled that from this book I'm reading right now, I'm almost done with it. It's called Situations Matter, but you can also read books from Jonathan Hyde. It's like The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis. I also think that Hyde Mind talked about these studies too with the better than average effect, all right? But here's the thing, like we naturally think that we're better than average. So here's something real quick from the APA, all right? So with this study, I'll read a little bit of it, all right? It says, the better than average effect is considered to be one of the most robust of all self enhancement phenomena. The better than average effect shares this distinction with the optimistic bias, the tendency to overestimate one's chances of good fortune and to underestimate one's risk for misfortune. Whereas the better than average effect pertains to self versus average peer comparisons on behavior and trade dimensions, the optimistic bias involves comparisons about life events such as winning the lottery or getting divorced. Although we concentrate on the better than average effect in this chapter, many of the issues underlying the better than average judgments apply as well to relative risk assessments. So I will link that down below if you wanna dive into this a little bit. But here's the thing, like when we're talking about arguing with other people, like we're not going to change people's mind. Like just to put it to the test again, when's the last time that someone really changed like a hardcore belief that you had, right? Like it's very rare. Most of us walk into a situation with a fixed idea about something, right? If you're a parent, you see your children do this all the time, right? Your kids don't wanna go somewhere. They're like, oh, this is gonna be boring. My son sometimes is like, oh, I don't wanna try that food. It's gonna be nasty and all these other things, right? And then sometimes that person, sometimes it's us, we still see it as negative even though it might not be, right? Because we already have a fixed idea of it, all right? So when it comes to the better-than-average effect, here's the thing. This doesn't mean the person you're having an argument with thinks that they're the smartest person in the world, but what we know about the better-than-average effect is they think they're smarter than you, all right? And that is one of the issues, okay? So we get trapped into these arguments arguing about the silliest things, but the thing is we and our ego makes us believe that we're always right. Like, sit back and ask yourself this, okay? I want you to ask yourself two questions. When's the last time somebody said to you, oh, you know what, I'm wrong and you're right? Extremely rare. Now, let's flip it. Let's turn that thing around real quick. How many times have you backed down and said, oh, you know what, you're right? No, like, we all think that we're right. And by the way, I'm including myself in this. So let's talk about the solution. Like, what can we do about this? Again, it's a lot easier for us to fix us than it is to fix the rest of the world. The best thing that we can do, the best thing that I found is that we need to be self-aware. We need to understand our tendencies and these kind of biases that we have and how we think that we're always right and our way is the right way because that constantly encourages conflict, right? Because now that you know that I think that way and you think that way, how are we ever gonna meet in agreement, right? So the most I can do is understand that when I'm having a conversation with you or I'm going through the comments, I'm like, oh, you think that you're right and why is this? Because we are all shaped by our life experiences. Where you're at right now in your life, you are just a big sum of every experience that you've had since you were born and so many things factor into that, how you were raised, who your parents were, right? Traumas, the schools you went to, the education that you have, what part of the country you were raised in, how much traveling have you done? All of these factor in to us thinking that we're always right. So the most we could do is try to empathize and understand that the other person is gonna think that. You know what I mean? But we also gotta catch ourselves and say, okay, is my better than average effect coming in right now? Am I thinking that I'm just a little bit smarter than everybody else? Do I think that I'm just so much different and I know something that they don't know, right? Because what happens is we get extremely stubborn and we cause a lot of our own problems. So what can you do? Something that I'm working on actively and it's gotten a lot better is I try to just not engage. I avoid these especially online debates and everything like that. A great example is earlier this morning, I posted a video that I knew was gonna get a ton of negative comments, but I haven't seen them. Cause I didn't check the comments after I posted, I don't know, five, 10 minutes after I posted. So yeah, it was real quick because I'm just like, I know what the comments are gonna be like. People are coming into this with a fixed idea. So why am I going to cause my own distress and do that? Why am I going to argue with people who already have an opinion, right? So I'm not saying like, I don't want to ever not encourage debate, but you need to read your audience. You need to read who you're having this conversation with. Like how long are you gonna sit there and debate with somebody before you recognize that you're fighting a losing battle? You know what I mean? So just kind of wise up, be self-aware and say, oh, okay, this person is not, they're not wavering. And when it comes to this self-awareness too, what I've been trying to do lately is be really mindful of the content that I watch, right? I watch a lot of stuff about politics. Obviously I watch a lot of commentary here on YouTube and everybody, all it is is just opinions, that's it. And we gravitate towards people who agree with our worldview. Like all we're doing, we are just like these magnets to people who agree with us. You know, so I just walk into things, try to clear my mind for my own opinions and then go from there, all right? But we all think that we're better than average, all right? So anyways, quit wasting your time, arguing with people on the internet. Chances that you're gonna change their opinion are slim to none. The only thing that you can do is notice it within yourself and try to do something about it, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon and everybody who supports the channel in other ways like buying my books and merch and all that kind of stuff, all right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.