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No, facts absolutely can change people's minds, from my anecdotal experience anyway. They simply have to be handled with a great deal of care, you can't speak down to people, you have to ask careful questions and respectfully approach even their false opinions.
Taking an almost Socratic method, in a way, where you're spending more time listening than hosing them down with evidence.
It's not easy, I wouldn't say most people can readily do it without training or at least carefully considering their strategic approach. It does not come naturally, and traditional schooling or debate will not prepare you for it, and can even be counterproductive. There is a real risk of doing more harm than good. But deprogramming is absolutely a feasible goal to work towards. Just takes patience.
I do think that those types of conversations are useful, but only to someone who is doxastically prepared to change due to the aforementioned community reasons.
I think we're mostly in agreement though and we're just using different terms, so thanks for sharing your perspective. If you're interested, I read a great book a while ago called How Minds Change that digs into it a bit more.
Yeah that's a valid point. Thanks for the link, I'm unfamiliar with that book.