This is false--people are just as likely to respond to opposing arguments with rejection and ideological hardening. This is replicated in psychological studies.
In my personal experience, the less the opposing position acknowledges the values of its opponents, the more likely it is to be rejected. Most people reason by mood affiliation and use argumentation as a social tool, so this should not be a surprise.
I think the "Overton window" is confusing cause and effect; it's the nature of reasonable positions to generate unreasonable fanatics at the tail ends. But if you pay attention to the loud fanatics at a given point of time, you find most of them do not shift any window but instead fall into irrelevance. I think that as RMS's software becomes less important, people will care less about what he has to say.
Sure - "The loud fanatics" who have no following certainly drop into irrelevance. I think if what you say were completely true we would not have had any movement forward on positions that were considered radical just 10 - 20 years ago - like same-sex marriage. It is only because certain people with large followings - Andrew Sullivan and others - began making a vocal argument for gay marriage, which wasn't even considered a mainstream position until very recently, that it is now the law of the land in so many states.
Radicals have to be able to articulate their position in a way that is compelling and reasonable to a significant number of people in order for there to be a shift. But I think political progress is largely explained by this phenomenon.
It very much was and is contrary to plenty of people's beliefs, it's just that the number of people who hold those beliefs has changed. For example in the very recent Alabama decision the people publicly opposing it explicitly say it's against their beliefs.
There's an enormous difference between having an opinion which is not aligned with mainstream and being a radical.
The radical usually wants the world to convert to his/hers own views, which is why they tend to get closed minded and hard to talk with as they get older.
"I'll say nothing against him. At one time the whites in the United States called him a racialist, and extremist, and a Communist. Then the Black Muslims came along and the whites thanked the Lord for Martin Luther King."
I do not understand why this post is downvoted. That there is a very large difference between "an opinion which is not aligned with mainstream" and the type of fanatical opinion here called "radical"--this should not be a controversial opinion.
Some people label all undesired opinions "radical" but that is obviously not what this poster is talking about.
> Arguments virtually never convince anyone, so this is all a moot point.
I would tend to agree with you that when two people are arguing, there is very little chance that one will convince the other. However, one of the things I like to do on HN is read arguments between two informed people on a topic in which I myself an uninformed and unopinionated. So for my personal benefit I would urge the people of HN to keep arguing. And to cite your sources.
It's not that people accept the radical arguments, it's that they subconsciously shift your emotional reaction to less radical arguments to make them seem more reasonable.
One should be skeptical of anything that says "exactly what you would most love to do is the best choice."
In-groups love nothing more than making fun of the out-group. When they can wrap themselves in the reasoning of "I'm just moving the Overton window!", they are avoiding the difficult and often painful steps of wondering whether their course of action is the correct one.
In my personal experience, the less the opposing position acknowledges the values of its opponents, the more likely it is to be rejected. Most people reason by mood affiliation and use argumentation as a social tool, so this should not be a surprise.
I think the "Overton window" is confusing cause and effect; it's the nature of reasonable positions to generate unreasonable fanatics at the tail ends. But if you pay attention to the loud fanatics at a given point of time, you find most of them do not shift any window but instead fall into irrelevance. I think that as RMS's software becomes less important, people will care less about what he has to say.