Thursday, November 20, 2008
Persuading someone about my point of view...
So, I have recently tried to persuade my best friend that it is easier to get a movie recommendation from a stranger by calling someone at their workplace rather than calling a household number. I used a bunch in inductive arguments which tried to support the claim by making it stronger and more probable. So some of the premises that I used were that since night time was getting earlier and earlier, we had fewer chances to call unknown people. I say that more people are inclined to responding to a request from a unfamiliar person if there is sun out and the world is visible rather than at night where it is dark and anything can happen. I also added that when you call some person at a place where people work, he or she is more inclined to answer any question because most workers that answer the phone almost always ask, "how can I help you?". So, for the most part I was able to convince him that it is probably more likely that a person working will give an honest and sincere answer rather than someone in their private space.
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2 comments:
I agree with your argument. I would definitely be much more comfortable answering questions from a stranger if they called me at work in the middle of the day than if they called me at night at home. First of all, my work is a public place so when if I were to get a call from a random person asking a bunch of questions I would feel more comfortable there because there would be a lot of people around me. Also, like you said it would be earlier in the day and light outside making it easier to see my surroundings. If the call turned into something out of one of those screamer flicks, then I would be more able to see if someone were to attack me or something. Getting a call from a stranger when I am at my house is more personal and often times there would be less people around me, if any, if something were to go wrong. And at night when it is dark, there are more possibilities for danger.
How did this topic come up? Did you actually have to call people up for a recommendation? I think it would be a very interesting conversation to have, and I think I would agree with you. I think I would have emphasized the attitude of a person at home versus at work and how people are generally more pleasant at work in order to maintain a professional atmosphere and how it is an intrusion to call someone at home. But I agree that using inductive reasoning was a good call especially when using examples of people’s attitudes during the day and night or at home or at work.
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