How to Change People’s Minds

Podcast Sarah Stein Lubrano Insight 2025

A discussion of why debate is a useless form of political communication; why citizens of the Western world are particularly prone to disbelieving their neighbour’s lived experience and the strategies which do work when on the campaign trail; and why the very art of conversation is breaking down with our political systems and what to do about it.

How to Change Political Views

Changes in our network of social relationships impact our political views, particularly with meaningful friendships with equals.
Taking action makes us more interested in the political world.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano And the two things are changes in our network of social relationships. That’s a big deal. And changes in our day-to actions or our experiences. The people in our social world, especially if they’re positioned in a certain way where they’re positioned as equals that we can have meaningful friendships with, they change our Political views. And then the other thing is the sense of action possibility. (Time 0:00:08)

Change Minds Through Relationships

Sarah Stein Lubrano says that real change comes from relationships and our actions, emphasizing ‘we do and then we think’.
We’ve forgotten how to talk to each other, and feel apathetic because we’ve forgotten what agency means.

Transcript: Rachel Donald She then explains why this fetishization that we have of debate is actually one of the most useless ways of communicating ideas. She explains where real change comes from. Our relationships, unsurprising, which is a theme of the conversation, and also in our own actions, saying we do and then we think. This leads her on to explain the data on activists. The activists are happier than their non-activist peers, that they feel like they are doing something, that they have agency, that they are living meaningful lives, even if it doesn’t Mean that they will achieve global revolution in their lifetimes. They’re weaving social nets and building systems that impact their own lives and the lives of those they love. And this is why our resource-scarce, techno-feudalist, neoliberal empire is particularly dangerous to democracy. We’ve forgotten how to talk to each other because we don’t talk to each other anymore. We feel hugely apathetic in the face of global catastrophe because we have (Time 0:02:15)

Social Atrophy

Social atrophy causes gray matter in the brain, used for social interactions, to shrink and be repurposed. The imagination center grows stronger, which can lead to paranoia and misinterpreting neutral cues as negative.
This negative spiral weakens social relationships, makes interactions exhausting, and causes people to withdraw, which is widespread in the West.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano Also, part of the brain, the default network that is often used for imagination kind of grows stronger. And that sounds nice because we think imagination is a good thing. But what’s actually happening a lot of the time is that the person is simultaneously experiencing two things. Firstly, because their social gray matter is being repurposed, they become much worse at social cues. So they can’t read social interactions as well as before. They also don’t spot social opportunities as well as they might have. And at the same time, the imagination center goes into overdrive and it becomes essentially paranoid. And I mean that in the lowercase way. So they probably don’t think aliens are going to, you know, whatever, but they do think that people don’t like them. And the phrase often used is that they interpret neutral cues as negative. So like if someone doesn’t text them back and they say, that person must hate me. Or, you know, they think people are talking about me behind my back, perhaps they become really anxious. It’s closely related to anxiety, obviously. And what happens over time is a negative spiral where the person kind of has weakened social relationships, more of their social interactions end up negatively. They don’t think other people want to see them or talk to them. They find social interactions exhausting. If you remember, right after COVID, we were all probably quite a bit socially atrophied in different ways. And a lot of people talked about finding social interactions, just so mu…

…ch more work than before, right? And that happens to people with social atrophy. And so what happens over time is that people become withdrawn and sort of paranoid and suspicious of other people. And we are probably experiencing a lot of this in the Western world. And then at the broader level, we are experiencing a structural atrophy of all of the places and types of interaction that allow people to maintain their social lives. And so I’m very concerned about what this means for us (Time 0:06:47)

Social Atrophy

Sarah Stein Lubrano says that it’s important not to moralize at the individual level when you can solve a problem structurally.
Data shows that how far apart you live from other people is a good predictor of Trump voters.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano I’m with you. Because that’s how sociology works. Yeah. So, you know, and then it’s very expensive to do anything together and it’s hard to get to each other and you know i tend to say that it’s important never to moralize at the individual level When you can solve a problem at a like big structural level these are structural problems and actually yesterday a really interesting journalist wrote me and he said like here’s this Data i’ve created please use it and it’s all about how in america voters for trump you know um people are always looking for like what’s a good defining feature of a trump vote or what what Predicts this and and you know education does a little bit of prediction and wealth does a little bit of prediction but not as much as you might guess but something that’s highly predictive Is how far apart you live from other people so and he has all these lovely graphs of this which i’m and with his permission going to use in the next book, which is all about social atrophy. (Time 0:14:59)

Social Atrophy

Voters for Trump are more likely to live far away from other people, indicating social atrophy. This decline in social interaction leads to decreased interest in politics and the belief that collective action is impossible, negatively affecting mental health.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano At the individual level when you can solve a problem at a like big structural level these are structural problems and actually yesterday a really interesting journalist wrote me and He said like here’s this data i’ve created please use it and it’s all about how in america voters for trump you know um people are always looking for like what’s a good defining feature Of a trump vote or what what predicts this and and you know education does a little bit of prediction and wealth does a little bit of prediction but not as much as you might guess but something That’s highly predictive is how far apart you live from other people so and he has all these lovely graphs of this which i’m and with his permission going to use in the next book, which Is all about social atrophy. I’ve become obsessed now. I’m, you know, like on this thing. But anyway, that yeah, the Trump voters live far away from other human beings, presumably seeing them a lot less, right? So yeah, so it’s causing this massive decline in like interest in other people and in politics and in the belief we can do stuff at all in the social political world. And it’s bad for our mental health and our brains are shrinking. It’s very worrying and it’s very interesting and it’s somewhat solvable, unlike a lot of problems that I look at right now. Rachel Donald This is so interesting because I have been wondering why is, for Planet Coordinate, travelling around, you know, Columbia in particular and working with really marginalised communities And making documentaries about things that they were managing to achieve on the ground with far fewer financial …

…resources with far less social capital just just with less quite frankly And the fact that they were managing to do it and i was like why is it in the country that i come from even the part of the world that i come from in or a weird country western educated industrialized Rich democratic you taught me that yay why is it that we are unable to do these things or it feels like we see less of these things because to be fair of course there are communities who are In resistance in the united kingdom in europe in the united states who are pulling things off but why does it feel like it’s almost it’s so much more effort to get into first gear and maybe This is it you know these rural poor uh communities in columbia there’s no sense of social atrophy they are all still living together they are all dependent on one another they they’re In that groove already from which they have to build whereas for us weirdos who are whose brains are shrinking which i didn’t know we will have to speak more of we have to we have to make All of that effort to get into first gear to get into that groove first of all before we then make those changes could that be is that a valid hypothesis do you think i think it’s a great hypothesis Sarah Stein Lubrano I mean of course as social scientists we must now go and do all this research but but yes and i think you said a really interesting word there which sounds bad in western life but isn’t which Is dependent right (Time 0:15:10)

Atrophy via Transactions

Financial transactions weaken relationships and make lives emptier because it is more meaningful to be deeply interdependent.
This economic shift leads to atrophy, reducing opportunities for action and reinforcing feelings of powerlessness.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano But I think that has made our lives actually much weaker and much emptier. Because it’s far more meaningful in the long run to be deeply interdependent. And I talk about this in my book in terms of reasoning. We need to do interdependent reasoning. It’s far more meaningful to depend on other people and have them rely on you than it is to just order everything online and it comes to your door and you never see anybody. And that’s a big shift and a big economic reason for atrophy as well. That means also that we don’t spot opportunities to act. And I think it’s really interesting that you’re seeing communities where people don’t feel as powerless because the other bit of my book, there’s a huge bit on relationships and how Important they are in politics. And the other bit is on seeing opportunities for action in your world. Affordances is a word that’s often used uh like possibilities for action that become intuitive or obvious and think we’re lacking those as well for lots of different reasons maybe Rachel Donald We should keep going down that i’ve written down independent interdependent reasoning because i want to i definitely want to go there we can go back to that but um speak more speak more To that then what what is an opportunity for action in such a globalized centralized world where we do feel like things are meaningful meaningless and that our actions can’t actually Sarah Stein Lubrano Make any valuable shifts okay great well now i’ll tell you what the whole book is about as a whole um so it’s so you know social i love that it took us 16 minutes to get here yeah but now we’ll Get to the book um so…

… my book is a i would say um polite and caring critique of liberalism right great um and i say that because you know i i uh there’s a bit of mourning that’s that i’m doing In it that i’m letting i’m trying to have us all do together because i think um in short in the first two chapters of this book I look at two important foundational myths that are part of Kind of the way western societies function that have to do with the political tradition of liberalism and they basically look like this the first myth is that if we try out all of the possible Political ideas that we need to in a marketplace of ideas just exchanging freely with each other the best ideas will win and then we’ll get the right solutions and I think by the time you’ve Landed on planet critical you probably know this isn’t happening you know that (Time 0:19:05)

Critique of Liberalism

Sarah Stein Lubrano’s book critiques liberalism by examining foundational myths, such as the marketplace of ideas and debate’s effectiveness.
She argues these myths don’t work in practice and questions how people can learn from each other in a democracy.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano Well now i’ll tell you what the whole book is about as a whole um so it’s so you know social i love that it took us 16 minutes to get here yeah but now we’ll get to the book um so my book is a i would Say um polite and caring critique of liberalism right great um and i say that because you know i i uh there’s a bit of mourning that’s that i’m doing in it that i’m letting i’m trying to have Us all do together because i think um in short in the first two chapters of this book I look at two important foundational myths that are part of kind of the way western societies function That have to do with the political tradition of liberalism and they basically look like this the first myth is that if we try out all of the possible political ideas that we need to in a Marketplace of ideas just exchanging freely with each other the best ideas will win and then we’ll get the right solutions and I think by the time you’ve landed on planet critical you Probably know this isn’t happening you know that that’s not how things are working but I kind of take apart like what’s the history of this idea and where did it come from and why is it actually Even sillier than it sounds on face value and why could it never work that way you know and then uh the other myth that that is built in, not just with words in our society, but with the way Things are structured from the way our parliament is structured to our school system is the idea that debate is how we come to understand things better. But in fact, as I look at the evidence, it has no effect on, you know, watching debates has no effect on election results at all…

… And it often reinforces people’s views psychologically rather than allows them to think things through at all and so and so forth. And so then one has to say, well, OK, if neither of these bits of discourse have any effect on public opinion or at all good at changing people’s views when they encounter new ideas or evidence, What is a democracy really? Right. What does it mean to have a society where people can encounter each other and learn from each other and then come to a better conclusion and then govern politically together. (Time 0:20:17)

How Views Change

Sarah Stein Lubrano says that neither discourse nor debate change people’s views.
Instead, changes in social relationships and everyday actions are what shift perspectives.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano Right. What does it mean to have a society where people can encounter each other and learn from each other and then come to a better conclusion and then govern politically together. And look, there are so many things about democracy. We can’t possibly get into all of it today. But I kind of go back to the drawing board and I look at the sociological evidence and the psychology and what does change people’s views on politics? And there are two good answers. There are things that change our mind. They’re not arguing and they’re not, you know, Twitter, God knows, but there are things and the two things are changes in our network of social relationships that’s a big deal and changes In our day-to actions or our experiences so we’ve talked a lot about the social relationships we can go back to it but yes the people in our social world especially if they’re positioned In a certain way where they’re positioned as equals that we can have meaningful friendships with they change our political views and then the other thing is the sense of action possibility And one of the things i particularly look at is a lovely little debate within sociology about whether small political actions are gateways or getaways like if we recycle do we say okay Now i don’t have to go to the climate protest or are we like you know what i should go to the climate protest and on average the best evidence suggests that thankfully is the second one. (Time 0:21:56)

Food Co-op

Join a food co-op to connect with neighbors and know their needs. When serious issues like evictions arise, neighbors support each other in meaningful ways.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano It’s nice to have cheap food, but that’s not the point. The point is, and is that suddenly, you know, all your neighbors, seeing them every week you know what’s in their fridge you know who lives in their house you know if someone’s sick you Know if something’s gone wrong you know if somebody’s getting evicted the organizer i talked to who works at cooperation town uh pointed out that you know by the time people have been In a food co-op for a bit and they’ve usually helped each other with something serious that’s happened like maybe an elderly person has fallen or whatever by the time they know each other Even that well when when the eviction notice comes they’re there they’re in front of the door preventing the eviction and to me this is a perfect example and that’s why people like it Also because they’re (Time 0:24:38)

Food Co-op Eviction Defense

A food co-op organizer described how members helped each other with serious problems.
When an eviction notice arrives, the co-op members prevent the eviction.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano Know what’s in their fridge you know who lives in their house you know if someone’s sick you know if something’s gone wrong you know if somebody’s getting evicted the organizer i talked To who works at cooperation town uh pointed out that you know by the time people have been in a food co-op for a bit and they’ve usually helped each other with something serious that’s Happened like maybe an elderly person has fallen or whatever by the time they know each other even that well when when the eviction notice comes they’re there they’re in front of the Door preventing the eviction and to me this is a perfect example and that’s why people like it also because they’re like i could do that i can imagine it’s harder than it looks but actually You can do a food co-op right and you can like do it in a way that’s better for the climate and it’s better for you and you see your neighbors more and you know each other and so on and so forth. I think it’s the perfect gateway like experience, actually. Rachel Donald I think what is so revealing about that example as well is that and this is kind of what us weirdos get wrong. I think especially sort of the the intellectual tradition of enlightenment of I can sit on my toilet in the morning and have a grand theory of the universe, you know, by the time I’m finished, Is that you’re not meant to be able to. Right. I think that is, yeah. The thing I love about it is that you’re not meant to see step 10 when you’re on step three. In fact, you’re meant to be on step one when you’re on step one and just thinking about step one and doing step one. And then that’s when step two reveals itself and then step three and step four. So that by the time you get to ste…

…p 10, you could have never even have been cognizant of or imagined step 10 when you were on step one, because you needed all of that information and all of Those little twists and turns in your own direction in order to get there. And so that’s why, to me, it makes You know, like starting a food co-op, it makes good economic sense. That’s what a lot of people are concerned with right now because of the cost of living crisis, which is never ending and probably will never go away. And then that leads you to have a relationship with your neighbours, which leads you to care about people and leads you to have more information about your neighbourhood. And that leads you to maybe political action, maybe stepping in, creating deeper relationships, maybe involved in something that they’re involved in or interested in something That they’re involved in and then the next thing you know you’re smashing windows at the bank and thank you very much we need more people like you like i get it it makes sense but i suppose Something i’ve maybe noticed in folk there’s definitely a push now i think on the left and in the climate space in the western world at the moment to do more of this like on the ground community Resistance we need to build the local systems in order to survive what’s coming but there does seem to be a sense of letting go of ever getting to grips with the bigger picture like ever Achieving a kind of like global liberation or, you know, a Marxist revolution or a Black Panther revolution, anything like those massive lofty political ideals and goals that I think Were so paramount and critical to building up political energy and maintaining it over decades. I do feel that that is somewhat gone and I don’t know if maybe that’s a good thing (Time 0:24:44)

Historical Perspective

Sarah Stein Lubrano suggests that throughout history, many apocalypses have occurred, and people in those times couldn’t have imagined our world today.
Taking a long-term perspective can provide hope, as future humans might appreciate our actions, even if we don’t see the immediate impact.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano Yeah. I mean, here’s what I would say. This is the pep talk I give myself, you know. It’s sort of based off of social science and history and it’s partially my own like weird secular Jewish values and whatever. I think there have been a lot of apocalypses in the past. And when I say this to climate activists in particular, yeah but this one’s huge and they’re right they’re right because we’re probably going to have an unbelievable amount of death Slowly over time of not species of humans i mean it’s going to be horrific if you know if there isn’t any steering off this course yeah right and i and i don’t i’m not making that small but What i am trying to do is make the sense of the world big you know when columbus arrived in america as an enormous apocalypse happens for the people that live there yeah and and i think unfortunately I’m actually writing about the apocalypse right now for a talk i’m gonna get but uh unfortunately the apocalypse has happened many times yeah and they’ve been real apocalypses but They have happened and then we have other things you know have happened the people that lived in that time period on both sides of the situation could not have imagined our world. And for all of its good and bad aspects. So for me, you know, I try to just take this enormously long perspective. That’s why I always laugh when other Marxists and I am, you know, a sort of Marxian. That’s my technique. That’s my underlying methodology. Marxian sociology type theorist. They often say like, we’re in late stage capitalism. And I’m like, we don’t know. We could be li…

…ving in early stage capitalism. History is really long. Right. And that’s terrifying. But on the other hand, it also makes me kind of hopeful because, you know, like maybe there are humans that are very far (Time 0:28:25)

Small Actions

Build thorough social networks where you do something every day, take small actions, then bigger actions, and transform society.
Though it is hard, building real-world relationships through small actions is better than debating on the internet.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano So I have this one last chapter where I kind of look at all the anxieties that this book might generate and I try to answer them in certain ways. And one of them is that, you know, people, and I get this in talks too now, people will say oh this is very interesting Sarah like it’s interesting that actually just talking to people On the internet is pointless and that building these like big thorough like social networks where we do stuff every day and we take small action and then we take bigger action and then We transform society as a better idea but that sounds hard yeah right and I get it like it is hard I just spent last night on a train coming back from work at 11 p.m (Time 0:30:12)

Cognitive Dissonance

Political ideas are held strongly, tied to our sense of self and agency.
Contradictory information is painful, requiring significant personal change.

Cognitive Dissonance

Political ideas are held strongly because they’re deeply tied to our sense of self and agency.
Contradictory information is painful, requiring significant work to change views, which is why relationships are more effective.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano One of them is cognitive dissonance. When we have political ideas, we hold them very strongly. We don’t hold them lightly. And I know lots of people will come to me and say, like, I hold them really lightly. I’m really good at this. But we don’t have any data that suggests that people are actually better or worse, particularly or meaningfully so anyway. And that makes sense because our political views are tied in deeply to our sense of self. And they’re tied in a lot to our sense of agency. And those things are super important for the human subject, especially the weird one, but not just weird ones. And so when we encounter information or ideas that might contradict our existing point of view, it’s painful and it would require a lot of work and surgery on the self to change our views. And that’s part of why relationships and actions tend to change our views more, is that they’re like a little bit of a less of a threat to the sense of self, probably, we can just say like, Oh, I’ve hung out with this person a lot. And actually, they’re okay. And you know, we can kind of find other ways of getting to the same result without thinking, well, Rachel tore my idea apart. And now I see I was wrong, which is a very difficult thing to swallow, right? So we do not see effects from debate, would expect for example like let’s go to televised debate which is the stuff we have the most data on in some ways that we would watch debates and that Occasionally people would change their minds right they would watch the debate and say oh i’ll watch that idea get taken apart and actually i prefer this candidate now but there is zero Evidence that tele…

…vised debates change election outcomes and i know everyone in the comments is going to be saying like no no like what about biden but actually that didn’t have that Much effect either which is amazing because you know he was not making sense um sorry you know i mean neither man was making much sense but you know what i mean let’s do it yeah we just don’t Have evidence of this it’s a bit of a random walk when people change their their vote voting preferences and it doesn’t have anything to do with debates and it’s probably (Time 0:38:03)

Debates Don’t Change Minds

There’s zero evidence that televised debates change election outcomes, partly because beliefs are important and tethered to our world.
Actions and relationships are less threatening and more likely to influence views.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano And now I see I was wrong, which is a very difficult thing to swallow, right? So we do not see effects from debate, would expect for example like let’s go to televised debate which is the stuff we have the most data on in some ways that we would watch debates and that Occasionally people would change their minds right they would watch the debate and say oh i’ll watch that idea get taken apart and actually i prefer this candidate now but there is zero Evidence that televised debates change election outcomes and i know everyone in the comments is going to be saying like no no like what about biden but actually that didn’t have that Much effect either which is amazing because you know he was not making sense um sorry you know i mean neither man was making much sense but you know what i mean let’s do it yeah we just don’t Have evidence of this it’s a bit of a random walk when people change their their vote voting preferences and it doesn’t have anything to do with debates and it’s probably because the Beliefs we hold are important enough to us and they exist for reasons that are also tethered into our world our existing world of actions and relationships we are not going to change Rachel Donald Them because we saw someone say something on television um can i come in here yeah please okay i want to understand if the form of what a debate is has changed over history because when (Time 0:38:55)

Media Consumption

Sarah Stein Lubrano suggests that consuming media alone is a Western phenomenon that might hinder our ability to integrate new information.
Previously, people consumed media in communal settings like movie theaters or with family, making them more open to new ideas.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano Right. First of all, I imagine these people knew each other. Right. Yes. And if you think about it intimately. Yeah. And I would say, know something i’ve been thinking about a lot lately after this book came out people would ask me questions about this is uh how much we consume media alone in the west Like if you think about even the trajectory of that you know it used to be that we might have gone to like the movie theater to watch the news at one point and then or like to church or whatever With you know and and then to learn about things and then uh we have the TV and it’s in our house. But at least we’re watching it with like maybe even our neighbors and definitely our family. And now (Time 0:42:35)

Deep Canvassing

Create ambivalence by asking people to rate their views on a scale, encouraging them to voice their doubts.
This approach loosens defenses and allows them to grapple with discomfort without threatening their sense of self.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano One is that right away the person is asked to put themselves on a scale, and that essentially allows the person that you’re talking to to express ambiguity about the problem right and Say like well you know on a scale from one to ten how much do you think this guy should be the ecuadorian president or whatever and they’re probably not going to say zero or ten because it’s Quite extreme so they’ll say like three or whatever and then you get to ask them you know why why aren’t you at a zero like why aren’t you sure he shouldn’t be president and that person can Voice their doubts. So you’re creating an automatic system that is much more ambivalent. And that’s, that loosens up people’s defenses in a way, because they’re already admitting some doubt, right? And they’re already, let’s maybe grapple with the discomfort of dissonance in a way that’s less of a threat to their sense of self. (Time 0:44:37)

Build Relationships

Build relationships with people to allow them to express ambiguity and to trust you. Deep canvassing is like the first step in getting to know someone.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano But what I would say is there are a lot of work and that’s fine. But they look a lot basically like making friends and having community, right? Deep canvassing is like the first little bit of getting to know someone and knowing about their life. And them trusting you and you trusting them enough that you can both express some ambiguity. And that’s actually kind of the work we need to be doing all the time. Not specifically deep canvassing necessarily, but building relationships with people where that’s possible. (Time 0:46:26)

Rethink Political Engagement

Instead of traditional arguing, do politics at the level of our shared life on Earth.
Engage differently; it can be more effective, less draining, and fulfilling.

Transcript: Sarah Stein Lubrano Want to re-emphasize like it’s hard work but it’s fun it’s interesting it’s really interesting stuff to begin to do the things i outline in my book and i and then on my sub stack i also have A post i’ve just put up actually about what should you do instead of talking about politics and uh you know i like my book and it would be great if you want to buy it or whatever but but even More importantly what i want to encourage people to do is think about politics differently themselves. Because right now we’re in such a low ebb in political engagement. And you might be thinking, the last thing I want to do is get involved in politics. It sounds like I have to deal with NPs. But I’m talking about politics at a different level, at the level of like our shared life on planet Earth, you know, and I am trying to make a really important point that it doesn’t have To be all this arguing and it doesn’t have to look like that at all. We can do politics in a different way that’s more effective and that’s less draining. And that’s one of the most important things you could do with your life on planet Earth, just as much as if you were like doing, you know, your your fitness regime that you give all this Effort to or your whatever, I don’t know, your relationships in your house. This is also (Time 0:47:46)

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