@bot It's just a really autistic way of framing it, and I am being admittedly obtuse, so skip the following if you're not amused or don't get it immediately.

If persuasion wasn't coercion, that is, if true ideas won out over false ones every time, simply by being right, then all anyone would have to do is write the idea down, spread it as far and wide as possible, and people would all as soon as they heard it, change their minds.

Since this doesn't happen, since just communicating an idea doesn't just change someone's mind merely by being stated then that suggests one of two possibilities: either there has never been a true idea in the entire history of humanity that would have this magical effect on those who had never heard it before (unlikely imo), or there is some component to communicating an idea that is not related to the idea itself (I think this is the case).

That missing component need not have anything to do with the idea, and can thus be said to be weakening the resolve of the listener to "soften them up" so to speak. This could be whitewashed as being "persuasive" but really it's manipulation, and sometimes outright threat of application of force. This force need not be physical violence, it can be soft application of force like the threat of social consequences.


If we were all 100% stone cold truecel autists then yes I think maybe more true ideas would propagate themselves and win hearts and minds simply on their own virtues. But, we are not all immune to consequences, and unwilling or unable to die on our hills, even when they are the right ones. Thus, people with the capacity to inflict consequences (positive or negative) can amass large swathes of those willing to "change their minds" even if their hearts and minds are not actually any different.

If something does tend to prompt (but not always affect) a change of heart it is not something so instantaneous as an idea without some weight of consequence behind it, it is a mass of consequences over time, which cannot necessarily be spoken or written onto the hearts of others at will.