Mostly the former, but occasionally it goes back and forth for awhile as alignment need ironing out. That's the other thing about engineering arguments: both people are aligned in seeing an end result. People in online arguments don't have mutual alignment for a good outcome so they go nowhere.
I used to work in politics, where sadly, the goal is to change people's opinions. At this level I did succeed in changing many opinions.
The most effective way to change an individual's opinion is to calmly provide facts to them without commentary or judgement. No insults, no judgement, no snark. Just calmly engage with their points and empathise with them. Most opinions are formed without knowing all the facts. Presenting facts without attacking their ego is the best path for changing an opinion.
This works best on unfamiliar topics people don't yet have strong feelings about. With opinion formation, the side to set the first emotional frame has the advantage. This is why in a referendum campaign it's so critical your message reaches voters before the other side can define the ballot question.
Other things I learned
- Good marketers in politics understand psychology. Repeat exposure better encodes a message into memory. For political ads this means repeating the same key phrases/words over and over again, to a degree you and I would find weird, to ensure you encode them into the viewer's memory. With enough repeat exposure, people feel like the ideas are their own.
- Never repeat your opponent's framing of a lie. To debunk a lie: use a "truth" sandwich. State your truth first -- first frame gets the advantage. Next describe the lie in less incendiary words, debunk it, then repeat your frame on the issue repeatedly.
- Politicians start every day with coordinated key talking points for media interviews because message repetition = encoding.
- Referendum ads are particularly crazy because they have no candidate reputation to protect. They do not need to be reasonable or respectable. A referendum ad's sole purpose is to persuade with the most emotionally resonant messages it can to encode key messages/frames of thinking. Being controversial just helps to create more exposure and people seeing your message. If everybody in the media is "debating" the merits of your message frame you are winning. People vote on the issue, not on the campaign team. E.g. If an ad says X will lead to extremist neo-nazi soldiers goose-stepping the streets, people will scoff at the hyperbole while it still subconsciously encodes into them that maybe I don't want something that risks instability.
- Politics is tribal and people follow the support signals sent by elites on their favoured side. Powerful elites speaking out in favour or against something/someone greatly changes its support among coalitions.
I "argue" constantly with my coworkers: they are savage in PR reviews identifying mistakes/improvements, and I give it back the same.
It's collegial, not hostile or insulting. Yet it's arguing nonetheless. We are exchanging ideas to create better software. Using steelmans and devil's advocate to evaluate new ideas / approaches.
Ego-less arguing is easier with engineering work because people are not emotionally invested in code the way they are on a political issue.
Because solar and wind are renewable, cheaper and cleaner than nuclear. They don't require destructive mining for enriched uranium or create the security implications of dealing with fissile material. Solar/wind do not create long term hazardous waste that's complicated to dispose or create the risk of widespread radioactive fallout. They also help to decentralise the energy grid making it less dependent on a single point of failure.
Nuclear power has its advantages, and may be worth it short term because climate change is a threat to humanity, but nuclear is not a renewable resource. Solar/wind with proper recycling could in theory sustain itself into perpetuity. Humanity needs to find sustainable ways for powering itself in the long term.
Most electricity generation is handled by the government already, particularly in Canada. Worldwide approximately 88% of global electricity generation capacity is owned or controlled by national and local governments.
Some Canadian provinces have IPPs -- Independent Private-Power companies but they are often operating under the patronage of government. Many owe their existence to privatisation, lobbying and sweetheart contracts. (E.g. in British Columbia, private run-of-river hydro companies scandalously secured a 60 year guaranteed non-market rate on electricity. https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/09/12/BC-Hydro-Public-Intere... )
Exciting development. I really wish somebody would nail a commercially viable Thorium reactor but it seems there are real engineering complications around scaling molten salt reactors.
Some storage can be had for cheap from existing capacity. Hydroelectric dams with reservoirs, abundant in Canada already, can function like a battery to cover times when solar/wind is low.
The East Kootenays still hasn't decided what timezone to align with. They used to align with Alberta (w/ daylight savings switching) as well. Then B.C. announced their change and the East Kootenays announced they were aligning to Pacific Daylight Time, which meant for the East Kootenays only uniquely "falling back" an hour a final time this fall. Then the East Kootenays rescinded that decision, and since then, Alberta has announced permanent daylight time. Now they need to decide which to align with.
The current plan is for the East Kootenays (America/Cranbrook) to "fall back" to PDT this fall, but IANA TZ database still hasn't made the update because of the uncertainty.
Lesser known is that western parts of British Columbia are still debating what timezone to adopt. E.g. the East Kootenays which used to align with Alberta's mountain time w/ daylight savings is now debating whether to align with B.C. or Alberta now that Alberta is also switching to permanent Mountain Daylight Time (which they call "Alberta Time").
While you're not wrong the problem is they own the company or the board listens to them. They have power they can use to keep existing while you don't. This is why AI is so scary to working professionals.
We have so many automated workflows and pipelines moving through Github Actions + other Github integrations it would be a giant headache to migrate. Not clear where we would go either. Gitlab??