We are having a conversation on Hacker News. Any sampling from HN's user base, including your sample of 1, is biased. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a high probability that:
1. you have at least average intelligence
2. you can entertain logical arguments, since software development involves a lot of mathematical logic
3. you are heavily exposed to American culture and San Francisco's progressiveness, even those of us that are not even living in the US ;-)
4. you have a good education, either from an Ivy league school, or because you are an efficient autodidact
5. you are middle class and have your basic needs satisfied by your salary
Don't get me wrong, but there's a high probability that you're living in a bubble, just like most of us here and you're really not representative of the average population.
Right, but the mods here don't allow heated debates on controversial subjects. They view them as pointless or even harmful. Further, they seem to have accepted a sort of broken windows theory of moderation that says that any such discussion has to be stopped, lest it leak out into other threads.
1. Moved from a vague agnosticism to atheism
2. Maintained a vegetarian diet for 10 years
3. Shifted my politics from the far-left toward the center-right
Who are these people who think minds never change? That's what I see repeated over and over without evidence.
Minds never change in the moment. That's not how beliefs or the stubborn humans who hold them work. But beliefs can -- and do! -- change over time.