alt Hacker News> Don't bother with Those People, They Have Different Values, They Aren't Like Us
I didn't say that you shouldn't bother with people. I said that discussing _policy_ is not useful if you don't agree on _values_. It's the wrong level of abstraction. To put it in a plain analogy: discussing the best route to get to your destination isn't useful if you don't agree on where you are going.
If you want to engage with someone with different values, then the values are where you need to start. If you want to engage with someone on the best way to get somewhere, you need to start by making sure you both agree on where you want to go.
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" is a value statement; in the US, some folks agree with it, some do not.
Under your argument, folks who disagreed about that value statement shouldn't bother discussing criminal justice policy; I think that's erroneous and part-and-parcel of Don't Bother With Those People.
Yes, _some_ policy conversations might be futile if folks have completely opposed values, but I don't think we should apply that generally.
We MUST work with people who hold different values than us, without trying to change their values so that they become part of Us.