Equipped for Life Podcast

Josh, Tim, Rachel, and Jacob discuss their most common dialogue mistakes in this two-part series.

Related Links:

• Equipped for Life Podcast Episode 29: How Josh Should Have Dealt with a Hostile Audience in Canada
• Timothy Brahm for the ERI Blog: Don't Be Too Nice

Josh Brahm for the ERI Blog: When and How You Should End Unproductive Conversations

Rachel shares what happened on her recent speaking and outreach tour in Oregon and Pennsylvania, which leads into a quick impromptu discussion on which people are best to invest the most energy into talking to during outreach, the hardcore pro-choice people or people in the middle.

Then the team responds to listener mail:

• 22:14: "Why do you sometimes describe your view that embryos are persons as a 'really weird view'? Is this disingenuous?"
• 27:41: "How do you respond to overpopulation?"
• 35:25: "How do you respond to people who are pro-choice because they believe in reincarnation, therefore abortion is no big deal because the babies are just reincarnated somewhere else?"
• 45:12: "I have a problem with sarcasm. Do you have any tips for me?"

Email us at [email protected] to share your weirdest pro-choice arguments you've heard! We'd love to cover them in a future episode.

The audio is a little wonky in this episode. We got some new microphone processors that should improve the audio quality, but when we went to edit we realized that we didn't have all the settings dialed in quite right, so there was a lot of us bleeding into each other's mics. We made it a lot better through mixing, but it's still not great. We should have this working better next episode.

Rachel interviews Lori Navrodtzke, a PRC counselor and Justice For All volunteer, about how to dialogue with people about abortion if they've already had one.

Topics Covered:

• What is in a post-abortive woman's mind when she approaches a pro-life outreach table on campus?
• What are some signals that pro-life advocates should keep an eye out for, that might be a clue that they're talking to a post-abortive woman?
• Are there things we should not say or directly ask?
• How should you proceed if you ask someone if they've had an abortion and they say no, but you think that they're not being honest about that?
• A reminder that some post-abortive women don't regret abortion, at least not yet.
• If they do disclose their abortion history, what sorts of things should we be doing, especially for those of us who aren't trained counselors?

Josh shares what happened when he gave a pro-life speech at a high school in Canada last month where three angry pro-choice girls sat in the front row and dominated the Q&A session. You'll hear how Josh actually handled it, as well as a discussion with Tim and Rachel about what Josh could have done better.

If you ever plan on giving pro-life speeches, this episode will be very practically helpful to you!

Josh, Tim, and Rachel finish their multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media.

Here are the tips covered in this episode:

Practical Argumentation

1. Use links sparingly. If your argument only works if they read a long article you link to, you're doing it wrong. Summarize the thesis of what you're linking to, and the link is to back you up or give them more info if they want it.
2. Always cite neutral websites for sources.
3. Know logical fallacies and cognitive biases so that you can recognize and respond to a logical fallacy (and not commit one yourself!).
4. Stay factual. If you're not sure, admit it. Use disclaimers like "It's my understanding that…" instead of asserting ideas or facts you're not sure about.
5. Never claim research or studies have shown anything unless you are prepared to cite those sources.
6. Not drowning them in text is a good goal to strive for unless you are telling a story for something like a thought experiment. They are more likely to actually read everything you are saying this way. If they are drowning you in text with many trains of thought running everywhere, perhaps remark that they are saying a lot at once and ask them which they would like a response to first.
7. If someone crushes you under a wall of ranty text and you want to engage, feel free to pick one singular point and respond with only a line or two asking about it. There's no rule saying you have to reply to every single point they make all at once.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode they continue a series of 35 practical tips in five categories.

The episode begins with a brief discussion of Tim and Rachel's favorite podcast, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." If you want to skip this, the substantive content begins at 10:01.

Here are the tips covered in this episode:

Social Media Specific Tips

1. Choose a friendly looking profile pic.
2. Use emoticons and emojis. Bitmojis too if you're in a texting conversation.
3. Don't name drop philosophers and theories or other technical language.
4. Be prepared to repeat and re-explain.
5. Understand there may be unseen dynamics at play – some of the commenters may have a history there, they may make comments in what they consider a teasing tone that comes off rude to outsiders, they may have had or encouraged an abortion, they may feel like Planned Parenthood saved their life, they may have been screamed at outside of a clinic.
6. Remember, other people are watching.
7. Don't feed trolls.
8. Be patient if they insult you.
9. Don't be afraid to separate yourself from or disagree with other pro-lifers posting if they are being mean-spirited.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode they continue a series of 35 practical tips in five categories.

The episode begins with a brief discussion of Josh and Tim's new kittens. If you want to skip this, the substantive content begins at 09:50.

Here are the tips covered in this episode:

Practical Lowering Defenses Moves

1. Point out virtually every case of common ground.
2. Do the "tell them what you don't mean" thing more often on social media than in person due to it being easier for them to misunderstand, stew a bit, and then yell back an angry response or just leave, not giving you a chance to clarify.
3. Consistently summarize the other person's view or argument to them throughout the conversation. This assures the other person you're taking them seriously as a human being and not some random name with a picture.
4. Don't forget to be relational when you talk about rape and other hard topics.
5. Never (or rarely) use any language even bordering on profanity, caps, or anything remotely disrespectful like "baby killer", "murderer", etc.
6. Use neutral terminology that the other side is comfortable with.
7. Never compare to Adolf Hitler, Dr. Mengele, Stalin, Pol Pot, the Holocaust, etc. That immediately ticks people off.
8. Ask clarifying questions if you don't understand; don't assume.
9. Point out when they teach you something.
10. Like the other person's comments when they're being clear and charitable, not just when you agree with them.
11. Don't like or share inflammatory things.
12. Sow intentional positive seeds with people you would hope to dialogue with one day.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode they begin a series of 35 practical tips in five categories.

Here are the tips covered in this episode:

General Strategy

1. Move to PM or in person as soon as possible, and then to Skype/in-person soon after that. Once you're in PM, get personal.
2. Make minimal persuasion goals. It's more of a marathon on Facebook than outreach.
3. Make limited claims.

Mindset

1. Be aware of the lack of nonverbal communication. It's just your text and your profile pic if they don't know you. Given that, you need to write a little bit as a caricature of yourself so that after it's been filtered, it comes out fairly accurately.
2. Post things with pro-choice people in mind. Will it make pro-lifers raise their fists but cause pro-choice people to be frustrated and less likely to talk to you, your friends, and all the other pro-lifers? Then don't share it.
3. Assume the best about people.
4. Take a step back if you're feeling defensive.

Sorry about the occasional coughing you'll hear in the background. Some of the team had colds while we recorded this episode.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode Tim discusses virtue-signaling. What is it? Are there different types? Are some of them actually okay? And when is it a valid or helpful accusation?

Josh, Tim, and Rachel begin a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. They begin the series by talking about some of the obstacles that often prevent good dialogue from happening on social media, like image management.

The episode begins with a discussion of our favorite Facebook pages. If you don't want to hear any of this, skip to 08:18.