Persuasion and Morality

Two friends leave their child with you over the weekend. Your friends are left wing and you're right wing. Their child is left wing as they are. Would you use your superior intellect and powers of persuasion to persuade the child to abandon their current beliefs, which match their parents, and instead adopt yours?

The answer for me is no. Doing so would be taking advantage of your superior abilities to brainwash a child. Maybe the parents are also wrong for doing the same thing, but still.

The first rule of persuasion: Brainwashing people is bad. If you're sufficiently good at persuasion, it's very easy to brainwash people. In circumstances where you are much better at persuasion than others around you, you should take great care and either not try to persuade at all or try and tone down the extent to which you are persuasive. Take care, the second path can turn into a slipper slope very quickly.

You live in the kingdom of GreenLand. Your country is about to invade Bluegaria. Every media outlet, person, book or source of information is rabidly pro-war. You go on the news and the anchor gives you an opportunity to talk about the impending war. You yourself are pro-war but are confident that you be just as persuasive arguing against the war. You only have enough time to present one side. Do you present a pro-war reason or an anti-war one?

The answer for me is that you should present the anti-war argument. A superior quality of persuasion is equivalent to brainwashing. So is a superior quantity persuasion. The second rule of persuasion: When your surroundings all share the same perspective, if you do persuade, you should play devils advocate to balance the scales. Balance does not mean making both sides equally persuasive. It's impossible to define balance. You can't be neutral on a moving train. But, you can still try.

Counter argument: you should argue for what you think is right. Problem: See the first rule of persuasion.