This, for me, usually is noticeable as an actual pivot. “sure, that’d be nice, but it’ll never happen”. There is now sufficient agreement about the main topic, and the person is now talking about why they’re not working toward it, or why it doesn’t matter that you have agreement in the first place. Or they disagree, and are jumping ahead to “how can we find out?” and pointing out that you can’t convince others, so there’s no way to test it.
The counter-question is “why do you object to this pivot”? Is there something remaining that you don’t understand about your discussion partner’s view of the nominal proposal? Can you just ask directly “but you agree that it would be better if this were implemented” or whatever, without conceding whether there is an actual path to implementation?
[ note: this probably varies pretty widely with context and group norms. If my explanations don’t make sense, it’s worth picking a few specific examples to explore how they differ. ]
This, for me, usually is noticeable as an actual pivot. “sure, that’d be nice, but it’ll never happen”. There is now sufficient agreement about the main topic, and the person is now talking about why they’re not working toward it, or why it doesn’t matter that you have agreement in the first place. Or they disagree, and are jumping ahead to “how can we find out?” and pointing out that you can’t convince others, so there’s no way to test it.
The counter-question is “why do you object to this pivot”? Is there something remaining that you don’t understand about your discussion partner’s view of the nominal proposal? Can you just ask directly “but you agree that it would be better if this were implemented” or whatever, without conceding whether there is an actual path to implementation?
[ note: this probably varies pretty widely with context and group norms. If my explanations don’t make sense, it’s worth picking a few specific examples to explore how they differ. ]