If you want to persuade someone, “approaching them with a sense of empathy is very important — and very much missing, I think, from a huge amount of conversation that happens online,” said London entrepreneur Stuart Johnson, 20, one of the subreddit’s active moderators. “Even if you’re completely right, if your post is just strongly calling out the other person or generalizing about them, they will completely close down. Their ego will no longer allow them to change their mind.”