help me become a better arguer/negotiater

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Control what you're arguing about.

[/ QUOTE ]

A long time I read a book for lawyers about arguing in court which said you should never ask a question to which you don't already have the answer.

This ties in well with the previous poster's notion of controlling the premise. I remember reading someone talking about George Will, who can be very ideologic and inflexible, saying that it was impossible to beat him in an argument, no matter how bad his ideas, if you agreed to one of his premises. Once you did, your defeat followed like absolute clockwork, already mapped out, and you were done.

If you control the discussion well enough, the validity of your argument matters much less.

Often, an argument is an attempt not to get at any kind of truth, but simply to win. Vital distinction. If you want a healthy, well-reasoned discussion in which either or both parties fairly air out their ideas and both even have a chance to learn something, your approach could be vastly different than if the most important thing is winning.

[Big Poppa Smurf]

gamblore,

you seem to have really bad luck with salespeople. Try to haggle with people who run mall kiosks, they are pushovers.

[gamblore99]

big poppa smurf,
ya, Its not just them. Looking over my negotiation history, I have lost a fair amount of monetary arguements (all fairly small) with friends/aquantences/landlords. And most of the time, its because they do what evan, daver, scotty, and blarg are talking about. The money in these things doesn't really bother me, but the feeling like I have been takin advantage of really does bug me.