My SNP 1&2 pal

I'm sure many of you have come across this already.

It's fairly obvious to most that the low hanging fruit for the Alba party should be SNP voters.

But...you talk to your SNP voting, possible SNP members, and they tell you that voting Alba will cost us Independence, we will lose indy MSPs, we need SNP 1&2 for an indy majority that Boris will recognise etc.

They become very defensive, even aggressive towards you when you should both be on the same side.

And you think, what the hell is going on, I thought we were on the same page, I thought these people wanted Independence - it's like talking to a unionist!

You start thinking, are these people stupid, are they brainwashed?

To understand, and overcome it, you need to understand what's going on in their brains.

The brain works by forming connections, the more trusted the source or the more times the same input is received the stronger that connection becomes.

You might remember the blue and black/gold and white dress optical illusion some years back, where you might swear the dress in the picture was blue and black but your friend looking at the same picture on the same screen would think you were mad or colour blind because they saw gold and white.

In this example, our brains all made strong connections in relation to the dress colours because the information we were giving our brain was from perhaps one of the most trusted sources of all - our own eyes.

It was only when others reported seeing a different set of colours we started having very small doubts, but we all still stuck to our guns, seeing the possibility that others truly believed in the wrong colours, but still certain that it was their problem, they were genuine in their belief but ultimately wrong.

Then the experts stepped in with the theories to explain an optical illusion, if their theories said it was us that saw the wrong colours and our friends were seeing the right colours, we still didn't believe them

Finally, the proof was provided, colour corrected images, TV interviews with the person who'd taken the original photo showing the true indisputable correct colours - and we finally accepted we'd got it wrong (but it still wasn't our fault).

What happened here was a very strong initial connection in our brain, which was wrong.

Because the connection was so strong, it took several steps to weaken that connection and replace it with another connection telling us that the original was old outdated and incorrect information.

So back to your pal.

For a number of years they have been told, quite correctly, when the media talk about Nicola Sturgeon or the SNP, it's probably a distortion of the truth or an outright lie.

Wait and see what Nicola says, then we'll get the truth of the matter.

So in our pals brains, we now have a very strong connection that tells our pal, Nicola Sturgeon is our source for truth, just like our eyes with the dress colours.

Nicola tells our Pal vote SNP  1&2.

Then along comes Alex Salmond with his Alba party and his supermajority.

Your pal isn't stupid, their brain is just doing what it's been programmed to do, go straight to the strongest connections, what does Nicola say, bad man, gambler, ego, SNP 1&2.

So what we have to do is weaken that connection.

The example of the dress is rare, where the process from an initial strong connection to correcting it happened for many in 1 or 2 days.

This might not be such a quick fix, we need to break it down, and that's going to take several steps, just like the dress.

We need to identify the strong connections and work out what information is needed to weaken these connections and replace them with the correct information.

Many of us did this in the 2014 indyref, this is no different and with people who should already be halfway there because they agree with us on the ultimate goal.

There is no particular order that this needs to be done in, it should be led by the direction the conversation naturally flows in, otherwise, you'll come across as giving a lecture.

But if you can steer the direction of the conversation so that one point leads to another then it will be easier for both you and your pal to follow.

You will get people who just won't listen, this isn't a failing on your part. If there's no way to make progress then your better leaving it for somebody else you might be able to persuade.

Over the next week or so I am going to try and break down the steps, this will not be easy as some of the concepts like the D'Hount voting system can be difficult to get your head around let alone explain to others.

Initially, the topics I've thought to cover are:

Alex Salmond vs Nicola Sturgeon

Alba vs the Greens

D'Hount 

If anyone has a great way to explain some of the topics or has any other topics that come up when talking to people, please let me know.