I've never seen anyone change his mind because of the power of a superior argument or the acquisition of new facts. But I've seen plenty of people change behavior to avoid being mocked.
Death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. The difference between sex and death is that with death you can do it alone and no one is going to make fun of you.
A lady came up to me on the street, pointed at my suede jacket and said, 'Don't you know a cow was murdered for that jacket?' I said 'I didn't know there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you too'.
In all large corporations, there is a pervasive fear that someone, somewhere is having fun with a computer on company time. Networks help alleviate that fear.