How can you be so incredibly right on all the time? I'm starting to think maybe I need to question you more because I'm so impressed with your calm logic that I might just be fooling myself! Excellent piece!
How can you be so incredibly right on all the time? I'm starting to think maybe I need to question you more because I'm so impressed with your calm logic that I might just be fooling myself! Excellent piece!
We should always leave room for doubt, but obviously that doesn't extend to the truism that I'm always right.ЁЯШБ
In all seriousness though, as I was saying a while ago, I think it's kind of bizarre that I've gained a reputation as some sort of "heterodox" thinker. I think the vast majority of my opinions are actually pretty banal. Things that are obvious to pretty much any reasonable person.
The problem is that being reasonable is out of style. Reasonable voices are almost always drowned out by the louder, more alarmist/absolutist voices that dominate pretty much every issue today. So we're fooled into believing we're a minority. And whenever a reasonable voice *does* speak up, they're invariably attacked for doing so. Because nuance isn't as easy as outrage.
So, all that said, please *do* question me more often! One of the many things I love about this community is that you're fantastic at keeping me honest and offering perspectives that I hadn't thought of.
When you know a lot more than other people you tend to be right a lot more than they are. And when a great breadth of knowledge is coupled with well above-average intelligence you prevail in arguments so much that it's tempting to see yourself as infallible.
And when you can write articulately and persuasively, the temptation can be overwhelming.
PS I am using "you" here as the impersonal, e.g. "one" in English or "man" in German, not addressing Steve explicitly.
I underwent a great humbling when I took up physics as a reading hobby and discovered my limits, with tens of thousands of dollars of books I am unable to read. I intend to learn tensors soon and blast past what I have already managed, into quantum field theory and general relativity. To hell with limits.
тАЬWhen you know a lot more than other people you tend to be right a lot more than they are.тАЭ
You might have already meant this when you said тАЬknowledgeтАЭ, but I think thereтАЩs also a lot to be said for understanding the opposing perspective. Not just factual knowledge, but an appreciation for peopleтАЩs motivations.
I think a lot of discourse is broken because people so readily assume bad faith of everybody who disagrees with them.
To assume bad faith on nothing more than disagreement would be facile. To assume bad faith because of repeatedly demonstrated and eventually indisputable evidence of bad faith becomes prudent.
To still engage in the risk of sympathy for those of such terrible morals, given how much is now at stake, is folly.
As you have doubtless read before, when people tell you what they are (and what they intend), believe them.
тАЬTo still engage in the risk of sympathy for those of such terrible moralsтАЭ
IтАЩd argue very strongly that presuming your own moral superiority is far more foolish, and dangerous.
And, of course, the bigger question is who is the тАЬtheyтАЭ in this scenario? White people? The Jews? Conservatives? Liberals? The exact same arguments have been made about each of these groups at one point in history or another.
No group of people can have their beliefs simplified down to тАЬthey operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent.тАЭ
"No group of people can have their beliefs simplified down to тАЬthey operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent.тАЭ"
Who's being absolutist now?
This is one point where you and I diverge. I will not keep my mind open to the possibility of mitigating explanations forever. If someone is holding a gun to my head then it really doesn't matter what trauma or grievance lies at the root of his malice and understanding it will not save my life.
In the world today the cost of failure is simply unacceptably great. Since 1970 more than half the world's wildlife has disappeared and more species become extinct literally every day. The cost of conservative triumph is not just vast human suffering but in the of of all life on earth except maybe at the hydrothermal vents
The numbers on that side who can be reached through understanding is simply too small.
That's not absolutism. It's just a fact that follows very naturally from the fact that human beings don't operate a hive mind. It's like saying no two people have exactly the same opinion about everything. But sure, just to avoid any possible room for misunderstanding;
"No group of *millions of* people can have their beliefs simplified down to тАЬthey operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent."
If one person is holding a gun to your head, then sure, you should make whatever assumptions about that person best serve you. But millions of people aren't holding a gun to your head. Metaphorically or literally. I'd bet lots of liberals, whatever they say in public, are wildly irresponsible on the environment. I'd bet lots of conservatives do good work. The environment, in particular, is a mess we're *all* making. And, of course, by "all," I mean pretty much every country in the world.
But the reason we keep disagreeing on this point is that I've seen the exact same argument you're making, countless times, to refer to white people. "THEY'VE shown us who they are." "THEY can't be trusted." "THEY are all racist, even if they claim they're not." The people who make these arguments are just as convinced as you are. I think they're wrong too.
First of all I have conceded that the entire "non-binary" thing makes me too angry to talk about with equanimity or objectivity and so I am not talking about the topic anymore.
Second, there is a world of difference between lumping together all the members of a race and lumping together all the members of an ideology noted for the extreme rigidity of its orthodoxy. No, they are not as homogenous as ants but it sure isn't for lack of trying. Behold the expulsions of the two participants on the Jan6 committee; who would ever have thought in 2015 that Liz Cheney would be anathema? She's going to lose her primary to some lunatic who obediently says "Trump won."
How can you be so incredibly right on all the time? I'm starting to think maybe I need to question you more because I'm so impressed with your calm logic that I might just be fooling myself! Excellent piece!
We should always leave room for doubt, but obviously that doesn't extend to the truism that I'm always right.ЁЯШБ
In all seriousness though, as I was saying a while ago, I think it's kind of bizarre that I've gained a reputation as some sort of "heterodox" thinker. I think the vast majority of my opinions are actually pretty banal. Things that are obvious to pretty much any reasonable person.
The problem is that being reasonable is out of style. Reasonable voices are almost always drowned out by the louder, more alarmist/absolutist voices that dominate pretty much every issue today. So we're fooled into believing we're a minority. And whenever a reasonable voice *does* speak up, they're invariably attacked for doing so. Because nuance isn't as easy as outrage.
So, all that said, please *do* question me more often! One of the many things I love about this community is that you're fantastic at keeping me honest and offering perspectives that I hadn't thought of.
When you know a lot more than other people you tend to be right a lot more than they are. And when a great breadth of knowledge is coupled with well above-average intelligence you prevail in arguments so much that it's tempting to see yourself as infallible.
And when you can write articulately and persuasively, the temptation can be overwhelming.
PS I am using "you" here as the impersonal, e.g. "one" in English or "man" in German, not addressing Steve explicitly.
I underwent a great humbling when I took up physics as a reading hobby and discovered my limits, with tens of thousands of dollars of books I am unable to read. I intend to learn tensors soon and blast past what I have already managed, into quantum field theory and general relativity. To hell with limits.
тАЬWhen you know a lot more than other people you tend to be right a lot more than they are.тАЭ
You might have already meant this when you said тАЬknowledgeтАЭ, but I think thereтАЩs also a lot to be said for understanding the opposing perspective. Not just factual knowledge, but an appreciation for peopleтАЩs motivations.
I think a lot of discourse is broken because people so readily assume bad faith of everybody who disagrees with them.
To assume bad faith on nothing more than disagreement would be facile. To assume bad faith because of repeatedly demonstrated and eventually indisputable evidence of bad faith becomes prudent.
To still engage in the risk of sympathy for those of such terrible morals, given how much is now at stake, is folly.
As you have doubtless read before, when people tell you what they are (and what they intend), believe them.
тАЬTo still engage in the risk of sympathy for those of such terrible moralsтАЭ
IтАЩd argue very strongly that presuming your own moral superiority is far more foolish, and dangerous.
And, of course, the bigger question is who is the тАЬtheyтАЭ in this scenario? White people? The Jews? Conservatives? Liberals? The exact same arguments have been made about each of these groups at one point in history or another.
No group of people can have their beliefs simplified down to тАЬthey operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent.тАЭ
"No group of people can have their beliefs simplified down to тАЬthey operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent.тАЭ"
Who's being absolutist now?
This is one point where you and I diverge. I will not keep my mind open to the possibility of mitigating explanations forever. If someone is holding a gun to my head then it really doesn't matter what trauma or grievance lies at the root of his malice and understanding it will not save my life.
In the world today the cost of failure is simply unacceptably great. Since 1970 more than half the world's wildlife has disappeared and more species become extinct literally every day. The cost of conservative triumph is not just vast human suffering but in the of of all life on earth except maybe at the hydrothermal vents
The numbers on that side who can be reached through understanding is simply too small.
"Who's being absolutist now?"
That's not absolutism. It's just a fact that follows very naturally from the fact that human beings don't operate a hive mind. It's like saying no two people have exactly the same opinion about everything. But sure, just to avoid any possible room for misunderstanding;
"No group of *millions of* people can have their beliefs simplified down to тАЬthey operate in bad faith so assuming bad faith is prudent."
If one person is holding a gun to your head, then sure, you should make whatever assumptions about that person best serve you. But millions of people aren't holding a gun to your head. Metaphorically or literally. I'd bet lots of liberals, whatever they say in public, are wildly irresponsible on the environment. I'd bet lots of conservatives do good work. The environment, in particular, is a mess we're *all* making. And, of course, by "all," I mean pretty much every country in the world.
But the reason we keep disagreeing on this point is that I've seen the exact same argument you're making, countless times, to refer to white people. "THEY'VE shown us who they are." "THEY can't be trusted." "THEY are all racist, even if they claim they're not." The people who make these arguments are just as convinced as you are. I think they're wrong too.
I neither said nor implied anything remotely like that last paragraph
You really don't think this is at least very similar to the way you routinely talk about conservatives? And non-binary people for that matter?
First of all I have conceded that the entire "non-binary" thing makes me too angry to talk about with equanimity or objectivity and so I am not talking about the topic anymore.
Second, there is a world of difference between lumping together all the members of a race and lumping together all the members of an ideology noted for the extreme rigidity of its orthodoxy. No, they are not as homogenous as ants but it sure isn't for lack of trying. Behold the expulsions of the two participants on the Jan6 committee; who would ever have thought in 2015 that Liz Cheney would be anathema? She's going to lose her primary to some lunatic who obediently says "Trump won."