41–50 of 218 posts
The good part of this: don't fall into the trap of believing the proposition "an idiot disagrees with me, so I must be right". That's solid advice, idiots believe countless true things and geniuses believe innumerable false things. The intelligence of a random interlocutor has nothing to do with the validity of their opinions, really, so it shouldn't serve as evidence one way or another. Generally, I try to pay atten…
The Earth is on the back of a large turtle. Prove me wrong.
Most of the arguments you hear will be deeply flawed.
Therefore we are on the back of a giant turtle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course the world is crazy. But so are you
Agreed, but also: Just because they're crazy, it doesn't mean they're wrong.
This world is a messy complicated place and I tend to think in percentages about everything. Guarantees are rare, I usually think of events as probabilistic, and likewise what other people say.
Now, these probabilities can change based on who's saying what. Theoretically someone who specialized in that topic has a higher chance of "getting it right", or sussing it better than people who aren't as versed in that subject. That's what academia is, and if it wouldn't work we wouldn't do it.
So, for me it does matter who's saying what, but only to some extent. That means even the most educated, smart and focused individual can get it wrong, and some nobody with no training on the subject can get it right, for various reasons, even pure chance.
So I'm never discarding someone's opinion based on who the are or their training, but I do consider the chances of them being right or wrong. There was a recent discussion about Nobelitis.
At the risk of sounding AI pilled, I find LLM's are fairly good sparring partners if you instruct them well. At least they're more capable of giving you the best arguments against your position than the average bar patron.
Almost all of my non-professional prompts are of that nature.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and you've definitely never called your Congresspeople to complain about their votes Or, you know, you haven't lived at the same address for twenty years. In your imagined world where every single citizen either has something so pressing to call their representatives about or is just ignorant, you're still basically filtering out everybody who moved for a job/college/SO/whatever recently. I guess in your mind it's…
As always everyone is entitled to their opinions, the question is how much should the rest of us care.
That is not due to age or illness, it is due to enshittification. Not by the admin but by the populace.
The good part of this: don't fall into the trap of believing the proposition "an idiot disagrees with me, so I must be right". That's solid advice, idiots believe countless true things and geniuses believe innumerable false things. The intelligence of a random interlocutor has nothing to do with the validity of their opinions, really, so it shouldn't serve as evidence one way or another. Generally, I try to pay atten…
I think knowing about the branches of your government is a prerequisite to having an opinion or good argument about it. It’s not sufficient to just know that but it’s a good filter in the USA where a surprising number of people have “opinions” but lack the most basic knowledge.
> most people are in fact “asleep” about most things most of the time, not super thoughtful in how they develop beliefs
Which is later echoed, but differently, as:
> the average person just doesn’t know much about your hyper specific thing
This is skirting around whether they have a duty to know about your thing. The first phrasing suggests they do, the second suggests not.
Given that your thing is probably stupid and wrong, and life's too short, it seems reasonable to me that most people can't give you good arguments about it unless you invite them to take a pleasant and entertaining walk around your reasoning and maybe sleep on it and come back later. If the subject can't be made pleasant and entertaining, you're probably out of luck. This unfortunately still applies even when your thing is genuinely a great insight.