OP-ED: Opinion and Reality · 10:01pm Oct 8th, 2020
Fair warning from the start: This post is going to address that beast, politics, and talk about it a little. Probably not in the way most of you expect, but it is going to address it. So fair warning, this might be messy. But I’m pulling no punches and diving right in.
The last few months have reminded me of an experience I once had a little over a decade ago. I collect cool background images for my PC, and from a variety of sources. Photographs of national parks, neat images from video-games I’ve played, whatever. That mix and combination, however, lead to a very interesting exchange.
I had a visitor over who, through one means or another had noticed my rotating backgrounds, and commented on them and how nice they looked. At the moment, the background in question had been showing a very artistic photograph of Hamburg, Germany. I nodded, agreeing, and then noted that it almost made me want to visit and see the city someday.
At which point, this individual did something very unexpected and unusual. They shook their head sadly and said “Oh sure, that’d be nice, but it’s not a real place.”
Stunned and slightly perplexed, I replied that it was indeed very real. Hamburg, Germany was a city on a map.
At this point things took a swift turn sideways. This individual, who up until this point I had assumed was a rational, thinking human being, shook their head and with a sad, patronizing tone said ‘Oh no, it’s not hun. You just think it is because of all those video games you play. You’ve lost touch with reality. You think these imaginary places are real.’
After a moment’s pure shocked disbelief, I replied that I knew very well the difference between fantasy and reality, and replied that Hamburg, Germany was a very real place.
Their response? They shook their head, told me how sad it was that playing video games had messed with my head so much, and hoped that one day I would realize the difference between fantasy and reality.
To this day I wonder if that individual ever realized exactly how crazy they sounded.
I’ve heard of birds, Australia, and Finland not being real, but never... Hamburg?!?
Also we should be Facebook friends. My FB is a bit of an echo chamber at the moment so I’d love to comment on spicier comment threads.
I did a double-take when I read about the Hamburg denial. How extremely distorted must a person's bubble get before that kind of "I'm right, you're wrong, no matter what" attitude seems normal? I shudder to think.
The science comparison is apt, because one of the things that always struck me about scientific investigation was how much it emphasized fallibilism and flexibility: test and check and double-check, because what you think you know might turn out to be wrong. Or limited, or misunderstood, or even a trick of your own biases. Be prepared to change at a moment's notice.
It can be an intimidating experience at times, to look at things you take for granted and realize that technically there's nothing stopping a revolution in our thinking tomorrow. Skepticism and philosophy in general have the same daunting effect.
Which means it's easy to worry about things like: Where am I going to get my information from? Who can I trust? What am I going to do if I don't immediately understand it? Supposing I think I understand it, but I really don't because I haven't learned the right techniques yet and am just assuming common sense will do the job?
And it's also why I find confidence an extremely suspicious and unreliable test of people's know-how and skill. Because if there's one thing psychology tends to show, it's that humans tend to think better of their own memory, skill, knowledge, and rationality than is actually the case. It's astonishing at times what cognitive biases hide from plain sight.
It's also a sad sight to see someone effectively yelling at a bubble world of their own devising, like a royal child who not only never sees the country they're supposed to be "running", but who doesn't see the point of doing so, because they're royalty. And who's surrounded by a lot of yes-men who don't teach them any better.
Basically, it's a question of honesty. There's nothing new about these tactics. It's just lying and/or delusion all over again.
I don't blame people for acknowledging the truth can be hard to find, let alone to accept. Even that's a species of honesty. But deliberately making oneself stupid is never the answer. Ignoring the cause of honesty in the name of another cause is just a surefire way of failing at both.
Has this person never heard of hamburgers?
Joking aside, admitting to being wrong is scary and difficult. It gets even worse when you have a lot of emotion invested in something. I try to do it anyway, but I don't always succeed.
Looks like my next project is to do my own research and put the effort in to locate objective reality.
5373960
That's why it blew me away. I actually tried to convince them to Google it, but they refused. It was ... awkward.
Actually, I've gotten my Facebook wall pretty tame. At this point mine tends to be fairly neutral, because most of the really delusional folks gave up (many unfriending me). realizing that I wasn't about to believe whatever crazy conspiracy theory they posted next and that screaming at my wall wasn't getting them anywhere. I tend to leave occasional comments on others posts now (usually if asked) but mostly it's just book stuff or random things.
5373974
Yeah. Never stop pushing for knowledge, and even when you have to correct your understanding of something, you'll be grateful for it.
Sadly, I worry this "belief" of "I have a right to never be wrong" has even permeated the way businesses are run in the US.
People are wrong all the time. I'm wrong on things. Learning from it is part of being an adult.
5374025
People investing themselves and their own self-worth into things like "politics" is definitely part of the problem. 'So-and-so can't be wrong because that would mean the party is wrong, and if the party is wrong and I am the party, that means I'm wrong!' is a horrible mindset to have.
But I worry a lot of people have it, wrapped around one issue or another. This isn't to say that there's wrong to be had in taking pride in one's knowledge and capability with things (such as a job), but when that pride becomes all you are, the slightest hint of something going off the rails destroys everything about self image ... and so people refuse to ever "let" that happen, no matter how big a fool they may make of themselves.
My predominant problem with any form of debate is that I just don't care enough to do get good at it. It takes time to go around looking up three or four sources on the same thing trying to get a non-biased consensus, and to look for all that – I mean really look, not just do a Google search and skim website headlines – requires you to be interested and invested in finding out.
I'm not. In most cases, I legitimately do not care.
That being said, when something comes up that I do care about, I'll go out of my way to confirm information.
I don't believe there's anything wrong with this way of looking at things. It prevents me from getting too invested in the kind of things that apparently drive a lot of people insane. The catch is that I have to acknowledge that there are some things I have an opinion on that I haven't studied in depth, so I could be wrong. And I'll admit, that's hard. It's one of the reasons I try to get my information from people who share their sources and, preferably, have more than one. If I can't be bothered to confirm the data, I can at least try to hear the news from someone who has already taken that step. It's not a perfect system, but what is?
5374232
That "exhausting amount of research" issue is one reason I don't seek out debate either. The other being that, even if I do go out and compile as much info as possible, it usually ends up counting for naught with the very people I was trying to convince with it.
In fact, I generally consider debate an inferior form of "learning" - way too adversarial and ad hominem - especially compared with a more open and flexible (and, usually, more interesting and ad rem) discussion.
I still remember when half my high school history class was suprised to find out chernobyl was a real thing, and that it wasn't made up for Call Of Duty. Some people man XD.
I think your first example (of Hamburg being obviously real) is ultimately flawed and showing the blindness of your reasoning, because as you yourself stated, it's a blind belief never tested or examined, and you're attempting to compare it to another form of blind belief (that Hamburg doesn't exist).
5374285
Yeaaaah, I never stated that. Still trying to kick up an argument where you refuse to acknowledge anyone's definitions but your own, are we? And now you're adding a strawman to the mix? You should be ashamed.
5374348
5374285
I think a little clarification might be in order. Viking never specified that "Hamburg is real" is a blind belief. He brought up the evidence that this is so, therefor the concept has been "tested and examined". How is comparing that to his friend's blind belief that Hamburg isn't real a comparison of two blind beliefs?
5374420
That would be logical, right? If there is clear evidence of something, it is not a blind belief.
But my previous post was quoting an earlier comment by Max, verbatim. In that post, if I interpreted it correctly (he didn't clarify when I asked), he seemed to imply that even if there is overwhelming empirical evidence for something, as long as you, personally, haven't tested it for yourself, it still qualifies as blind faith.
In the earlier example, he seemed to be equating the belief that if you jumped from the window you'd fall and hurt yourself to my (intentionally ridiculous) example of invisible pink unicorns. The wording, to me, implies that because I, personally, have never leapt from a window, my belief that I'd fall and hurt myself was "blind faith." He literally calls both beliefs "blind belief". I'm quoting him. Hence the tongue-in-cheek implication that, because he has never been to Hamburg, his belief in the city's existence is "blind".
And I'd love to know what he thinks because I refuse to believe he actually believes that. I'm wary of talking to him however because he tends to react to simple misunderstandings or disagreements with condescension, even though I know (or would like to believe) he is better than that.
Max seems convinced that I am arguing against him when, in reality, I'm genuinely dumbfounded by what he's saying. Hell, I was convinced we were in agreement for the first half of our previous discussion.
5374533
5374420
That's a highly skewed version of events, and not at all accurate. In fact, the post JawJow is claiming to be "quoting" me from is my pointing out that his own comparison isn't a solid on at all, but logic trap, so he's quoting himself while putting his words into my mouth. Which I don't appreciate.
That entire discussion went off the rails because JawJoe kept rewriting and reinterpreting what was said, then fitting his "new" definition into earlier statements and trying to "disprove" and continue the discussion that way. Which as I pointed out (and why I ended said discussion) was a purely bad faith argument. It was little different than someone saying "Well, I can do 4 PM for that work shift" and a boss saying "Oh, you mean 2 PM instead of 4 PM right? Okay, you've agreed to do 2 PM now, in your own words." When all that's really happened is they've flipped 4 PM for 2 PM and the original statement never said 2 PM.
I mean, look at this. JawJoe's post today:
Both of those examples were brought up by JawJoe, and then he attempted to make the discussion equate them.
So like I said, this is continuing a bad faith argument. JawJoe is putting words in people's mouths, then when that is called into question, arguing that the refusal to continue with such a bad faith argument is "[reactiing] to simple misunderstandings or disagreements with condescension."
JawJoe repeatedly ignored definitions, substituted his own, and made false conflations. The issue wasn't that there was a "simple misunderstanding" but that he genuinely kept trying to change definitions and refused to acknowledge any he didn't like. And now, he's saying that I said stuff initially, when it was in response to his statements and I was quoting him.
I would presume JawJoe is bringing it up here because he still wants it to be treated as a discussion in good faith, while still not wanted to adhere to definitions or any basis of a good faith discussion.
5374087
so what you’re saying is that you don’t want a libertarian socialist shitposter getting into fights with your neoliberal relatives in your comments sections?
5374575
Alternatively, he made a single error in his first comment on that previous blog (misunderstanding a statement you made in the blog and so attributing to you a claim you didn't make as a minor part of his initial explanation), and then you proceeded to refuse to engage with the actual arguments, instead nitpicking around the edges and making accusations of bad-faith arguments from the get-go. So let me put what JawJoe has been trying to say simply:
Your previous blog, which uses in its main argument the claim that "science and religion are not that different", is fundamentally flawed. The thesis statement, which is about including religion when fleshing out a world, has merit (although I would argue that it's more properly "culture" that is needed, which is likely to include idiosyncratic beliefs and rituals, but which does not necessarily have to include a formal religion in the sense that most people take that word). However, the argument you construct to support that thesis is based on a basic misapprehension of what "science" and "religion" are.
You initially give the definition of science as "the ‘systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world.’ ". However, in most of the rest of the post, you treat the word "science" as meaning "the set of beliefs commonly understood to be associated with science". These are very different definitions, and most of your argument on the similarities between science and religion equate these definitions unfairly.
The one thing you actually use the proper definition of science for is another conflation, promptly providing a definition for religion as something which "“provide(s) explanations and answers as to how the natural world functions works, and fits together”. (It's first worth noting that this is not a standard definition of religion, but rather one that you intentionally constructed to straddle the line between a standard definition of religion and the definition of science you had just given.) The structure of the paragraphs implies, though admittedly does not explicitly claim, that these two provided definitions are parallel. This is not the case remotely. One is grounded in the "systemic study" as the method for coming to answers, while the other just "provides explanations and answers" without reference to any particular method of coming to those answers. You attempt to fudge this further by later making the claim that "Those that are religious... put their theories to the test with rigorous examination and study with the tools they have." This claim is designed to pull the definitions closer, but it fails because the claim is false. A religious person is not obligated by the nature of religion to test their beliefs, rigorously or otherwise, and the vast majority of them never do. To imply that it's intrinsic of religious belief to rigorously test said belief is to add a trait to religion which it does not possess, and to contradict the real-world evidence of all of the faithful who don't go around rigorously testing their beliefs.
What does this have to do with this new post? Well, according to the (flawed) reasoning by which you equated science and religion in your previous blog, the person who doubts the existence of Hamburg is not being ridiculous. That person believes differently from you, sure. But Neither of you have ever been to Hamburg to investigate its existence, so belief in Hamburg is a matter of blind faith, with their faith no less valid than your own. This is similarly true for discussions of wages, or any other set of statistics you might find: You haven't gone around collecting the data yourself, so you're relying on blind faith that the data is accurate, and the other person is equally valid in their faith that the data isn't accurate.
The issue here, is that religion is well beyond "filling in the gaps" of science at this point, having been backed into a corner of actively denying the scientific conclusions; as such, to maintain your religious faith (note that keeping the faith is the goal, here, rather than wondering whether it's actually true), you must deny the validity of gathered and shared evidence, the basis of scientific inquiry, when it comes into proximity with your religious beliefs. On the other hand, science in particular and evidence in general is not just immensely useful but necessary to function in daily life, so you're stuck with a self-contradictory worldview where evidence-based reasoning is sometimes valid, sometimes not, based on whether it aligns with your own preconceptions.
In summary:
1. This blog post is fantastic, but it contradicts some of the statements in that previous blog post. (Or to put it very simply, if religion is like science, then it's the "Bad science... [that] simply runs with what it wants to be true.")
2. JawJoe isn't great at expressing what he means, but you attributed bad faith to him from the start and didn't try to understand what he was actually saying.