New Information

[minoanmiss]

I continue to spent a lot of time reading stuff off the internet.

I read a post that basically said, "Whenever information challenges your worldview you should examine it." I appreciate what they are saying, but...

... I think I've given some ideas enough time and consideration. For example I don't expect that anyone will be able to present me with sufficient scientific proof that women are less intelligent than men, that we are restricted to shallower levels of thought than men, that we are less sapient than men, such that I will change the opinion I have formed over a lifetime's observations that women have no less intellectual prowess than men do. Maybe someone will surprise me. But I don't feel inclined to give much time to examining the next such assertion I encounter that women are less intelligent and rigorous thinkers than men.

There's also who the information comes from, and why. For instance it's going to be awhile until I forget the discussions of Marie Kondo (that weren't really about Marie Kondo), and how some White people accused me of anti-Asian racism. I had side discussions with several other people, including some with cultural backgrounds closer to Ms. Kondo's who gave me useful information and perspective on where her advice and recommended practices came from, and the ways in which US anti-Asian racism reared up in some of the reactions to her, and how I could contribute or not contribute to that. All in all much more edifying discussions than with people eager to accuse a POC of racism as just another weapon they could wield in a game they had no skin in.

I wonder what general guidelines one could pull together as to when one has examined an idea enough. Obviously I don't know everything (ahahahahahah) and I shouldn't let myself blow off everything which challenges my conceptions, but where do I draw the line as to whether an idea has been examined enough or not?

ETA found the discussion, or at least a link to it: https://www.tumblr.com/finnglas/739606066257625088

Comments

Yes way

[amaebi]

Yes.

I reject any ur-rule that says that any old idea, and no less any school of ideas, needs to be patiently refuted anew Every Time It's Asserted. That's a ridiculous idea.

And an even worse ur-rule that that typically nests inside is That Bad-Faith Parties Are the Judges and Must Be Convinced By All Who Disagree.

And an even worse ur-rule in which that typically nests is This Is Not Conversation, It Is Battle.

I don't think that there is any universally defined rule for when it is fully-righteous-everyone-must-agree to say "Enough of that." Over in the realms of philosophy and history of science, in a literature begun by Thomas Kuhn people talk about how/why changes in scientific paradigms arise, but community consensus is always involved.

How unfortunate that our US communities were so insensibly wiggled in consensuses that everything is a competition, not a pursuit of useful models. That the most demonstrably dishonest disputants deserve the most care and should be in charge. That it would be improper ever to expect those parties to belt up and leave us alone with their incessant recitations.

Re: Yes way

[princessofgeeks]

IAWT

Re: Yes way

[minoanmiss]

I am so glad I ask these questions to get such awesome answers!

Re: Yes way

[cellio]

And an even worse ur-rule that that typically nests inside is That Bad-Faith Parties Are the Judges and Must Be Convinced By All Who Disagree.

Amen. And funny how only they get to be those Judges, in their worldview; of course they would never agree to be on the receiving end of that. The hypocrisy, it burns.

Re: Yes way

[acelightning73]

If you are convinced that a person's strongly held beliefs are wrong, you have a moral obligation to argue with that person until you manage to convince them to change their wrong beliefs to match your beliefs, which are of course correct.

Don't tell me that the US has to exclude all asylum-seekers because ALL IMMIGRANTS are rapists, thieves, and drug dealers who want to take jobs away from hard-working Americans and we must keep them from destroying this nation. Don't tell me that women are too stupid to do science. Don't tell me that African-Americans are only capable of doing menial jobs like sweeping streets or mopping floors. Don't tell me that only white womencan can be beautiful. We have to STOP anyone from believing this harmful bullshit. How do we brainwash the human race to become kind, peaceful, loving, and NEIGHBORLY the way Fred Rogers wanted to teach us.

Re: Yes way

[minoanmiss]

I used to think I had an obligation to argue with people, but it exhausted me and did very little good in the end. I still don't know what to do to Help The World instead, or if I even can.

Re: Yes way

[acelightning73]

Just continue to be your usual kind, helpful, loving, sweet-natured self, and set a good example for the rest of the world.

Can you make a picture (or other artwork) that expresses inclusiveness, loving your neighbors, loving our planet, doing favors where necessary, feeding the world,

Fred Rogers with his bare feet in a kiddie wading pool which he's sharing with a black police officer. While behind them the Waring School Choir sings "Dona nobis pacem" and in front of them a lion lies down with a lamb. And a rainbow arches over the scene, not only for different sexualities, but for all the diversity of this whole marvelously diverse universe of colors and tastes and scents and sounds and images and "the boundless sight of heaven's height, and the fires on the deep" and women with knee-length burgundy dreadlocks hailing taxis and the minds and deeds of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Alan Shepherd, Amelia Earhart, Jacques Cousteau, Roald Amundsen, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Admiral Grace Hopper (and more than I can ever name), and the soaring joy of the Aurora Borealis. And baby giggles. And chocolate.

Re: Yes way

[amaebi]

FWIW: Way back on irc I found out what testifying meant, to me. In the venue I most often frequented, there were usually a lot of silent entities (who might or might not actually have been by their keyboards), many of them young- 16-22. An a small handful of bombastic libertarian conservatives declaring What All the Smart People Thought.

I had not interest in arguing with the bombastics. But I thought it was worth presenting another POV that the bombastic certainly thought stupid, that the young persons might find stupid, but that at any rate would showcase a different perspective. Otherwise, I thought, the younger persons might really think there was no significant dissent.

So obviously I think that witnessing is important, though convincing people isn't particularly my goal. And I can in fact relatively easily be brought to change my mind, though not by being bludgeoned.

I think that your words and your living not only provide, but constitute that sort of witness.

Re: Yes way

[acelightning73]

I just saw a cartoon that said, "I don't have the time to argue with you until you admit that you're wrong."
People shouldn't believe anything that's obviously stupid, like various creation myths or Flat Earth or Hollow Earth theories. Everybody ought to believe, and KNOW, everything that has ever been proven TRUE, and defend the truth vigorously. No, women are not incapable of intellectual excellence. No, the United States is not a CHRISTIAN country. No, you will not suffocate in your sleep if you have a fan running in your bedroom. No, having intercourse while standing up will not prevent pregnancy. No, there are no Lizard People in charge. No, white men are not the finest creatures that ever evolved, and were not born to rule.

And I am not the lost Tsarinaya Anastasia.

[sovay]

I wonder what general guidelines one could pull together as to when one has examined an idea enough.

I think the axiom only works if it applies to new information rather than assertions with which one is continually bombarded and if examining the information is allowed to contain the possibility of rejecting it as arrant trash.

[minoanmiss]

That makes sense. I'm thinking o what counts as "new information" vs "a restatement of an old debunked idea". For example: someone touts a new study on brain volumes showing women have on average a few cc's less brain volume than men. Is it new because it just got released? Does it still have no impact on whether women are as smart as men because brain volume is far less closely related to intelligence than a few cc's difference whih is fully explained by the fact that women tend to be phsyically smaller than men? And so on.

[sabotabby]

The thing is, some ideas are fundamentally unserious. You don't need to give time to examine, for example, phrenology. It is self-evidently untrue, lots of smart people have spent effort debunking it, and just because every so often some far right fuck manages to revive it doesn't make it any more valid than before. Anyone who argues that you should spend your limited time on the planet giving phrenology a fair shake has an agenda, and that agenda includes tying you up with stupid shit so you can't be an effective political actor. This is a very common strategy of the right.

[bikergeek]

Yep. It's a form of sea-lioning.

[lynnenne]

I haven't heard that term before, but it sounds great! Any idea where it comes from?

[bikergeek]

https://wondermark.com/c/1k62/

[lynnenne]

LOL, thanks! Too true.

[bikergeek]

I haven't seen the term in a while. Sealioning was a common debate tactic of the Trumpista crowd, and I think a lot of its victims have realized that Trump supporters aren't engaging in good-faith debate and are refusing to engage with them.

[acelightning73]

That's new to me! But the one time I visited San Francisco, and stood on the pier watching the sea lions, I discovered how nasty they smelled (a diet of exclusively fish results in their excretions being particularly foul-smelling) and I walked to another part of the pier and bought a fridge magnet.

[amaebi]

+1000

[ex_flameandsong751]

how some White people accused me of anti-Asian racism

And I've noticed it's always white people who decide to... white knight... like this, and show off like "I'm such an amazing ally, sticking up for this marginalized group by attacking someone else from a marginalized group."

Also yes, I agree that "when you encounter information that challenges your worldview you should examine it" has been weaponized and isn't always valid. I've had enough gender critical bullshit shoved down my throat for the last decade I've been living as male, much of which flies in the face of my lived experience of being trans, I don't need my worldview "challenged" by bigots.

-hugs-

[stranger]

Restating several other commenters, I'd say to read it as: "Whenever NEW information challenges your worldview you should examine it."

Or: Note that "agumentation" is not necessarily "information".

There can, of course, be genuine new information about old subjects, but most arguments aren't that.

[minoanmiss]

"uugmentation is not necessarily information" -- oooo thank you for that reminder.

[acelightning73]

When I was challenged beacause a woman could never possibly good at any kind of technical or mechanical or electronic skill, her weak little pink-lace female brain would catch fire if she tried to assimilate any kind of abstract knowledge. What I did was get VERY VERY GOOD at a traditionally masculine job, a lot better than many of the men. And they noticed. If I'd stayed in the field (I quit in order to get pregnant, forty very-odd years ago), I'd probably be working for NBC-TV now. The job came easily to me, so it wasn't difficult for me to be better than many of them.

I suspect that was exactly what Maria Sklodovska Curie (one of my childhood role models) did.

[cellio]

Well for starters, I don't think one needs to expend any energy on reruns. If somebody's making the same old argument you've already heard, given its due consideration, and rejected, you can say "done" with zero regrets IMO. Life is too short to get sucked into stuff you already know isn't going to convince you.

If I hear somebody I greatly respect supporting a position I've previously rejected, or if someone I don't already know to be a wingnut makes a new argument for such a position, and if I am in a headspace where I think I can process it (important caveat!), I'll try to listen with an open mind. But I won't think less of myself if I don't -- I don't owe anyone a hearing, but I'm also a naturally introspective and inquisitive person.

All that said, some positions are not going to get consideration from me no matter who's talking or how novel the argument is. My deeply-held positions are, well, deeply held. Nobody's going to convince me of the truth of Christianity or Islam, for example. Nor is anybody going to convince me that women, blacks, or people of specific nationalities are inherently inferior to anyone else. Granted, I can't imagine anyone I respect making that last argument.