Accept or reject are not the only options one has. The most important and generally overlooked, especially by the young, is the option to ‘hold’.
It appears to me that many young people consider that ‘to be negative is to be cool’. This leads them into responding that ‘X’ is false when responding to an OP that states that ‘X’ is true.
When a person takes a public position affirming or denying the truth of ‘Y’ they are often locking themselves into a difficult position. If their original position was based on opinion rather than judgment their ego will not easily allow them to change position once they have studied and analyzed ‘Y’.
The moral of this story is that holding a default position of ‘reject or accept’, when we are ignorant, is not smart because our ego will fight any attempt to modify the opinion with a later judgment. Silence, or questions directed at comprehending the matter under consideration, is the smart decision for everyone’s default position.
Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I think that ‘hold’ is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.
Do you agree that ‘hold’ should be the option of choice in almost all occasions?
Your position seems to hold some truth as I am immediatly inclined to reject any and all things you say or post, simply based on the fact that your posts are written in a way that makes them seem more intelligent than they are. in fact, what you seem to be saying is:
“Hey y’all. Don’t judge things you don’t know about, 'kay?”
Everyone is not ignorant of almost everything. Some people know a great deal about some things, and they know enough to not have opinions about those things about which they are ignorant. This behaviour comes highly recommended, by the way.
You can figure out all the answers to everything in the world but it doesn’t matter a bit if you don’t know how to present things in a way people will listen to.
If Jesus had been born on the earth looking like Joseph Merrick, he would have been a lot more hard pressed to have become the figure he did. And the same for Ghandi and Confucius.
Likewise, it is a good idea not to step on Superman’s cape, not to spit into the wind, not to steal the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.
**Mr. Furious:**Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a little bit formulaic? “If you want to push something down, you have to pull it up. If you want to go left, you have to go right.” It’s… The Sphinx: Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage… Mr. Furious: …your rage will become your master? That’s what you were going to say. Right? Right? The Sphinx: Not necessarily.
That was my initial reaction as well. But then I stopped and considered further - how do I know that informed judgements are better than ignorant ones? So I waiting for further information before deciding on what basis I should make my decisions on.
The Dope has over 60,000 members. Maybe a dozen respond to your posts. The others either hold - or don’t think they’re worth opening. The responses you are getting are from a biased sample who believes they have sufficient knowledge to respond.
What is the meaning of “you cannot argue down what has never been argued up”
If you decide that war is right because you have good reason to think war is correct you have argued war up. If however, you consider war is right because you want war to be right you have not argued it up. So when you have evidence that war is not right you are faced not with creating a rational explanation for accepting war as wrong but you are faced with changing your emotional desire that it is right.
I am sure that will clear up the matter immediately.
John Maynard Keynes is the accepted source of (roughly):
'When I find I am wrong, I change my mind
what do you do ?’
There are numerous variations, but that is the clearest.
We are decision making machines, we are programmed to run through a maze, if we just sat there scratching our heads, we would … well just sit there.
There are some strong theories from Economics that suggest that ‘research costs’ (eg: head scratching) can be more expensive than making the wrong decision.
Also that making the wrong decision can be right, as we learn that it is wrong and backtrack.
I think that you are combining two things, emotional unwillingness to admit to an error, and ‘ignorance’.
Also that real life is not a debate on the SDGDMB, a game of cards or a punt on pork bellies.
Under some circumstances ‘do nothing’ is a sensible policy, under others, like navigating a maze (or driving an unfamiliar route) ‘hold’ is not very rational.
It is worth thinking about, but as ever, it needs distilling into an earthier proposition.
“Under some circumstances ‘do nothing’ is a sensible policy” that is what I advocate–a sensible policy. Head scratching before the fact is what prepares us all to make a good judgment. Often the good judgment dictates a “hold”, some times an “accept”, and some thimes a “reject”.