The only 180 I can recall right now was for an exceedingly minor issue: my putting down of British folks for their pronunciation of the Spanish letter “a.”
For several more important issues, as others have noted, I’ve come to have a more nuanced view – at the very least, to have a wider and deeper understanding of the facts and claims I must contend with if I want to continue to hold my overall position on some topic. Not sure where this fits on the compass – I’d say they range from 5 degrees to maybe 105 in a few cases.
A recent example which comes to mind is about Obama’s decision to not enforce the starting date for health insurance mandate penalties. Dopers explained that the issue here really is different than most executive order questions (though the appropriate remedy is still obviously quite a matter of debate).
ETA: On a lighter note, over at Cafe Society, just yesterday I was given a new appreciation for Duran Duran, especially their bassist, John Taylor. Check out the YouTube of his bass playing on that song whose name is on the tip of my tongue…
The Dope has really helped me to change my perspective on things, but I was having trouble remembering posts that caused a significant shift. Not that there aren’t any but i just can’t remember them right now. I think it’s more accurate to say that my time on the Dope has taught me that an infinitesimally small number of our issues are black and white; most are clouded with various shades of grey. I find it valuable to read all the different viewpoints and find a way to see how most all of them are valid… for the poster. They may not be valid for me, but they do reveal individual characters and the experiences that ultimately shape our society.
Oh, I just remembered one. This is incredibly minor, but I’m trying to fulfill OP. I’ll chime back in when I remember another. In an article from Cecil, he was discussing how Europeans could name and locate dozens of other countries, compared to Americans who were only able to guess at a few. Cecil pointed-out that, simply from a geographical standpoint, even Joe Regular in Europe would likely interact with people from and visit many other countries than home in their lifetime. Whereas Americans could travel 1000s of miles and never leave their own country. So while I might still argue that you’re an idiot if you can’t name and locate (at least) a dozen countries, now I can understand why someone might be that idiot.
The only thing that presently comes to mind for me is that Blake convinced me that there’s no justification for thinking it probable that there is alien life in the universe. Nor is there justification for thinking it improbable. The fact is, we simply have no idea at all how probable it is.
I can’t think of a specific topic that I’ve done a 180 on just because of a thread. I’m sure there are some, though.
But for me, I think the SD’s influence on me has been to change my opinion on opinions, in general. Most issues are so complex and nuanced…it is simply not necessarily to hold an opinion on EVERYTHING. Especially since it’s impossible to be informed about everything. The SD has taught me this.
I’ve also learned that everything is debatable. Including (especially) conventional wisdom that everyone is supposed to trust as truth. No, owning a house is NOT necessarily a smarter choice than renting. No, a calorie isn’t a calorie. No, the notion of free will does NOT make sense if you think about it enough.
Originally, I felt that private ownership of guns for self-defense was a thing of the past, and the only valid use for guns these days was for sport or hunting. Having read some of the threads concerning gun safety, gun use and such have changed my mind. However, some pro-gun posters seem level-set on changing it back.
I’m not going to itemize them, but there have indeed been several in which what I presented was shown to be incomplete, if not incorrect, and I was then required to re-think my position.
More importantly, I often compose a response to a forum discussion, and discover at the end (if not before the end) that I cannot sustain it, and it needs to be abandoned and reconsidered. Luckily, this usually (but not always) occurs before I hit the Send button. Therein lies the real value of participation in a forum. Self-criticism.
Probably the biggest change I’ve made is realizing how prevalent sexism still is in our society. Before I thought men and women were basically treated equally now and sexism was more or less a thing of a pass. The many threads on the harassment and unfairness women encounter quickly disabused me of that notion.
If we’re going by matters of fact rather than just opinion, I used to think that a telescope could increase the surface brightness of a celestial object. CalMeacham showed me the error of my thinking on that one.
I probably did a 90-degree adjustment about gay marriage. I’m a “live and let live” type, and wasn’t opposed to gay marriage, but didn’t understand the need for it. But there was a thread that, paraphrasing from an aging memory, went something like this:
[QUOTE=paraphrased from memory of an old thread]
When I introduce someone as my:
partner
roommate
lover
very close friend
each of those presents a limited picture, and may cause more questions than provide answers. None of those terms fully or accurately explains the relationship.
If I introduce someone as my “spouse”, that one word conveys the exact, precise definition of our relationship that everyone instantly understands. That’s why gay marriage is important.
[/quote]
I’ve re-evaluated comics overall because of posts on the Dope – I used to think they were mindless stuff for people who can’t read very well. But I realize now that they are an entirely different art form than books, not books for people who need purty pictures to understand things.
More broadly, and more significantly, however, the Dope has shown me the value of debate between informed debaters. I feel the Straight Dope is generally more informative on political and social issues than major broadcast media, because if someone tries to slide some BS into an argument on the Dope they immediately get called on it by those who disagree with them. (This is why I particularly value the conservatives who post on the Dope, even though I rarely disagree with them – they make us lefties work harder to support our viewpoint, which generally results in a more informed viewpoint.) Whereas the talking heads on broadcast media get to spew their slant, opinions, BS and so forth without being called on it immediately, resulting in a very low level of discourse.
The exception would be anything related to the Arab/Israeli conflict, where both sides will argue so extensively and tediously and without any kinds of concessions toward reaching a common ground that I’ve avoided such threads. It’s not that the arguments aren’t informed, but that there’s absolutely no interest in the truth on either side.
I have found that many people do not want to understand many of the things they blast a person for believing or / and still believe the media is mostly truthful.