The most interesting thing I took away was the apparent disparity between the reaction of LW’ers and the reaction Sam reports from his friends. Almost everyone here seems open to the possibility, and even consider it plausible, while by my reading of Sam’s reports about his friends, they are completely dismissive of the possibility.
Does this make you skeptical that Sam is correctly reporting the reactions he’s getting from his friends? I would have guessed that he had smarter friends than his report indicates.
It makes me skeptical in a certain sense. I don’t question Sam’s honesty, but I do question his account in much the same way I’d question the interpretation of events of a narrator in a Browning poem—there’s what the narrator says, and then there’s what’s going on, if you read between the lines.
I can totally see a friend of Sam being blissfully unconcerned with Sam’s pronouncement, as he thinks, “there’s Sam on his soapbox again”, while making half hearted excuses for continuing to use his fireplace. If I knew Sam, I could even see myself yanking his chain as he gets increasingly incredulous and huffy about my dismissals. Sam, the great Enemy of Faith, see’s it lurking in every corner. Why not throw out a little chum and watch him go berserk?
Then again, there’s a whole class of people who like to think of themselves as rational intellectuals who are predominantly emotionally driven members of a herd, who wear the identity of rationalism (at times) as signaling of membership in the herd. That they aren’t actually rational is not news to me. Sam seems to live amongst that herd, even if he is something of an outlier.
But again, I don’t think Sam has given a particularly compelling argument. I’ll buy that smoke is bad for you. I’m not buying that he has established that at the doses one receives as a recreational burner, one is taking a particularly large risk. Would Sam also interpret my attitude as “faith based dismissal”? If he’s busy ranting on his soap box, possibly. If he actually listened, probably not.
I probably should have expressed myself better in what you quoted. If we take Sam’s report at face value, then his friends aren’t the brightest constellation in the sky, and I’d be surprised that his friends were so entirely homogenous. But I find it hard to believe that no one Sam knows would be open to the idea, if for no other reason than that I doubt the vast majority of people have such an emotional attachment to fireplaces. If he only asked those who had them, these people would have the obvious bias to try to rationalize and justify their choice of a home with a fireplace. I’m sure there are many here who an cite the relevant studies on this particular bias.
Does this make you skeptical that Sam is correctly reporting the reactions he’s getting from his friends? I would have guessed that he had smarter friends than his report indicates.
It makes me skeptical in a certain sense. I don’t question Sam’s honesty, but I do question his account in much the same way I’d question the interpretation of events of a narrator in a Browning poem—there’s what the narrator says, and then there’s what’s going on, if you read between the lines.
I can totally see a friend of Sam being blissfully unconcerned with Sam’s pronouncement, as he thinks, “there’s Sam on his soapbox again”, while making half hearted excuses for continuing to use his fireplace. If I knew Sam, I could even see myself yanking his chain as he gets increasingly incredulous and huffy about my dismissals. Sam, the great Enemy of Faith, see’s it lurking in every corner. Why not throw out a little chum and watch him go berserk?
Then again, there’s a whole class of people who like to think of themselves as rational intellectuals who are predominantly emotionally driven members of a herd, who wear the identity of rationalism (at times) as signaling of membership in the herd. That they aren’t actually rational is not news to me. Sam seems to live amongst that herd, even if he is something of an outlier.
But again, I don’t think Sam has given a particularly compelling argument. I’ll buy that smoke is bad for you. I’m not buying that he has established that at the doses one receives as a recreational burner, one is taking a particularly large risk. Would Sam also interpret my attitude as “faith based dismissal”? If he’s busy ranting on his soap box, possibly. If he actually listened, probably not.
I probably should have expressed myself better in what you quoted. If we take Sam’s report at face value, then his friends aren’t the brightest constellation in the sky, and I’d be surprised that his friends were so entirely homogenous. But I find it hard to believe that no one Sam knows would be open to the idea, if for no other reason than that I doubt the vast majority of people have such an emotional attachment to fireplaces. If he only asked those who had them, these people would have the obvious bias to try to rationalize and justify their choice of a home with a fireplace. I’m sure there are many here who an cite the relevant studies on this particular bias.