Well, now I feel bludgeoned. To refer to your judgement or theory about what is going on with me as simply “seeing”, and embed it in a subordinate clause is an old rhetorical trick, which I think we should avoid here.
But really, I am very interested in the problem of knowing (and somehow having that knowledge be transmittable) who it is profitable to listen to, and who will lead one astray, because I see a breakdown of common sense about this in the face of the profusion of “information” sources we have these days. This concern started when I began to get forwarded emails from my mother with proofs that Obama is a Muslim and that sort of thing. I worry that we may be going from a mediocre order of things, like the days of 3 major TV channels, where there is a hell of a lot going on that we don’t get (but we’re not apt to get all that excited and be stampeded over a cliff like the Germans were in the 1930s) to something worse than mediocre.
The easiest way to filter out 99 percent of this is to ignore anything that has no impact on your life (ie doesn’t pay rent). Most of the people you could be listening to aren’t profitable, but also won’t lead you astray: you’ll just go on the same regardless. In the final percentage point there are still a lot of confusing opinions that various smart people have, in regards to diet, morality, education, exchethera, but at that point I think it’s usually more productive to cross reference the specific opinions rather than look at people as contrarians or not. If you can’t cross-check a belief either through reference to other sources, or through your own studies or experience, then it probably isn’t relevant one way or the other.
The easiest way to filter out 99 percent of this is to ignore anything that has no impact on your life (ie doesn’t pay rent).
Eh? If I was renting, I think that would have an impact on my life—so maybe this is yet another metaphor I never heard of.
If everyone was processing reality to the best of their analytical (and other) abilities, and honestly passing on the conclusions they reach then virtuosity at recognizing rational fallacies would go a lot further than I think it actually does; I’m afraid much of what we need is a social understanding of others.
Just FWIW, Aspergers types, which many I encounter here are self-proclaimed to be, have a chance to do this better than other people, because they have to do consciously what others have no idea that they’re doing. By the way, book recommendation: The Journal of Best Practices by David Finch. Very funny and enlightening, about an Aspergers/non-Aspergers mixed marriage. My wife and I had a good time reading it.
Well, now I feel bludgeoned. To refer to your judgement or theory about what is going on with me as simply “seeing”, and embed it in a subordinate clause is an old rhetorical trick, which I think we should avoid here.
But really, I am very interested in the problem of knowing (and somehow having that knowledge be transmittable) who it is profitable to listen to, and who will lead one astray, because I see a breakdown of common sense about this in the face of the profusion of “information” sources we have these days. This concern started when I began to get forwarded emails from my mother with proofs that Obama is a Muslim and that sort of thing. I worry that we may be going from a mediocre order of things, like the days of 3 major TV channels, where there is a hell of a lot going on that we don’t get (but we’re not apt to get all that excited and be stampeded over a cliff like the Germans were in the 1930s) to something worse than mediocre.
The easiest way to filter out 99 percent of this is to ignore anything that has no impact on your life (ie doesn’t pay rent). Most of the people you could be listening to aren’t profitable, but also won’t lead you astray: you’ll just go on the same regardless. In the final percentage point there are still a lot of confusing opinions that various smart people have, in regards to diet, morality, education, exchethera, but at that point I think it’s usually more productive to cross reference the specific opinions rather than look at people as contrarians or not. If you can’t cross-check a belief either through reference to other sources, or through your own studies or experience, then it probably isn’t relevant one way or the other.
Eh? If I was renting, I think that would have an impact on my life—so maybe this is yet another metaphor I never heard of.
If everyone was processing reality to the best of their analytical (and other) abilities, and honestly passing on the conclusions they reach then virtuosity at recognizing rational fallacies would go a lot further than I think it actually does; I’m afraid much of what we need is a social understanding of others.
Just FWIW, Aspergers types, which many I encounter here are self-proclaimed to be, have a chance to do this better than other people, because they have to do consciously what others have no idea that they’re doing. By the way, book recommendation: The Journal of Best Practices by David Finch. Very funny and enlightening, about an Aspergers/non-Aspergers mixed marriage. My wife and I had a good time reading it.
Yup. See: Making beliefs pay rent.
It’s from _The Sequences_, which you should read. Specifically, it’s from the post “Making Beliefs Pay Rent (in Anticipated Experiences)”.