But most of the time, I believe, if you keep thinking and learning, you’ll come round right. (I.e.: when a teenager reads Ayn Rand and thinks that gives him license to be an asshole, his problem is not that he reads too much philosophy.)
“A little learning is a dang’rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.”
That sounds like my (provisional) resolution the conflict between “using all you know” and “don’t be a bigot”: you should incorporate the likelihood ratio of things that a person can’t control, so long as you also observe and incorporate evidence that could outweigh such statistical, aggregate, nonspecific knowledge.
So drink deep (use all evidence), but if you don’t, then avoid incorporating “dangerous knowledge” as a second best alternative. Apply a low Bayes factor for something someone didn’t choose, as long as you give them a chance to counteract it with other evidence.
(Poetry still sucks, though. I’m not yet changing my mind about that.)
The other problem with “using all you know” about groups which are subject to bigotry is that “we rule, you drool” is very basic human wiring, and there’s apt to be some motivated cognition (in the people developing and giving you the information, even if you aren’t engaging in it) on the subject.
“A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
-- Pope
That sounds like my (provisional) resolution the conflict between “using all you know” and “don’t be a bigot”: you should incorporate the likelihood ratio of things that a person can’t control, so long as you also observe and incorporate evidence that could outweigh such statistical, aggregate, nonspecific knowledge.
So drink deep (use all evidence), but if you don’t, then avoid incorporating “dangerous knowledge” as a second best alternative. Apply a low Bayes factor for something someone didn’t choose, as long as you give them a chance to counteract it with other evidence.
(Poetry still sucks, though. I’m not yet changing my mind about that.)
… must … resist … impulse … to … downvote … different … tastes …
The other problem with “using all you know” about groups which are subject to bigotry is that “we rule, you drool” is very basic human wiring, and there’s apt to be some motivated cognition (in the people developing and giving you the information, even if you aren’t engaging in it) on the subject.