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You don't have to make up all your opinions from scratch. Pick a person who you trust and who you think shares your values. For me, that could be President Obam
by mtdewcmu 10y ago
You don't have to make up all your opinions from scratch. Pick a person who you trust and who you think shares your values. For me, that could be President Obama. Whatever position Obama has on a given issue, I will find that position reasonable virtually 10 out of 10 times. If I happen to be expert in some issue, I might presume to disagree. Outsourcing the problem to someone who does think about policy all day is a big time saver.
- lend000 10y agoThis also results in people thinking Obama is a good president and electing characters like Donald Trump. Not everyone has time to educate themselves about something that will provide very little personal return (rational ignorance), but it would be great if people at least put in more initial research to find their initial "intellectual champion," and then trusted them from there, with perhaps an annual update to make sure your values still align. Then you might come up with someone like Glenn Greenwald, instead. Granted, Obama sounded a lot more promising in 2008.
- mtdewcmu 10y agoIt is a good idea to choose the person carefully. Think of it like choosing a lawyer or a doctor. The thing is, it doesn't have to be Obama. It could be almost any Democrat, like the Clintons, Biden, Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi. They all agree on 99.9% of issues, because they have a common set of values.
- lend000 10y agoTheoretically, that sounds reasonable, but in reality, they tend to agree on issues due to political alliance, not values. Politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties have almost unanimously been on both sides of issues depending on who put it forward/who was in power.