3 ms·

"Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously." You tell me what's conflicting in my feelings because I

"Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously." You tell me what's conflicting in my feelings because I'd be curious to know. On the other hand, anyone who feels they need to downvote me because I expressed feeling felt a bit troubled by their revelations about the way they pop pills to improve their programming skills is maybe downvoting me to feel better about themselves, don't you think? I mean if YC's majority opinion is that pill popping is OK, AND/OR that anyone disagreeing should be downvoted, I think I want nothing to do with YC. I surely hope it's not the case. Now tke shots at my karma all you want!

roel_v 16y ago
Well you don't have the uncomfortable feeling, because you rationalize it away by declaring coffee (caffeine) something entirely different from (other_ neural enhancers (in pill form). Cognitive dissonance is, like you say, the uneasy feeling of having two conflicting views at the same time. Your are 'pills are bad' and 'coffee is ok'. (If I may speculate, I'd say the both come from social conditioning, or rather, accepting the mainstream or conventional views on these issues without thinking about them critically. For which nobody can really blame you, I mean if everybody had to second guess every single thing we see every day ('regular' people drinking coffee), we'd get nothing done at all.) Anyway so those are the two views, but when you link them through 'they're both cognitive enhancers', a problem arises. Why is one bad, and the other not? So this is then 'glossed over' or 'smoothed out' by the brain by internalizing a third cognition, namely 'they're not the same'. Note that this third cognition does not have to be elaborated on very much (actually this elaboration is what I asked for, because I don't think any argument in it can hold) to put your mind at ease and 'resolve' the cognitive dissonance. Anyway, my point still stands. I challenge you to explain what is the fundamental difference between taking a chemical in pill form versus taking it in liquid form (this is what it, in my opinion, boils down to). I guess the most obvious argument is going to be that one is man-made and the other 'natural' (which somebody arguing this then usually interprets as "the precursor is readily available in nature, and extensive treatment in the form of drying, grounding, and preparing with hot water is 'pure' enough to all be 'natural".) I won't put any words in your mouth, I'm just pre-empting the usual first response and indicating what I see as weaknesses in that argument ;) Finally, for the record, I didn't downvote you as far as I remember, but your comment did rub me the wrong way. The reason being that it states a very strong opinion or position, but offers nothing to rationally substantiate that opinion. On the contrary, the only attempt at convincing the reader seems to be in a 'proof by assertion' strategy, repeated across multiple posts. Furthermore from your claim that people only downvoted you because you hold a different opinion it seems that you are not very willing to critically examine your own position, nor to put in the effort to really (as in, rationally and in a dialectically sound way) defend it. I hope I'm wrong on this of course, I'm just letting you know how these couple of posts came across to me, hoping that this may help you understand why people reacted to your post the way they did (well, 'people', just 3 really, but still).
- danielnicollet 16y ago
  You can "challenge" me all you want but that still doesn't justify you or others downvoting my comments ;-) And it's just not three downvotes because I was up 6 at some point. I worked briefly in the pharmaceutical industry and it taught me a few things about the level of testing and knowledge labs have about the pills that you compare to coffee. There has been much more research about coffee (which I remind you I don't drink either because I know of its side-effects) than there has been about the neural enhancers you kids take. You want to believe it's OK. Go ahead but don't blame me for saying it makes no sense to me. And you are right, I am not willing to put much more time into going in details on this. Too busy and the topic is really so off the charts to me that I am pretty sure of myself here. I have heard so much of the same non-sense pseudo-chemistry from all the people advocating for one drug or another for their wellbeing. The argumentative here really sound of addiction. So I challenge you to explain in bio-chemical terms why these drugs are as harmless as coffee. Good luck!
  - roel_v 16y ago
    Are you even reading what I wrote? I explicitly said I didn't downvote you. In addition, you still refuse to actually go into any substantial points, and still resort to the meaningless 'nahnahnah I can't hear you' style of 'discussion' common amongst toddlers. "the topic is really so off the charts to me that I am pretty sure of myself here". Seriously? Your argument is 'I have a strong opinion about it, so I'm right"? "The argumentative here really sound of addiction." And your basic retort is "what do you know, you're all junkies"? No wonder you feel you're being treated hostile here - all anti-intellectualism is, as it should.
    - danielnicollet 16y ago
      I am absolutely not anti-intellectual - more like the contrary in fact. However, I don't see any intellectualism here. As I said, point me to serious research that shows coffee and neural stimulants are just as harmless as each other and and I'll side with you. I don't have to provide you research that shows they are vastly different. It's just so freaking obvious. I suggest you read this about Ritalin and you tell me if it reads like the description of coffee: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000606 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000606 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate Finally, I am very familiar with these medications since I took several neural agents as a younger guy when experiencing epilepsy. I am not against them, I am just surprised about so much talk of self-medication and I think it's plain wrong for people to think this harmless. But this is free world, so why don't you just ignore me and keep popping instead of getting all flustered about my comments, if you are sure of yourself that is.

roel_v 16y ago

Well you don't have the uncomfortable feeling, because you rationalize it away by declaring coffee (caffeine) something entirely different from (other_ neural enhancers (in pill form). Cognitive dissonance is, like you say, the uneasy feeling of having two conflicting views at the same time. Your are 'pills are bad' and 'coffee is ok'. (If I may speculate, I'd say the both come from social conditioning, or rather, accepting the mainstream or conventional views on these issues without thinking about them critically. For which nobody can really blame you, I mean if everybody had to second guess every single thing we see every day ('regular' people drinking coffee), we'd get nothing done at all.) Anyway so those are the two views, but when you link them through 'they're both cognitive enhancers', a problem arises. Why is one bad, and the other not? So this is then 'glossed over' or 'smoothed out' by the brain by internalizing a third cognition, namely 'they're not the same'. Note that this third cognition does not have to be elaborated on very much (actually this elaboration is what I asked for, because I don't think any argument in it can hold) to put your mind at ease and 'resolve' the cognitive dissonance. Anyway, my point still stands. I challenge you to explain what is the fundamental difference between taking a chemical in pill form versus taking it in liquid form (this is what it, in my opinion, boils down to). I guess the most obvious argument is going to be that one is man-made and the other 'natural' (which somebody arguing this then usually interprets as "the precursor is readily available in nature, and extensive treatment in the form of drying, grounding, and preparing with hot water is 'pure' enough to all be 'natural".) I won't put any words in your mouth, I'm just pre-empting the usual first response and indicating what I see as weaknesses in that argument ;) Finally, for the record, I didn't downvote you as far as I remember, but your comment did rub me the wrong way. The reason being that it states a very strong opinion or position, but offers nothing to rationally substantiate that opinion. On the contrary, the only attempt at convincing the reader seems to be in a 'proof by assertion' strategy, repeated across multiple posts. Furthermore from your claim that people only downvoted you because you hold a different opinion it seems that you are not very willing to critically examine your own position, nor to put in the effort to really (as in, rationally and in a dialectically sound way) defend it. I hope I'm wrong on this of course, I'm just letting you know how these couple of posts came across to me, hoping that this may help you understand why people reacted to your post the way they did (well, 'people', just 3 really, but still).

danielnicollet 16y ago
You can "challenge" me all you want but that still doesn't justify you or others downvoting my comments ;-) And it's just not three downvotes because I was up 6 at some point. I worked briefly in the pharmaceutical industry and it taught me a few things about the level of testing and knowledge labs have about the pills that you compare to coffee. There has been much more research about coffee (which I remind you I don't drink either because I know of its side-effects) than there has been about the neural enhancers you kids take. You want to believe it's OK. Go ahead but don't blame me for saying it makes no sense to me. And you are right, I am not willing to put much more time into going in details on this. Too busy and the topic is really so off the charts to me that I am pretty sure of myself here. I have heard so much of the same non-sense pseudo-chemistry from all the people advocating for one drug or another for their wellbeing. The argumentative here really sound of addiction. So I challenge you to explain in bio-chemical terms why these drugs are as harmless as coffee. Good luck!
- roel_v 16y ago
  Are you even reading what I wrote? I explicitly said I didn't downvote you. In addition, you still refuse to actually go into any substantial points, and still resort to the meaningless 'nahnahnah I can't hear you' style of 'discussion' common amongst toddlers. "the topic is really so off the charts to me that I am pretty sure of myself here". Seriously? Your argument is 'I have a strong opinion about it, so I'm right"? "The argumentative here really sound of addiction." And your basic retort is "what do you know, you're all junkies"? No wonder you feel you're being treated hostile here - all anti-intellectualism is, as it should.
  - danielnicollet 16y ago
    I am absolutely not anti-intellectual - more like the contrary in fact. However, I don't see any intellectualism here. As I said, point me to serious research that shows coffee and neural stimulants are just as harmless as each other and and I'll side with you. I don't have to provide you research that shows they are vastly different. It's just so freaking obvious. I suggest you read this about Ritalin and you tell me if it reads like the description of coffee: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000606 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000606 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate Finally, I am very familiar with these medications since I took several neural agents as a younger guy when experiencing epilepsy. I am not against them, I am just surprised about so much talk of self-medication and I think it's plain wrong for people to think this harmless. But this is free world, so why don't you just ignore me and keep popping instead of getting all flustered about my comments, if you are sure of yourself that is.