3 ms·
>Maybe we just have to accept that part of the experiment of living in a democratic and free society is allowing people to create their own values, and acceptin
by jmcqk6 8y ago
>Maybe we just have to accept that part of the experiment of living in a democratic and free society is allowing people to create their own values, and accepting that people are going to get it wrong.
There is a difference between choosing your values and choosing your facts. We have a big problem in not being able to distinguish the difference between our opinions and facts - and values are more akin to opinions than facts.
There isn't a problem with people coming up with different values. The problems start to arise when you're not willing to be wrong about those values, especially when you start ignoring facts that contradict those values.
- jumpman500 8y agoI don't think values and facts can be so easily separated from each other. You have to value the scientific method to actually believe its facts are true. To me the problem isn't that people mix up fact and opinion, it's more that a lot of people don't value the scientific method, its institutions and its accomplishments. We need people to value the methods that got us to where we are today. In the age of the internet when you can find a community online that values almost any non-sense this is going to be increasingly hard. I can agree with that. And I can agree that we do need to come together and agree on some base minimum values, but we have to accept that we need some people in society challenging them. If there's one thing that human history has shown it's we sometimes don't realize when we hold toxic values. We need people challenging them to be sure that the values we hold are actually good.