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I find this premise amusing... I find it amusing because my ex (whose name really is Aimee) often had opinions that my life experiences and education suggested

I find this premise amusing... I find it amusing because my ex (whose name really is Aimee) often had opinions that my life experiences and education suggested to me were suspect. Aimee used to do a bunch of reading, but the material she read was often from sources or authors I didn't find credible and thus while their arguments seemed plausible, they weren't enough to invalidate my original opinion. My name really is Ben. My thoughts and opinions on such matters were largely unaffected by hers in many cases, unless she presented credible evidence that led me to re-evaluate my opinion, which did occasionally happy. Often though, it was just "someone else agrees with me, thus I'm right," which does nothing to sway my opinion. Two people having the same opinion doesn't make them right and doesn't negate my opinion. It just means they both disagree with me. Humanity also believed in the geocentric model of the universe at one point. That doesn't make it right. It took one person to change the entire opinion of the world to the heliocentric model. Now admittedly, I'm not Copernicus, but we're all capable of finding evidence to support or refute our opinions on the world. It's just that very often people use the opinions of others as support for their own instead of exercising critical thinking and forming their own opinions.

RealityVoid 7y ago
The thing is, forming your own oppinion is _hard_ and you need a great deal of insight to reach some form of truth. I, for example, if I lived a couple of hundred years back, would have probably believed the world is flat, since, well, it's the easiest oppinion to have by just looking around. The model we have now is incredibly sophisticated and not at all intuitive, we just think it is because we're used to it. Things that we are used to seem the most obvious and simple in the world. We are limited with how much we can dig deep into stuff. So many times we have to reffer to other people that know what they are doing. I, sometimes, even reffer to myself at some different point in time. If I know at some time I looked deeply at some problem and reached a conclusion then, I will just take it for granted and not always retrace my thought process. It's a useful mental shortcut, but one that can leave me making oppinions on old or incomplete facts.
- Retric 7y ago
  People did not really believe the world was flat hundreds of years ago. Similarly the “new” world was in regular contact with the old for the last several thousand years. It’s only 53 miles from North America to Asia, even less if you include the two islands between them. PS: We have a lot of ideas about how wrong people used to be. But, I suspect most people never really formed an option on most of this stuff because they never really considered the question.
  - phreeza 7y ago
    If they were in regular contact, why did smallpox have such a devastating effect on Americans?
    - Retric 7y ago
      Population density. Smallpox dies out with lot’s of tiny isolated communities with minimal contact to each other.
  - muro 7y ago
    Regular contact here means "there were people who could have made the journey between Asia and Americas, yet we don't have any proof and its effect on both societies is pretty much non-existent"
    - Retric 7y ago
      Specific people no, but genetics shows connections beyond culture.
  - rendall 7y ago
    "Similarly the “new” world was in regular contact with the old for the last several thousand years. It’s only 53 miles from North America to Asia, even less if you include the two islands between them." That's an interesting idea. Do you have a reference or materials that talks about this?
- 7y ago
ThomPete 7y ago
I call this “argument by URLing” its literally the least convincing form of argument if someone cant make the argument in their own words.
- TravHatesMe 7y ago
  True. However, relating this back to the software industry, I have often found myself in conversations where somebody says "according to so-and-so / this blog / this author, we should be doing this" - I feel like we don't really know what we are doing with software in the grand scheme of things (although things are getting better) thus many in the industry fall back on the ol' argument from authority. It seems to hold its weight in conversation in my experience. This is bad, everyone's opinion should be questioned and doubted.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  depends. one cannot spend the whole life dissecting and acquiring all facts, sometimes we just delegate thinking, but the result is that it leaves us unable to defend the opinion because it wasn't our to begin with, regardless of how much the case built by the third party was compelling and fact based so for example I've read an interesting opinion about game of thrones and why the latter season were less interesting, and it made the case that the story shifted from sociological to psychological drama and it set a completely different tone - some day later there was a similar debate on a forum but while the position was interesting I didn't had the ability to articulate it because a) it isn't my field of expertise and b) I didn't spent time dissecting the issue myself building an opinion, it was delegated. and so I just wrote down two lines - hey guys check out what this author wrote on the subject - because it was interesting and it seemed well checked and I wanted to see if somebody was able to point out faults in the reasoning I didn't catch because of my limited expertise in the matter sometimes who arguments by linking doesn't want to convince anyone, but wants to proxy debate an opinion piece by collecting and contrasting other opinion on the subject
  - ThomPete 7y ago
    If you cant articulate it, why is it important for you to argue? If it really means that much that you will spend time looking for proof, why not just learn the proof? And if you cant be bothered learning why have the argument to begin with?
roenxi 7y ago
I don't believe in the backfire effect - but there is something here that is interesting. Most people can't actually defend their opinions - I like arguing with people, and something that really puts a limit on how much arguing can happen is that people just don't have deep webs of reasoning ready if their superficial beliefs are challenged. Even if I think their beliefs are obviously correct it is likely that their reasons are superficially copied from someone else and don't really stand up to scrutiny because they don't fully understand them. So, if I listen to someone representing a view I disagree, it is likely that their arguments are bad even if their ultimate position turns out to be on the money. I've seen a tiny handful of people who I think can really defend a capitalist position, for example, and I'm not particularly sure I'm one of them. Believing that nobody arguing a viewpoint has good reasons would lead to something like the backfire effect, but it is a reflection of reality rather than a human irrationality.

RealityVoid 7y ago

The thing is, forming your own oppinion is _hard_ and you need a great deal of insight to reach some form of truth. I, for example, if I lived a couple of hundred years back, would have probably believed the world is flat, since, well, it's the easiest oppinion to have by just looking around. The model we have now is incredibly sophisticated and not at all intuitive, we just think it is because we're used to it. Things that we are used to seem the most obvious and simple in the world. We are limited with how much we can dig deep into stuff. So many times we have to reffer to other people that know what they are doing. I, sometimes, even reffer to myself at some different point in time. If I know at some time I looked deeply at some problem and reached a conclusion then, I will just take it for granted and not always retrace my thought process. It's a useful mental shortcut, but one that can leave me making oppinions on old or incomplete facts.

Retric 7y ago
People did not really believe the world was flat hundreds of years ago. Similarly the “new” world was in regular contact with the old for the last several thousand years. It’s only 53 miles from North America to Asia, even less if you include the two islands between them. PS: We have a lot of ideas about how wrong people used to be. But, I suspect most people never really formed an option on most of this stuff because they never really considered the question.
- phreeza 7y ago
  If they were in regular contact, why did smallpox have such a devastating effect on Americans?
  - Retric 7y ago
    Population density. Smallpox dies out with lot’s of tiny isolated communities with minimal contact to each other.
- muro 7y ago
  Regular contact here means "there were people who could have made the journey between Asia and Americas, yet we don't have any proof and its effect on both societies is pretty much non-existent"
  - Retric 7y ago
    Specific people no, but genetics shows connections beyond culture.
- rendall 7y ago
  "Similarly the “new” world was in regular contact with the old for the last several thousand years. It’s only 53 miles from North America to Asia, even less if you include the two islands between them." That's an interesting idea. Do you have a reference or materials that talks about this?
7y ago

ThomPete 7y ago

I call this “argument by URLing” its literally the least convincing form of argument if someone cant make the argument in their own words.

TravHatesMe 7y ago
True. However, relating this back to the software industry, I have often found myself in conversations where somebody says "according to so-and-so / this blog / this author, we should be doing this" - I feel like we don't really know what we are doing with software in the grand scheme of things (although things are getting better) thus many in the industry fall back on the ol' argument from authority. It seems to hold its weight in conversation in my experience. This is bad, everyone's opinion should be questioned and doubted.
LoSboccacc 7y ago
depends. one cannot spend the whole life dissecting and acquiring all facts, sometimes we just delegate thinking, but the result is that it leaves us unable to defend the opinion because it wasn't our to begin with, regardless of how much the case built by the third party was compelling and fact based so for example I've read an interesting opinion about game of thrones and why the latter season were less interesting, and it made the case that the story shifted from sociological to psychological drama and it set a completely different tone - some day later there was a similar debate on a forum but while the position was interesting I didn't had the ability to articulate it because a) it isn't my field of expertise and b) I didn't spent time dissecting the issue myself building an opinion, it was delegated. and so I just wrote down two lines - hey guys check out what this author wrote on the subject - because it was interesting and it seemed well checked and I wanted to see if somebody was able to point out faults in the reasoning I didn't catch because of my limited expertise in the matter sometimes who arguments by linking doesn't want to convince anyone, but wants to proxy debate an opinion piece by collecting and contrasting other opinion on the subject
- ThomPete 7y ago
  If you cant articulate it, why is it important for you to argue? If it really means that much that you will spend time looking for proof, why not just learn the proof? And if you cant be bothered learning why have the argument to begin with?

roenxi 7y ago

I don't believe in the backfire effect - but there is something here that is interesting. Most people can't actually defend their opinions - I like arguing with people, and something that really puts a limit on how much arguing can happen is that people just don't have deep webs of reasoning ready if their superficial beliefs are challenged. Even if I think their beliefs are obviously correct it is likely that their reasons are superficially copied from someone else and don't really stand up to scrutiny because they don't fully understand them. So, if I listen to someone representing a view I disagree, it is likely that their arguments are bad even if their ultimate position turns out to be on the money. I've seen a tiny handful of people who I think can really defend a capitalist position, for example, and I'm not particularly sure I'm one of them. Believing that nobody arguing a viewpoint has good reasons would lead to something like the backfire effect, but it is a reflection of reality rather than a human irrationality.