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Thinking for your self does not imply a greater than average "holding" of atypical views. The people who came up with typical views thought for themselves, and

Thinking for your self does not imply a greater than average "holding" of atypical views. The people who came up with typical views thought for themselves, and people who synthesize their opinions based on similar information often reach similar conclusions. > Most people really interested on not being different and will hold mainstream views without questioning. Perhaps, but this doesn't imply the contrapositive, which was implied above (that holding mainstream views implies one does not think for themselves).

marcosdumay 6y ago
> Thinking for your self does not imply a greater than average "holding" of atypical views. Compared to making an effort to hold the typical views? How can it not imply that?
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > Compared to making an effort to hold the typical views? How can it not imply that? I'm not sure what you mean. Can someone who thinks for themself arrive at "typical views"? If yes, then thinking for yourself does not imply anything about the views one holds. To look at the other side: do you believe that a q-anon conspiracy theorist "thinks for themselves", or do they just buy into a non-mainstream, but still completely dogmatic, set of views?
  - bezmenov 6y ago
    > Can someone who thinks for themself arrive at "typical views"? If yes, then thinking for yourself does not imply anything about the views one holds. Can someone flipping a non-biased coin 50 times have heads come up every flip? Yes. While theoretically possible, in reality it’s almost certainly a weighted coin.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Of course it's a weighted coin! Mainstream ideas are usually (not always, but usually) more correct than a randomly chosen alternative. Mainstream ideas are often weighted by such things as "scientific consensus", "observation", and "evidence". That doesn't make someone who holds many of them suspicious. Again, not always, but usually, the mainstream ideas got to be mainstream by being better than all the ideas that came before. It's certainly somewhat conservative to hold only mainstream ideas, but on the whole I'd expect someone who only held mainstream ideas to be more correct than someone who only held non-mainstream ideas. Like, are you going to sit here and tell me that most of your views aren't mainstream?

marcosdumay 6y ago

> Thinking for your self does not imply a greater than average "holding" of atypical views. Compared to making an effort to hold the typical views? How can it not imply that?

joshuamorton 6y ago
> Compared to making an effort to hold the typical views? How can it not imply that? I'm not sure what you mean. Can someone who thinks for themself arrive at "typical views"? If yes, then thinking for yourself does not imply anything about the views one holds. To look at the other side: do you believe that a q-anon conspiracy theorist "thinks for themselves", or do they just buy into a non-mainstream, but still completely dogmatic, set of views?
- bezmenov 6y ago
  > Can someone who thinks for themself arrive at "typical views"? If yes, then thinking for yourself does not imply anything about the views one holds. Can someone flipping a non-biased coin 50 times have heads come up every flip? Yes. While theoretically possible, in reality it’s almost certainly a weighted coin.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Of course it's a weighted coin! Mainstream ideas are usually (not always, but usually) more correct than a randomly chosen alternative. Mainstream ideas are often weighted by such things as "scientific consensus", "observation", and "evidence". That doesn't make someone who holds many of them suspicious. Again, not always, but usually, the mainstream ideas got to be mainstream by being better than all the ideas that came before. It's certainly somewhat conservative to hold only mainstream ideas, but on the whole I'd expect someone who only held mainstream ideas to be more correct than someone who only held non-mainstream ideas. Like, are you going to sit here and tell me that most of your views aren't mainstream?