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I find it interesting that conventional thinkers are described as "sheep" in this article. In my experience, most people who I thought were shallow or "conventi

I find it interesting that conventional thinkers are described as "sheep" in this article. In my experience, most people who I thought were shallow or "conventional" thinkers were not. Rather, they cared about different things than I did. They were independent thinkers, questioning assumptions, in the field where they were expert or passionate, and conventional thinkers everywhere else because they want to save their mental energy for the areas they care about the most.

eloff 6y ago
In my experience most people are sheep. I rarely encounter people who think independently about very much at all. And I'm sure they all would think the above didn't apply to them. Especially with politics I notice most people just pick a red or blue team or equivalent in their country, and inherit all their positions - which blows my mind. I also think it doesn't apply to me, but I worry about how really independent my thinking is.
- darkerside 6y ago
  My advice is not to worry about it. Figure out what you want to think most about and seek truth. If other people find a different truth, try to learn from it. It's that simple.
  - eloff 6y ago
    If other people find a different truth, one of us is wrong. If it's the majority with a different truth I'm honest enough with myself most of the time to realize it's probably me who's wrong. But sometimes I will stand my ground anyway, not usually out of stubbornness, but because I'm confident that my analysisis correct. I don't think my odds are actually great in these cases, but just occasionally I might have found the truth before the rest of the world, and that can be valuable.
    - darkerside 6y ago
      > If other people find a different truth, one of us is wrong. 2+2=4. But it also equals 8/2, 4.00000, and 25% of 16. What I've found in my experience is that when people disagree, they can both be right, and most often, the heart of the disagreement is not what is true, but what is _important_. Another thing I've found to be true is that if you don't understand what someone is saying, they probably know something that you don't. These two findings don't seem related at first, but they are.
      - eloff 6y ago
        On math, I would argue those are all equivalent and equally right. On politics different positions are rarely equivalent, but you're right that there's almost always truth on both sides and it's really expressing differing views of priorities and values. However, if you rank them by "which is best for human well-being" there is a best answer even if we can't know it. So one can't use this as a easy out "all opinions are equally valuable" kind of thing, which is just nonsense. Though one could argue that prioritizing "human well-being" is a value judgment, which it is. I also agree with your last point, it's usually me who's misunderstanding something in that case upon digging deeper. However, there are also classes of things that are objectively true like whether climate change is happening as a result of human activity. Or whether a politician said X or not when there's a video of them saying X. It's never 100% certainty in life, but some things are known sufficiently well that there's almost no chance of them being wrong.
        darkerside 6y ago
        > However, if you rank them by "which is best for human well-being" there is a best answer even if we can't know it. Years of philosophical thinking begs to differ. https://owlcation.com/humanities/Different-Types-of-Modern-Utilitarianism https://owlcation.com/humanities/Different-Types-of-Modern-U... On those latter points, I'd go back to much of the disagreement being how much it matters. On balance, I agree with taking preventative actions because of the risk of global catastrophe. But I recognize that I don't know the future. There's a nonzero chance that global warming is less catastrophic than people expect, perhaps because we invent technological mitigations or because the Earth offsets the warming for cyclical reasons or in some kind of natural reaction to rising temperatures. On balance, I believe we should work to reduce emissions and mitigate greenhouse gases, but I realize that it is just that, a belief, and I may be wrong.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
t_serpico 6y ago
This is true. If I wanted to have independent thoughts for things I believe basically because most people believe them, I would not have the time to do anything else. Some people have this drive and capacity but most don't.
- darkerside 6y ago
  Taken to it's logical conclusion, these people would end up committed because they can't stop questioning the nature and fabric of reality. You'd basically end up catatonic.
yt-sdb 6y ago
I agree. A few years ago, I read “The Conquest of Happiness” by B. Russell, and he made a compelling argument that living a boring life may be a prerequisite for great work in certain fields. One can imagine that in 500 years, we’ll still talk about results from Terry Tao—who I suspect is boring and conventional in many ways—while totally forgetting the work of exciting and controversial thinkers today.

eloff 6y ago

In my experience most people are sheep. I rarely encounter people who think independently about very much at all. And I'm sure they all would think the above didn't apply to them. Especially with politics I notice most people just pick a red or blue team or equivalent in their country, and inherit all their positions - which blows my mind. I also think it doesn't apply to me, but I worry about how really independent my thinking is.

darkerside 6y ago
My advice is not to worry about it. Figure out what you want to think most about and seek truth. If other people find a different truth, try to learn from it. It's that simple.
- eloff 6y ago
  If other people find a different truth, one of us is wrong. If it's the majority with a different truth I'm honest enough with myself most of the time to realize it's probably me who's wrong. But sometimes I will stand my ground anyway, not usually out of stubbornness, but because I'm confident that my analysisis correct. I don't think my odds are actually great in these cases, but just occasionally I might have found the truth before the rest of the world, and that can be valuable.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    > If other people find a different truth, one of us is wrong. 2+2=4. But it also equals 8/2, 4.00000, and 25% of 16. What I've found in my experience is that when people disagree, they can both be right, and most often, the heart of the disagreement is not what is true, but what is _important_. Another thing I've found to be true is that if you don't understand what someone is saying, they probably know something that you don't. These two findings don't seem related at first, but they are.
    - eloff 6y ago
      On math, I would argue those are all equivalent and equally right. On politics different positions are rarely equivalent, but you're right that there's almost always truth on both sides and it's really expressing differing views of priorities and values. However, if you rank them by "which is best for human well-being" there is a best answer even if we can't know it. So one can't use this as a easy out "all opinions are equally valuable" kind of thing, which is just nonsense. Though one could argue that prioritizing "human well-being" is a value judgment, which it is. I also agree with your last point, it's usually me who's misunderstanding something in that case upon digging deeper. However, there are also classes of things that are objectively true like whether climate change is happening as a result of human activity. Or whether a politician said X or not when there's a video of them saying X. It's never 100% certainty in life, but some things are known sufficiently well that there's almost no chance of them being wrong.
      - darkerside 6y ago
        > However, if you rank them by "which is best for human well-being" there is a best answer even if we can't know it. Years of philosophical thinking begs to differ. https://owlcation.com/humanities/Different-Types-of-Modern-Utilitarianism https://owlcation.com/humanities/Different-Types-of-Modern-U... On those latter points, I'd go back to much of the disagreement being how much it matters. On balance, I agree with taking preventative actions because of the risk of global catastrophe. But I recognize that I don't know the future. There's a nonzero chance that global warming is less catastrophic than people expect, perhaps because we invent technological mitigations or because the Earth offsets the warming for cyclical reasons or in some kind of natural reaction to rising temperatures. On balance, I believe we should work to reduce emissions and mitigate greenhouse gases, but I realize that it is just that, a belief, and I may be wrong.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

t_serpico 6y ago

This is true. If I wanted to have independent thoughts for things I believe basically because most people believe them, I would not have the time to do anything else. Some people have this drive and capacity but most don't.

darkerside 6y ago
Taken to it's logical conclusion, these people would end up committed because they can't stop questioning the nature and fabric of reality. You'd basically end up catatonic.

yt-sdb 6y ago

I agree. A few years ago, I read “The Conquest of Happiness” by B. Russell, and he made a compelling argument that living a boring life may be a prerequisite for great work in certain fields. One can imagine that in 500 years, we’ll still talk about results from Terry Tao—who I suspect is boring and conventional in many ways—while totally forgetting the work of exciting and controversial thinkers today.