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>There are people who believe this stuff as firmly as I believe the complete opposite. If you asked them, they say, with absolute conviction, that I'm nuts. How

>There are people who believe this stuff as firmly as I believe the complete opposite. If you asked them, they say, with absolute conviction, that I'm nuts. How might that happen? What if they're right? What could I have missed? After having read books on two sides of various things, I have found that most people don't have firm beliefs at all. Their beliefs don't even have anything to do with how they live. They have everything to do with what they're told will make them look good. So, just because someone says they believe something, I'm not willing to waste any more of my time on learning how it is justified on an intellectual or logical level (which is what books tend to capture). Even the believers most likely don't have any understanding of it themselves or how or why it matters to them. It's simply not worth it.

azeirah 6y ago
I believe that it's important to understand the perspective of someone you fundamentally disagree with. Or, well, you described it more accurately, it's a bit deeper than disagreement, it's an entirely different epistemology! Like waaayy different
- AntiImperialist 6y ago
  The problem is most people don't have those perspectives. Their beliefs don't come from their life experience or that of their family handed down to them. It comes from marketing material. Therefore they're highly inconsistent in their beliefs and what they believe they believe does not have anything to do with them or how they actually live their lives. So, if you want to understand what they think they're about, you can just watch the "news" or read other PR material targeted to them. That is now more difficult because it's a bit more targeted because of social media marketing but it is still possible. But if you want to know what they actually believe without even knowing that they do, you have to look at what they actually do and how they live their lives.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    And that's also true of most high brow, abstract school stuff. Like evolution. Even in countries where creationism isn't a thing and everyone "believes in" evolution, most of them couldn't describe a logically workable mechanism of evolution, they know a cartoon version but believe it because they "know" that "evolution" is true. But would you say it makes no sense to read books on evolution just because most people who believe in evolution don't believe in it for the reasons outlined in advanced books? Why did schools end up teaching evolution? For scientific reasons? To suppress religion in some freemasonry conspiracy? You can ask the same about the race topics.
    - AntiImperialist 6y ago
      >Why did schools end up teaching evolution? For scientific reasons? To suppress religion in some freemasonry conspiracy? I think it has nothing to do with "increasing scientific literacy" or anything like that, for sure. It would be very odd that of all the scientific things you could push to teach kids, the theory of evolution is somehow the most important one. I think it has everything to do with attacking the Christian Right at their homes by forcing their kids to learn something they don't want them to. It's a socio-economic and political tool for war. When grilled by someone, I remember Richard Dawkins, one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, said that he just wants people to understand that it happens in nature but doesn't want people to live by the idea of natural selection or something to that effect. In other words, he wants people to understand evolution but not "believe" it... i.e. in the sense that he doesn't want people to live by it (I disagree with Dawkins, but more on that later). Speaking of that, it reminds me of a comment I posted yesterday here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25412712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25412712 I know that if one really believes in evolution, there is absolutely no reason to "conserve a species". It makes absolutely no sense. Species come and go. Whatever species remain will evolve to acquire characteristics suitable for whatever changes happen... or perish. So why does everyone believe in conservation and in evolution? Because they don't. But what if they believed in Noah's arc? It would be terrible if one of the species that Noah himself picked to be on a boat were to go extinct because humans did something, wouldn't it? That is exactly the reaction you see from all these westerners who allegedly "believe" in evolution. I mean people can make use of certain rhetoric for status, or political gains or economic gains, but to actually believe those is a different matter altogether. I think westerners believe in many dogmas of Christianity, no matter how much they deny it or pretend that they are above it. I, as a non-Christian non-westerner who grew up mostly outside of the reach of westerners, see it in many aspects of how they actually live. The things that they actually believe in comes from Christianity. The things they pretend believe in comes from corporate and political PR material that they're exposed to... and some of it they do believe, as long as it doesn't contradict with Christianity.

azeirah 6y ago

I believe that it's important to understand the perspective of someone you fundamentally disagree with. Or, well, you described it more accurately, it's a bit deeper than disagreement, it's an entirely different epistemology! Like waaayy different

AntiImperialist 6y ago
The problem is most people don't have those perspectives. Their beliefs don't come from their life experience or that of their family handed down to them. It comes from marketing material. Therefore they're highly inconsistent in their beliefs and what they believe they believe does not have anything to do with them or how they actually live their lives. So, if you want to understand what they think they're about, you can just watch the "news" or read other PR material targeted to them. That is now more difficult because it's a bit more targeted because of social media marketing but it is still possible. But if you want to know what they actually believe without even knowing that they do, you have to look at what they actually do and how they live their lives.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  And that's also true of most high brow, abstract school stuff. Like evolution. Even in countries where creationism isn't a thing and everyone "believes in" evolution, most of them couldn't describe a logically workable mechanism of evolution, they know a cartoon version but believe it because they "know" that "evolution" is true. But would you say it makes no sense to read books on evolution just because most people who believe in evolution don't believe in it for the reasons outlined in advanced books? Why did schools end up teaching evolution? For scientific reasons? To suppress religion in some freemasonry conspiracy? You can ask the same about the race topics.
  - AntiImperialist 6y ago
    >Why did schools end up teaching evolution? For scientific reasons? To suppress religion in some freemasonry conspiracy? I think it has nothing to do with "increasing scientific literacy" or anything like that, for sure. It would be very odd that of all the scientific things you could push to teach kids, the theory of evolution is somehow the most important one. I think it has everything to do with attacking the Christian Right at their homes by forcing their kids to learn something they don't want them to. It's a socio-economic and political tool for war. When grilled by someone, I remember Richard Dawkins, one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, said that he just wants people to understand that it happens in nature but doesn't want people to live by the idea of natural selection or something to that effect. In other words, he wants people to understand evolution but not "believe" it... i.e. in the sense that he doesn't want people to live by it (I disagree with Dawkins, but more on that later). Speaking of that, it reminds me of a comment I posted yesterday here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25412712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25412712 I know that if one really believes in evolution, there is absolutely no reason to "conserve a species". It makes absolutely no sense. Species come and go. Whatever species remain will evolve to acquire characteristics suitable for whatever changes happen... or perish. So why does everyone believe in conservation and in evolution? Because they don't. But what if they believed in Noah's arc? It would be terrible if one of the species that Noah himself picked to be on a boat were to go extinct because humans did something, wouldn't it? That is exactly the reaction you see from all these westerners who allegedly "believe" in evolution. I mean people can make use of certain rhetoric for status, or political gains or economic gains, but to actually believe those is a different matter altogether. I think westerners believe in many dogmas of Christianity, no matter how much they deny it or pretend that they are above it. I, as a non-Christian non-westerner who grew up mostly outside of the reach of westerners, see it in many aspects of how they actually live. The things that they actually believe in comes from Christianity. The things they pretend believe in comes from corporate and political PR material that they're exposed to... and some of it they do believe, as long as it doesn't contradict with Christianity.