5 ms·

what?

randomdata 3y ago
In order to allocate your precious time writing a comment over doing one of the many other things life offers there has to be a return on investment. Otherwise, why bother? When it comes to opinions, the return on investment in sharing them is being able to receive the responses around the opinion shared in which to learn from. Once you have accepted an opinion as your own, however, you have had to believe that you understand it to the greatest extent possible and spending more time learning about it is going to be unfruitful. As such, there is no remaining value in talking about the opinions you actually hold. Only the opinions you don't hold are those you are going to share, as those are the ones that are still out there able to be learned from. They are merely hypothetical, and are likely to be contradictory as you explore different angles. Indeed, you may come to hold those once-hypothetical opinions in time as you learn more about it. As that happens, the value in sharing them will diminish. There is good reason why we don't spend our days sharing that we believe "1+1=2" and "the sky is blue". One's own opinion has no communication value. So, what is to be gained by censoring a hypothetical opinion that may not be held by anyone and certainly not you? If it were your opinion you wouldn't have to worry about censoring it because there would be no value in sharing it in the first place.
- LegionMammal978 3y ago
  > Once you have accepted an opinion as your own, however, you have had to believe that you understand it to the greatest extent possible and spending more time learning about it is going to be unfruitful. As such, there is no remaining value in talking about the opinions you actually hold. Is there no such thing as a strongly held opinion vs. a weakly held opinion? Different people might change their mind given different amounts of contrary information. I don't see the value in reducing this process to a binary divide between "actually held opinions" and "opinions not held at all". Also, even if someone does hold an unshakeable opinion, I don't see why they couldn't express it while trying to convince someone else of their opinion, unless they don't care what opinion anyone else holds. And there are many people who (seemingly) care quite a lot about what other people think.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > Is there no such thing as a strongly held opinion vs. a weakly held opinion? Yes, there are the opinions you hold and opinions you are exploring. This was established previously. You can't explore opinion without hypothesis. > Different people might change their mind given different amounts of contrary information. During the exploratory phase. Once opinion is established in your mind, you will tune out further information as no longer being interesting. Collecting information is hard work and there is only so much energy to spare, so it is prudent for the brain to tune out information that it deems no longer useful. If you have formed an opinion, the mind has declared that further information is no longer useful. > I don't see why they couldn't express it while trying to convince someone else of their opinion Functionally it could be done, but what is to be gained? The time and effort required is in competition with other things one can do with their time, so there has to be a value proposition. > And there are many people who (seemingly) care quite a lot about what other people think. Sure. That's what exploration is all about. If there isn't probing other people to find out how they respond, how are you going to derive the learning that provides the value for your effort? But you are only going to care so long as you haven't formed an opinion to call your own. If you are certain you've got things figured out, there is nothing else you can gain from continuing.
    - LegionMammal978 3y ago
      > Functionally it could be done, but what is to be gained? The time and effort required is in competition with other things one can do with their time, so there has to be a value proposition. For one, someone can care about others' well-being. If Alice is of the firm opinion that binge-drinking is bad for one's health, then does she have nothing to gain in trying to convince her good friend Bob that he should stop binge-drinking? Is the whole concept of giving advice an illusion? Or in politics. If you believe that a certain oppressive tyrant ought to be overthrown, then would you not try to convince other people of this, so that you can form a large enough conspiracy to carry out that goal? (For other political movements, simply replace "an oppressive tyrant" with some abstract idea, e.g., car ownership, or monopolies, or whatever. That might seem silly, but humans are not creatures of pure reason, and nothing's stopping people from valuing any arbitrary thing.) Or for personal gain. If a candidate for some political office runs a campaign telling everyone why they should vote for him, then is he really doing that for the sole purpose of probing for reasons why he shouldn't be voted into office? Or just for fun. Are there not people who simply love to hear the sound of their own voice, as the saying goes? I don't deny that people sometimes express opinions that they don't hold strongly, but you seem to be suggesting that there is never (or hardly ever) any good reason to express an opinion that one does hold. There are all sorts of situations, especially in politics, where someone thinks it would be better if others were of the same opinion.

what?

In order to allocate your precious time writing a comment over doing one of the many other things life offers there has to be a return on investment. Otherwise, why bother? When it comes to opinions, the return on investment in sharing them is being able to receive the responses around the opinion shared in which to learn from. Once you have accepted an opinion as your own, however, you have had to believe that you understand it to the greatest extent possible and spending more time learning about it is going to be unfruitful. As such, there is no remaining value in talking about the opinions you actually hold. Only the opinions you don't hold are those you are going to share, as those are the ones that are still out there able to be learned from. They are merely hypothetical, and are likely to be contradictory as you explore different angles. Indeed, you may come to hold those once-hypothetical opinions in time as you learn more about it. As that happens, the value in sharing them will diminish. There is good reason why we don't spend our days sharing that we believe "1+1=2" and "the sky is blue". One's own opinion has no communication value. So, what is to be gained by censoring a hypothetical opinion that may not be held by anyone and certainly not you? If it were your opinion you wouldn't have to worry about censoring it because there would be no value in sharing it in the first place.

LegionMammal978 3y ago
> Once you have accepted an opinion as your own, however, you have had to believe that you understand it to the greatest extent possible and spending more time learning about it is going to be unfruitful. As such, there is no remaining value in talking about the opinions you actually hold. Is there no such thing as a strongly held opinion vs. a weakly held opinion? Different people might change their mind given different amounts of contrary information. I don't see the value in reducing this process to a binary divide between "actually held opinions" and "opinions not held at all". Also, even if someone does hold an unshakeable opinion, I don't see why they couldn't express it while trying to convince someone else of their opinion, unless they don't care what opinion anyone else holds. And there are many people who (seemingly) care quite a lot about what other people think.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > Is there no such thing as a strongly held opinion vs. a weakly held opinion? Yes, there are the opinions you hold and opinions you are exploring. This was established previously. You can't explore opinion without hypothesis. > Different people might change their mind given different amounts of contrary information. During the exploratory phase. Once opinion is established in your mind, you will tune out further information as no longer being interesting. Collecting information is hard work and there is only so much energy to spare, so it is prudent for the brain to tune out information that it deems no longer useful. If you have formed an opinion, the mind has declared that further information is no longer useful. > I don't see why they couldn't express it while trying to convince someone else of their opinion Functionally it could be done, but what is to be gained? The time and effort required is in competition with other things one can do with their time, so there has to be a value proposition. > And there are many people who (seemingly) care quite a lot about what other people think. Sure. That's what exploration is all about. If there isn't probing other people to find out how they respond, how are you going to derive the learning that provides the value for your effort? But you are only going to care so long as you haven't formed an opinion to call your own. If you are certain you've got things figured out, there is nothing else you can gain from continuing.
  - LegionMammal978 3y ago
    > Functionally it could be done, but what is to be gained? The time and effort required is in competition with other things one can do with their time, so there has to be a value proposition. For one, someone can care about others' well-being. If Alice is of the firm opinion that binge-drinking is bad for one's health, then does she have nothing to gain in trying to convince her good friend Bob that he should stop binge-drinking? Is the whole concept of giving advice an illusion? Or in politics. If you believe that a certain oppressive tyrant ought to be overthrown, then would you not try to convince other people of this, so that you can form a large enough conspiracy to carry out that goal? (For other political movements, simply replace "an oppressive tyrant" with some abstract idea, e.g., car ownership, or monopolies, or whatever. That might seem silly, but humans are not creatures of pure reason, and nothing's stopping people from valuing any arbitrary thing.) Or for personal gain. If a candidate for some political office runs a campaign telling everyone why they should vote for him, then is he really doing that for the sole purpose of probing for reasons why he shouldn't be voted into office? Or just for fun. Are there not people who simply love to hear the sound of their own voice, as the saying goes? I don't deny that people sometimes express opinions that they don't hold strongly, but you seem to be suggesting that there is never (or hardly ever) any good reason to express an opinion that one does hold. There are all sorts of situations, especially in politics, where someone thinks it would be better if others were of the same opinion.