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> 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 es

> 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.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > does she have nothing to gain in trying to convince her good friend Bob that he should stop binge-drinking? The solitary activity of comment writing on Reddit is an unusual way to let Bob, a good friend, know about his binge drinking. I wonder if the context of Reddit got lost somewhere along the way? It could be that social interaction brings additional value potential that would justify sharing formed opinions in a social setting, but that is beyond the topic being discussed here. > 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? There are numerous subreddits claiming millions of users who appear, based on comments, to share a common political goal that goes against a status quo. The numbers are there. The will alleges to be there. Why haven't they already risen up and done something about what they are supposedly rallying around? Perhaps it is because the opinions they express are only being explored? And this speaks again to Reddit, and forum going in general, being a solitary activity. Realistically, there is little difference between Reddit and ChatGPT. You state your bit, maybe get a response back, and hope that response will contain some nuggets of wisdom from which you can derive some value. Possibly there are people on the other end writing those responses, but would it matter if there wasn't? The experience doesn't depend on it. If there are people, that's just an implementation detail. If you are hard-lined "binge drinking is bad for one's health" and nothing is going to change your mind about that fact, are you going to tell ChatGPT that? If not, why would you tell Reddit? What are you going to gain from it? Why would you waste your time? Indeed, if you are unsure, only postulating the opinion of binge drinking being harmful as something to explore, then the responses provide a learning opportunity. That brings value and can make it worth your time. > then is he really doing that for the sole purpose of probing for reasons why he shouldn't be voted into office? A hypothetical can only take us so far, but presumably the candidate hypothesizes that they can win on certain qualities, but they don't know for sure and are throwing it out there to try and find out. Once the vote is done, the results are in, and the outcome is known I suspect continued sharing of that opinion diminishes. What additional value would be gained in continuing to share it at that point?
  - LegionMammal978 3y ago

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.

randomdata 3y ago
> does she have nothing to gain in trying to convince her good friend Bob that he should stop binge-drinking? The solitary activity of comment writing on Reddit is an unusual way to let Bob, a good friend, know about his binge drinking. I wonder if the context of Reddit got lost somewhere along the way? It could be that social interaction brings additional value potential that would justify sharing formed opinions in a social setting, but that is beyond the topic being discussed here. > 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? There are numerous subreddits claiming millions of users who appear, based on comments, to share a common political goal that goes against a status quo. The numbers are there. The will alleges to be there. Why haven't they already risen up and done something about what they are supposedly rallying around? Perhaps it is because the opinions they express are only being explored? And this speaks again to Reddit, and forum going in general, being a solitary activity. Realistically, there is little difference between Reddit and ChatGPT. You state your bit, maybe get a response back, and hope that response will contain some nuggets of wisdom from which you can derive some value. Possibly there are people on the other end writing those responses, but would it matter if there wasn't? The experience doesn't depend on it. If there are people, that's just an implementation detail. If you are hard-lined "binge drinking is bad for one's health" and nothing is going to change your mind about that fact, are you going to tell ChatGPT that? If not, why would you tell Reddit? What are you going to gain from it? Why would you waste your time? Indeed, if you are unsure, only postulating the opinion of binge drinking being harmful as something to explore, then the responses provide a learning opportunity. That brings value and can make it worth your time. > then is he really doing that for the sole purpose of probing for reasons why he shouldn't be voted into office? A hypothetical can only take us so far, but presumably the candidate hypothesizes that they can win on certain qualities, but they don't know for sure and are throwing it out there to try and find out. Once the vote is done, the results are in, and the outcome is known I suspect continued sharing of that opinion diminishes. What additional value would be gained in continuing to share it at that point?
- LegionMammal978 3y ago