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I have met many people who pursue what I call “willful ignorance”. Such people refuse to accept new information that might change their beliefs. Even if they
by voakbasda 3y ago
I have met many people who pursue what I call “willful ignorance”. Such people refuse to accept new information that might change their beliefs. Even if they might appear to listen, anything that contradicts their world view will be discarded.
I would say such people are willfully lying when they promulgate theories that either lack any hard evidence or can be easily disproven. I think this includes a large number of politicians, judges, lawyers, lobbyists, bureaucrats, and anyone else whose livelihood depends on those lies. And that shit is evil.
- jvanderbot 3y agoThere was a post on HN about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38968619 Essentially, they aren't lying. In fact, they're responding rationally because: 1. Anyone can construct a logical sequence of arguments (see: Everyone thinks they are logical) 2. Blindly accepting logical sequence of arguments will get you a lot of incorrect results 3. Therefore, being initially skeptical of even logical-seeming things that contradict what you "know" is rational. "Words? Anyone can say anything with those - why should I believe those?"
- voakbasda 3y agoThere is a big difference between "humble ignorance" based in genuine willingness to learn and "willful ignorance" based in the unwillingness to change established views even after logically dismantling their beliefs or being shown mountains of contradictory evidence. Those latter people are lying liars, no matter how you try to rationalize it.