I can count on one hand the number of people I know who have ever considered counter arguments to their own points.
Relatively speaking, logical reasoning to justify decisions/beliefs is a new concept for humans. Its not built in for us. The vast majority of people make a decision based on their feelings and then try and find arguments to defend it after the fact. And they'll latch onto whatever shit you give them - no matter how stupid or flawed.
And even when they have good arguments, they don't know why those arguments are better than others. Its often just entirely coincidental that they have such a strong argument backing up their feelings.
Just because both positions aren't equal, doesnt mean the average person from both sides isnt equally illogical. It just so happens that one of them has lucked into being right.
To be fair, many people who do consider counterarguments to their own view just never share that. What I've found is that if you do mention it, the "other" side will just take it as an admission. They will assume you are not steadfast in your position if you mention anything that would speak against it. So you learn to not bother most of the time.
While there are irrational people belonging to every political party, there are political parties that attract a disproportionate amount of irrational people. The US Republican party attracts far more irrational people than most political parties around the world including the Democratic party.
Your argument is like defending a cult committing mass suicide because budhists also exist. Not every belief system is equal even if none are perfect.
Not every belief system is equal even if none are perfect.
This is true, but you are presupposing that the gulf here is much, much larger than it is. We aren't comparing Buddhists and suicide cults, we are comparing different denominations of the same same religion.
Sure, Methodists and Presbyterians are different, and depending on your value system one may even be "better" in your eyes, but we are talking about what amounts to decimal points to people outside those circles.
different denominations of the same same religion.
Nonsense. The gulf has not been this wide since slavery. The amount of vital, life or death issues facing the country is immense, and it's shocking how often the US Republican party stands on the side of death. The analogy to a death cult is very real. The Democratic party instead stands as a big tent collection of every other belief system united by a desire not to see the country drink the poisoned kool aid. Many of those belief systems have flaws and there's inherent irrationality in trying to harmonize such a diverse coalition, but it's obvious how you got yourself into this situation when your country can't tell the difference between the Republican death cult and everyone else.
The US isn't operating with normal political parties having normal debates. The only normal debates are happening within the Democratic coalition. The Republicans continue to delve further and further into batshit insanity to the thunderous applause of a deeply sick population.
What? Im not defending any "side" here. There is a clear right and wrong in this case.
But for the majority of people, them being on the "right side" is entirely seperated from their ability to comprehend the logic that makes it right. Most arguments you see are essentially what this person wrote.
Edit:
The majority of PEOPLE on both sides are just acting from emotions. And perhaps you could make an argument that one side is from more empathetic and good natured emotions. But in terms of their actual understanding of the arguments - the majority from both are equal.
It may seem otherwise (due to one side having better arguments in general) but if you pick at them, you'll find that the people using these better arguments have an equal lack of understanding in them, and have absolutely no idea how to fight off any counterpoints without reducing to fallacy or even just straight up attacking your character
I think you are defending a side when you argue that people in evil belief systems happened into them by accident, and people with good belief systems also happened into them by accident. Nazis are just as morally good as pacifist monks, no one is to blame it's all just the chaos of the universe.
I think that's completely bunk. There are good people who don't fall victim to death cults and they deserve credit. There are bad people who seek out hateful ideologies that satisfy their bloodlust and they deserve blame.
Yes, everyone is born with the capacity for good and evil. But they have responsibility for the choices that take them down one path or the other.
I am making no appeal to "good vs evil". Im discussing purely how logical these people are and how little influence the logic has on determining their position.
Not sure if i said it here or in a different comment in this thread, but I have addressed that perhaps it could be claimed there is something about how the morality/emotions of the people on one side may be worse or better --- but that isn't relevant to my point.
And even if I was talking about what you seem to think I am --- you would still be missing it. If anything I am more so condemning than defending.
Yea but a lot of people who aren't in the cult are simply lucky, instead of having the type of thinking to prevent that from happening. I think that's the point they're trynna push forward.
This is on purpose. Reason we don’t invest in education which teach us how to critically think, how to research using reliable sources, what is considered a reliable source , and how to communicate without emotion.
An uneducated population is an easily controlled population. There’s a reason anywhere where there are higher education institutions vote blue.
I agree with you, but this is tangential to my comment.
I speak regarding those that make decisions (such as the party leaders, their cabinet members, and their major donors), not the average person that barely makes decisions in their own life.
I can count on one hand the number of people I know who have ever considered counter arguments to their own points.
Seems intellectually boring. I know plenty of people that don't consider counter arguments, but most of them consciously choose to stay in their own lanes, their own fields of expertise.
but most of them consciously choose to stay in their own lanes, their own fields of expertise.
I think that is somewhat the thrust of not voting being an option, as well as why most political conversation and commentary (and in a sense the systems that flow from them) aren't worth much: everyone thinks this is a lane they deserve to be in, when it is rarely so, as per the parent comment's point of them never really thinking through their positions.
A good point. I've certainly found myself getting out of my lane from time to time. Those moments in conversations that I have paused and realized I had no business speaking on the subject matter, when just moments before I was speaking with confidence.
Seems like you are trying to stretch to make your reply relevant then. Not sure why you would think the silly scenario they described would be party leadership instead of just assuming it was 2 average people.
Ah, I see your point and it is valid: I appreciate you making it.
False equivalency is a bit of a pet-peeve of mine, especially when it is used to legitimize apathy and laziness, as is often done regarding politics. Between seeing it and someone saying, "It's perfect." I replied before thinking it through.
"equally incompetent" is what I said. Did not say one side is competent.
Details matter. Kamala and the democrats have so many problems that I'd have to be practically dead to not see them, but they have shown they are open to discussion beyond talking points. Trump and the RINO party has shown a staggering level of ignorance regarding national and international issues, including but not limited to national and international law and organizations, economics, basic human anatomy, environmental changes, world geography, morality and general respect.
We are all ignorant in many things, but we are not equally incompetent and the US's political parties are not either. Details matter.
Oversimplification of clearly more complicated subjects is exactly the problem I just spoke on. Details matter. If I meant yes, then I'd have said yes.
And that's just 1 single thing, the same could be said for pretty much everything we do wrong as a species.....and that's a LONG AF list.
We are so fucked, that the majority of us think we are definitely superior to these ants in every possible way, yet they can collectively do all this work, together, without any pay whatsoever because they do it for their fellow ant. Like, I have literally seen human beings be so absent-minded, that they literally walk out in front of traffic, while looking at the same traffic they are walking out in front of...and that was not a one off incident either. It's not difficult to see why ants have been around for millions of years, and we are but a blip on the evolutionary timeline and that we are hellbent on keeping it that way. We have got to be one of the dumbest apes, possibly species to ever have existed and our fancy opposable thumbs, large brains, and complex reasoning/language skills don't mean shit because we can't utilize those aspects of ourselves in a collective manner for the greater good like other species could if they had those evolutionary advantages themselves.
This really feels like proving them right. If they said itd be bad, and getting it ended up with people eating shit because of it, sounds like they were right no?
Hmm, maybe you're new to the "eat shit" expression. I can see why you're confused.
In this case, it means that they would lose the election. And they did.
It does not mean their lives will be worse. All they have to do is look at Trump's first term vs Biden's current term. It's never cut and dry, but nobody can argue that Trump's first term was objectively worse than Biden's. Hence the massive loss.
Yes, but the concept of free will also requires a meta awareness of our surroundings and understanding of cause and effect.
Most other lifeforms rely on reacting in the moment with pre programmed algorithms without the substantial strategic planning capability that we possess.
I agree that free will is an illusion, but also it's a very convincing illusion.
From a strictly physical perspective, our neurons run like railroads so there is no free will. So I'd agree with you. But from a broader perspective, I believe free will is a spiritual aspect that doesn't really have much to do with physical in the first place. It's kind of like the power to think and decide prior to the brain, prior to physicality. Of course this presumes reality to the spirit or soul. But that's what I think is true.
I've actually always thought this. Democracy is a hive mind without the limitations a hive mind imposes. Unfortunately it introduces some new "bugs" that may be more problematic than the ones it eliminates. But it's interesting to think of it as a progression from hive mind to pack or herd to society.
A sense of individuality can be inferred in a way, a sense of "me". Ants and bees seem to lack this sense of self because they operate selflessly always for the benefit of the whole. Free will is kind of when you start to identify with your own body rather than a "greater" body, so to speak. Perhaps free will may not be exactly the right term.
You're looking at ants and bees from such a distance that you could never hope to comprehend a level of individuality that you understand in people.
Do you see a greater sense of individuality in people because it can't be doubted to exist or because you are a human and your mind is built specifically around identifying those differences in the minutest scale?
I appreciate that it's always easier to notice the nuances of something when you live in it and disregard it in places you don't. In other words, I'm a human so I notice more human things.
Still, I think there's an objective difference. In humans, you see anti-social behaviours. Zoom out and you'll still see these. There are individuals who will kill other people, steal, etc, for example, to get their way. You can never infer from the outside what's going on inside a tiny ant's mind. Still, I think there is very little self-interest simply based on their external behaviour.
I did a bit of research on this and found this interesting tidbit:
Certain species, like Myrmica rubra, show more flexibility in roles, leading to conflicts where some ants refuse tasks or shirk their responsibilities. These "lazy" or "defiant" individuals could be seen as going rogue.
I think it's funny to think of some ants as being a bit anti-social, lazy or defiant. This ant species is probably closest to humans.
We are, but all of our ants are in one place, using a giant meat machine to interact with the outside world. It's much safer inside their warm, dark bone cave, you see.
It's so true, tho. Think about it: society functions. We aren't out there constantly murdering one another, driving through shopping malls, generally being chaotic. We're incredibly ordered, predictable. We can ship foods across the world, build space telescopes, you name it. We have this incredible capacity for teamwork, even if it's not always to the best ends.
I think I’ve seen a video before explaining how it is very possible that our minds can be interconnected to the actions of one another. What I do remember though is the analogy that monkeys from another island learned to wash their food covered in sand from a running river.
This method was particularly new to them and when the researchers found that another island of isolation was doing the same method in roughly the same time, it was correlated.
Nonetheless we're able to achieve greater things working together than we could by ourselves. Space travel, modern cities, reliable international travel systems, etc
We are, despite cynicism we absolutely are. We tend to narrate science by mentionning single names and dates because it's easier to get the picture, but our knowledge is definitely due to collective work, shared intelligence and mostly small iterations
It's not quite the same but wisdom of the crowd theory suggests that a large enough group of people can come up with accurate information when averaged out--as long as they don't influence eachothers opinions first
Humans have more autonomy than ants, but we are also social in nature, and have our own means of communication through language. Cooperation is also how we solve major problems or get things done
There is an illusion created by our pursuit for well being that causes us to believe that there is a distant objective to be completed but the reality is that the single most important objective is occurring constantly everyday by everyone and that objective is to survive.
Well being is the basis for our willingness to coexist. It creates an illusion that we're all working towards self improvement and living improvements for our species on a whole.
And while many people would disagree the reason billionaires exist is because humanity worked together collectively to create them.
The Catholic Church, one of the oldest surviving institutions exists still today because humanity (at least in the west) worked together collectively to help them survive.
We absolutely are. We react to stimulus and plan and work but there is a secondary layer of emergent behavior that manifests through group actions, without our individual planning or control. The human collective has emergent properties that each individual human is not direct in control of but many make money speculating on.
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u/darthnugget 2d ago
What if humans are the same?