Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 10/05/2008 11:07 AM: > You want to talk about willful ignorance? Take a good look around you.
Exactly. The trick is: What can we do about it? I have this problem with many of my friends. They're all quite bright (in my opinion). But there's an emergent pattern. We'll get in an argument face-to-face about some issue... let's say whether or not a shaft, belt, or chain final drive on a motorcycle is more or less efficient than the other two types. The argument will bifurcate the group with some coming down on one side and others coming down on the others (and there's usually at least one guy who's pissed that we're even arguing about something so stupid ;-). We'll eventually "agree to disagree". Now, me being the jerk that I am, I'll go home and do a little research that usually includes asking local yokels their opinions as well as sticking my dilettante nose in a few books and querying search engines. I eventually, prematurely, converge on a conclusion as to whether or not my opinion during the face-to-face was right or wrong. I then (maybe weeks later) bring the body of evidence back to my friends. Without fail, they get annoyed... even if my new body of evidence shows that the position I took in the original argument was wrong. My question is: Why doesn't everyone do this sort of thing? Why is it that people get in arguments, disagree with one another, and then don't follow up on it? Why do people just get all heated up about stuff and then later don't give enough of a crap to spend some serious alone-time working on it? How can we encourage the people around us to think critically... continually critically? ... even if/when doing so makes them look like a jerk? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
