bjack on 19/3/2015 at 21:36
Free thinking people do not call others "haters" simply due to mere disagreement, but that is what occurs on the web and other media every day. If I disagree with some of the research practices used to try to prove AGW, that does not in itself make me a hateful bigoted creep, yet that is exactly what many young people are being coached to call me. When one does not have a retort, just resort to name calling. :rolleyes: Thankfully I know of many younger people that do not think this way. I don't think any of you warmists are haters simply because you disagree with my objection, but I do take offence when I am called an idiot, uninformed, a denier, etc. Again, thankfully, I don't recall anyone here calling me that directly. :D
Gear switch 1:
Oh, and I support mandatory vaccines for all, unless there is a legitimate medical reason to not receive it. Oh boy... what is legit? Well, it's not to pseudo science that vaccines cause autism. Severe allergic reactions, blood diseases, etc. that are recognized as severe risks are legit. A threat of mass polio outbreaks in the USA outweighs one's freedom to remain at risk and risk others. If it were just as simple as no vaccine = illness for the un-vaccinated, I would have a different opinion. But some vaccinations do not "take" or are only partially effective. A few kids out of a hundred may get the disease even if vaccinated. The goal is to stop the disease all together. Herd immunity and whatnot...
Gear switch 2:
To me, the idea of free thinking is to challenge not only what other people are saying, but to challenge yourself. It is recognizing that you have a bias and that bias will color all of your thoughts. To transcend that bias is the goal. Not all bias is bad, but it is when it clouds reality (when does it not though :cheeky:) For instance, having faith in science is wonderful and respect for authority and experience is too, but not if it blinds one to even the possibility of malfeasance. The ends do not justify the means and not all research is altruistic. If AGW is really true, why are the hypocritical politicians (Al Gore for instance) using lies to promote fighting against it? Why are researchers cherry picking data? The evidence should speak for itself. It should not have to be manipulated just to make it work out. If a drug company did what some of the climate researches have done, there would be a congressional witch hunt. I am still not saying climate change is not happening. I am not even denying that man is causing it. I simply do not know the reason for sure, but have suspicions of what is true. I am simply questioning that premise being set forth. The proven fact that books were cooked makes a lot of people really skeptical and rightly so. The terrible predictions not coming true on time is also putting lots of holes in the cause. If AGW is really true, then to pundits have done a piss poor job of promoting it. Most Americans put it low on their list of things to worry about. Using Herman Munster (aka Kerry) to promote it is a game loser. OK, sorry to have resorted to name calling, but I just could not resist. :ebil: If AGW is really true, then the warmers need to think freely and come up with another angle, one that is legitimate and not chock full of BS. One bad apple spoils the bunch and the warmist barrel has a number of bad apples. Credibility gap anyone?
DaBeast on 20/3/2015 at 04:11
Quote Posted by bjack
Free thinking people do not call others "haters" simply due to mere disagreement
[...]
To me, the idea of free thinking is to challenge not only what other people are saying, but to challenge yourself. It is recognizing that you have a bias and that bias will color all of your thoughts.
A lot of what you're saying seems perfectly reasonable, but in context it kind of comes across like "I wish more people thought about things the way I did. Then there would really be some progress!", which is pretty much what everyone thinks.
It could be some remnant of tribalism where we are compelled to take sides, and people with a differing viewpoints are seen as opponents, they are looked down upon accordingly. Generally speaking, scientists are the smartest of us, so when they collectively agree on something we take it as fact, when science and politics get mixed up, or science and the corporate sector (sponsored studies through shell corps.) things tend to get ugly. But, we're all human and all susceptible to typical human behaviour, regardless of how intelligent we are or what we cling to as ideals for how we should behave.
"How could you think GW isn't a real thing that is really happening when all of science says it is!""Well, some of those scientists had emails leaked that shows they were potentially full of shit, how can you ignore that?"is roughly the same as
"my team is best team, your team is teh suck!""no u"faetal on 20/3/2015 at 06:16
Bjack - be less juvenile. SOunding disgruntled at being referred to as a "hater", then immediately referring to people who accept the scientifically rigorous principle of AGW as "armists" just makes you sound like you're trying to bolster a lack of substance with sound bites.
If your position is the correct one, then this can presumably be amply demonstrated with solid research, because the facts you refer to are out there for anyone to find and given how much money the fossil fuel industry throws into trying to disavow the public of the notion that AGW is real, this means that any scientists stumbling on these facts will be making a heck of a lot more money than the guys scraping by on government grants.
Every time you make some snipe or guffaw at scientific authority or people who put value in peer review, all I see is someone who wants the truth to be A, so ignores B by mocking in their own head.
Thor on 20/3/2015 at 10:51
Thought the original post (OP) was sarcastic until it mentioned the Thief reboot midway.
Yes, free thinking is dead. Most assuredly so. No. Especially nowadays with widely available (and ever-increasing in popularity) platforms such as youtube (and deviantart and others) that makes it possible for pretty much anyone to say and spread his/her ideas and influence the world in some way. I've seen a lot of thoughtful youtubers out there. If they aren't that popular then look for it. Same goes with your own creativity. Nobody restricts you to think anything. You can even let any ideas or creative efforts out for the internets to devour. If people will like you, you will become popular. If not, you'll be largely ignored but even then you'll amass some little niche of.. confederates? People that agree with you and share your ideas or whatever it is you share.
And bringing up a crappy example of a tripple-A game that is linear is also pretty silly. You seem to only be restricting yourself. Have you seen the kind of games that are available and made nowadays? Tripple-A titles are primarily focused on making a commercial success, so they make a game that they think the biggest majority of people will like. Not a whole lot more to it. They have a right to make whatever they want especially with the budget they invest. Besides, they probably feel like they gotta make it look gradiose and like the next step in mind blowing scale/graphics, technical mastery and so forth. It's probably much easier to control a large team that does those kinds of things as well, but that's not the point. Plus, have you looked at AssCreed IV - Black Flag? Even some tripple-A titles do games with plenty of freedom and choice where to do. Anyway, you could always whine for more, but with the selection we have these days, I can't help but eyeroll at such a tendency.
Either way, if you happen to live in an environment where more bullshit ("non-free thinking mentality"?) is thrown on you than you can chew, changing the environment might be a good idea. That includes the BS you see in the news - television or internet (I thought it was a well spread idea by now to not exactly trust the government word for word since I gathered from your post that to also be a problem?). And exploring a little beyond what games the most high production guys can offer (or wherever you were looking generally).
Even creating video games has become easier than ever before.
Everyone also knows now how shit fast-food, coca cola, cookies & other junk is. Don't they? It's always seemed fairly obvious to me. And if a person, knowing fully well about the badness of fast-food eats them anyway, then that just makes him/her irresponsible, doesn't it?
Anyway, to me this just sounds like a thread that missed the target by a decade or more. Hence I was expecting some mockery of some article or whatever, not this lol. And my post was very all over the place. Just like the OP, lol.
Chade on 20/3/2015 at 11:06
There's billions of lifetimes of accumulated knowledge out there: sooner or later you have to trust some of it.
I don't know the optimal way to choose to trust, but I'm pretty sure of two things. First, it's inversely proportional to the number of rambling paragraphs full of bold claims without a shred of evidence. Second, I'm the most biased person in the world at evaluating my own trustworthiness. As such, I find it hard to believe there's a positive correlation between free-thinking and self-described free-thinkers.
Thor on 20/3/2015 at 12:25
Depends how you define free thinking. I roll with context from original poster who made it about being restricted by 'society' to express your own thoughts and get brainwashed or w/e into thinking what they want you to think. Like you have no access or something to alternate sources or ways to express yourself. It's a little broad, but that's how messy the original post was being. Since you're generalizing, all I can add is that it always comes down to how much of a mind of your own do you have and how well can you question things before accepting something as likely to be true.
Personally, I don't really 100% think anything. I end up using [and thinking in] terms like "I guess" and "probably" a lot more but it's a nice practice to keep all ends open and be flexible.
faetal on 20/3/2015 at 12:46
If you're using loaded words like brainwashing to describe something which is widely accepted, then you're already veering away from free thought. If you're talking of thinking things which are only not generally accepted, there needs to be a different word.
faetal on 20/3/2015 at 12:49
Here is the wiki page for freethought: (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought)
I'm guessing the canned response is "you can't define free-thought (unless it happens to match what I want it to be)".
Thor on 20/3/2015 at 13:13
I was thinking of maybe using the word programming instead. Brainwashing is indeed a strong word that I don't even like.
Anyway, I think I missed a few words in that sentence. It's more like this:
Quote:
I roll with context from original poster who made it about
free thought being dead, as in being restricted by 'society' to express your own thoughts and get brainwashed or w/e into thinking what they want you to think.
The different word being
dead free thought I guess... And free thought being the opposite. Anyway, it's real easy for me to mess up communicating correctly.
faetal on 20/3/2015 at 15:21
Reinforcing is a better word I think. Most people don't like to think for themselves so they accept the status quo so long as it doesn't interfere with their preferred version of reality, which is itself a function of their brain and environment. Environment of course includes the status quo, so there is a feedback loop in there, but it also includes things like upbringing and social/tribal constructs (political, religious etc...), which are more personal and therefore more of a direct line to the formation of said reality. This is why e.g. the one and only true creator of the universe is indisputably the abrahamic god in areas and time-frames where Christianity / Islam / Judaism are prevalent and undeniably, irrefutably a different entity in other places and times.
Back on course - most people accept how mobile phone technology works, because it just works - they think the science on this is tight and trustworthy, largely because it benefits them and doesn't get in the way of any of their beliefs. Most people believe vaccines work for the same reason. However, at some point, you get a punctuation event which starts introducing doubt. For mobile phone technology, you get the people who decide, apropos of nothing that mobile phone radiation emission causes cancer, because RADIATION CAUSES CANCER SO OF COURSE IT DOES STUPID, or whatever. These people are now thinking against the mainstream, which by a certain sub-category of people who proclaim themselves to be freethinkers, now means that it is true by default of being an underdog issue and thus, devoid of motivations like profit and therefore true and pure without question, and anyone who disagrees is just a shill for Nokia or whatever.
The reason why most people prefer to trust the accepted versions of things is because it allows them to live easier lives. They don't ask for proof, they just accept. This then becomes a habit. Then when a situation arises where they wish to challenge the mainstream (vaccines, climate change, did we really land on the moon?), their standards for evidence are not properly calibrated, they just search google with leading terms (basically, their pre-formed conclusion busted down to a search term) and then return with the best, most official sounding or most vociferous result.
Because they have now "proved" their point, anyone in opposition is a shill, or brainwashed, or close-minded, or whatever.
But again, this is all redundant coming from me, because I've already posted links to the wiki articles for Cognitive dissonance and the Dunning-Kruger effect, which encapsulates a lot of why it's difficult to put stock in individual people's opinions and why an iterative consensus filtered through a logically gated method is preferable as the chosen way of determining what is likely to be real and what is likely to be prejudiced.
It's like the global warming debate in general - both sides can't be right and if you made me choose, I'd pick the ones who are coming up with the reams of data, which was presumably there to find and not the ones primarily engaging in misinformation combined with saying "science isn't all that" in iteratively more convoluted ways.
