When we don’t engage with our ideological opponents, our arguments weaken and our naivete becomes painfully obvious to them. When we don’t engage with our ideological opponents, we also don't notice this.
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“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day.”
—Carl Sagan
We should ask ourselves these questions more often than we do: Is this true, or is this only thought to be true by people in my circles? Do I want it to be true?
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When did preaching to the choir become such a virtue? I can take a guess.
There's a fine line between being a skeptic and being a cynic. In fact, there may be no line at all, but inevitable overlap.
I'm not sure I like that.
“What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
—Carl Sagan
“Somehow, we survived as a culture for centuries without exposing ourselves to thousands of profit-driven manipulations dumped on our living room carpet all day, every day.”
—Seth Godin in Shields up
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I don’t generally change my beliefs based on what’s popular, convenient, or expected of me. Being raised in a religion and a religious community I now repudiate inoculated me against that. This doesn’t always make life easier, but it’s who I am.
“The advertising man is the enfant terrible of the time, unabashed before the eternities. He does not conceal his awareness of the fact that he is the cornerstone of the most respectable American institutions; the newspapers and magazines depend on him; Literature and Journalism are his hand maidens. Even war needs him.”
—S. N. Behrman in The New Republic, 1919
Do social media advertisers realize they have the same power today, by funding the new engines of literature, journalism, and war?
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Not all science is created equal.