House of Eratosthenes

Twice in the last week, I have seen people show what appears to be a sincere sense of frustration over what they call “ignorance” on the Internet. Neither time was it directed at me, but both times what they meant to say was “They have an opinion I don’t like.”

So supposedly they had some nugget of precious, game changing hard data…they did their thing, they supplied the link…and whaddya know. The argument continued to drag on the way arguments, with very few exceptions, always will. SHOCKA!!!!

Some talking point seems to have been disseminated from some central point somewhere: Don’t argue with people, insult them and call them ignorant. Give them these “facts,” and if they don’t bow down to your superior conclusions with the obeisance a Bronze-age civilization might show to one of their graven gods, call them the I-word.

There are three problems with this. First, ignorance is very far from being any kind of a disgrace. It is the default state, we’re all born ignorant. In fact, if you’re willing to admit your ignorance you’re deserving of some measure of praise, since that would mean you’re among the ones who can learn. There is no other way.

Two, it conflates facts with opinions….the telltale sign of someone who isn’t ready to learn anything, in fact cannot benefit in any way from the facts s/he has already. Too many people run around with one or several of these “links,” like they’re the sword pulled from a stone, thinking this puts them in charge of the whole Internet and everyone has to genuflect before their magic link and properly reverberate their opinion or suffer the slings & arrows of being called ignorant. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Three — most importantly — the timing is so bad. This is such an awful season to be making the argument of “Here is somebody saying something, so that proves I’ve got the right opinion.” We are told all sorts of garbage that turns out to be garbage, that for people to show a bit of healthy skepticism…even on those occasions where it’s the skepticism that turns out to be wrong…is difficult for a reasonable person to condemn. Only an unreasonable person would do so. My favorite example is: Should we regard the Swedish climate-scolding pigtail truant as an authority on climate change? We’re told so! But what does common sense have to say about that? How about Jussie Smollett getting mugged last year? What were we told at the time? What did common sense have to say about it? And when the truth emerged, did it align with common sense, or with what we had been told?

I can find links to the listen-to-Greta thing, the Smollett thing, Hands Up Don’t Shoot, noted libertarian Clint Eastwood is backing Ban-Everything-Bloomie, Bernie Sanders wants to tax a $29k income at 52 percent, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar really did marry her brother, Trump hired hookers to pee on a bed, that he remains to this day some kind of a Russian asset, and that Mother Russia wants him re-elected. Some of those may be true! And I’m not saying which ones, that is not the point. The point is, “Here is a link now I demand you believe it” is a game for losers. Ditto for “Here is a link, everyone else believes it and I’m going to mock you if you don’t believe it too” is also a game for losers. Grownups who think like grownups don’t play this game, and when it’s played on them, they don’t opt into it. I think deep down we already get that without me explicitly stating it, right?

So if you encounter a dissenting opinion, and you try to “solve” it with one of your magical Internet-links like opening the valve of an extinguisher upon a fire, and the argument doesn’t magically end…using the “I” word may be tempting. But it could very well be that ignorance is not the issue here, in fact it could very well be that your recalcitrant skeptic knows something you don’t. Perhaps the word that really addresses the problem begins with “H”: Humility.

The Internet is a wonderful tool for figuring out the weekend weather, what movies are playing, trading funny GIF files of cats…but it’s buried us under this enormous glut of people playing game of “I want to win all the arguments without doing any arguing.”

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Ignorance and the InternetSaturday, February 22nd, 2020

Ignorance and the Internet
Saturday, February 22nd, 2020