House of Eratosthenes

Declaring a debate already over is a common irrational approach that blocks off any further learning. About the debate already being over, he wrote: “Within physics and chemistry and climatology, the people who think anthropogenic climate change exists and is a serious problem have won the argument — but the news of their intellectual victory hasn’t yet spread…” Then true to the idea of the debate being finished, as you’ll see below, he didn’t want to address criticisms of his position.

He replied to me to assert he was open to debate while subtly blowing me off, then didn’t respond to some questions I sent him in reply. I think he’s more interested in convincing himself that he’s rational – which required dealing with a [direct] question about his openness to debate – than he is interested in actually discussing the issues.

After some questions, I concluded my reply, “If you don’t wish to answer all of these questions, could you tell me where to get answers to my satisfaction which would persuade me about the climate consensus and related issues? (If there is nowhere, what do you suggest?)”

He didn’t answer that either. When people don’t answer something like that, isn’t it disturbing? He says climate change is a settled debate, but he won’t answer questions about it, and he won’t even refer people to anywhere they can get their doubts answered. (Presumably because there actually isn’t anywhere, which means the debate isn’t actually settled in a reasonable way. Which is an important enough problem with his side’s “victory” on the issue that he ought to have some comment.)

This is a common problem where people are more interested in the social role of a rational intellectual than truth-seeking discussion. They’re more interested in feeling smart than being smart. They’re more interested in self-image than action. They care about popular opinion and socialized legitimized status, and only feel much need to address arguments with some kind of (social) authority behind them. They look at the source of ideas and then wonder whether, socially, they can get away with ignoring the ideas (ignoring arguments is something they seem to treat as desirable and try to maximize).

It’s not about, “Have I already written an answer to this argument? Has someone else written an answer to it that I can endorse? If yes, I’ll give a link/cite. If no, maybe I or someone else better write something.” That’d be rational but few people think that way.

Instead it’s about, “If I don’t answer this, will other people think it was a serious argument I should have answered? Am I expected to answer it? Do I have to answer it to protect my social status? Do I have any excuses for not engaging with the argument that most people (weighted by their status/authority) will accept?”

I’ve noticed there is a recent mental feebleness in the air, an epidemic of a Learning Disability if you will, of flibbertigibbets prattling on and on, over & over, about things that ought to be obviously and emphatically true. On and on they go, until a situation arises in which their refusal or inability to allow this obvious & emphatic truth to stand on its own merits, is the strongest case to be presented for doubts. Then, they do it a few more times.

In an attempt to convince themselves; it very often cannot be proven, but all the signs are there, that if their beliefs were more earnest things would be much, much quieter. There’d be a great deal less endless re-litigating of the same ol’ stuff.

They often are heard to claim, like the litigant described above, that some disagreement is already over. Problem is, these are the flibbertigibbets who never allowed it to begin: “If you want to win a debate, you have to first allow it to happen.”

But they don’t want to win. They want to feel like they won; they want to look like they won. Really winning the debate? That’s something you want to do when your position in the debate is, “this bridge is capable of supporting my weight,” and you’re about to walk on it. Therein, I think, lies the problem — we have too many people arguing about bridges, and not enough people planning to walk on them. Therefore, as more people in our society become insulated from the work and the danger associated with it, this society is losing its connection to truth. Through lack of interest. Fewer and fewer people are invested in any of that truth, save for the truth of their own social standing.

we have too many people arguing about bridges, and not enough people planning to walk on them

That’s my view of AGW in a nutshell. Judging by his carbon footprint, I take global warming exactly as seriously as Al Gore does. I’ll start worrying about when he sells his beachfront property and moves into a wind-powered yurt…. and not a second before.
- Severian | 07/06/2014 @ 20:07
[…] “More Interested in Feeling Smart Than Being Smart”: […]
- TED Talk Talkers, The Left, Progressives in General…… | Joe Gringo | 07/14/2014 @ 19:54

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“More Interested in Feeling Smart Than Being Smart”Sunday, July 6th, 2014

“More Interested in Feeling Smart Than Being Smart”
Sunday, July 6th, 2014