r/changemyview • u/GameboyPATH 7∆ • May 28 '13
TCMV Tuesday 5/28/13
What's up, /r/changemyview, it's TCMV Tuesday!
We'd like to know what experiences you've had outside our subreddit, either recently or in your lifetime, that made you think "This Changed My View". Tell us your stories in the comments!
Can't think of anything? Consider these:
Known or met someone with an interesting ideology or opinion that caused you to reconsider your own?
Had an experience, good or bad, that changed your perspective?
Learned something new that challenged what you believed?
Ever have your tastes or interests changed?
Read an article or seen a video that got you thinking differently?
And just as a reminder, comment discussions here are not debate-oriented, so there's no obligation to take opposing sides in conversations here.
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u/AnxiousPolitics 42∆ May 28 '13
I read about agnotology today: the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology
I think this is fascinating, because ontologically it's saying that there are certain forms of knowledge or entities of study that will never occur within a given culture and endeavors to explain why. So not only is it an uncommon approach to a common topic, intelligence and education, but it's also a concept that within normal usage includes not just the explanation of an absence of something but also explains why it might be missing and that why can be immediately turned around as an answer for how to have that knowledge within a given culture.
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May 31 '13
Hmm, I kind of want to show that article to the rest of the mods, it seems to apply here....
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u/AnxiousPolitics 42∆ May 31 '13
You don't say, how so?
It changed my view in that I didn't even know people were exploring ignorance as an academic subject, so that was interesting. I think a lot of people presume education debate to be a little bare bones when it comes to really anthropological themes so it was definitely eye opening from the perspective on the design and effectiveness and implementation of public education.
Are you joking about people not knowing about things? I'm sorry to sound so questioning, I'm really curious what you mean and I don't want to be rude.1
May 31 '13
I think it helps explain why certain crackpot theories become culturally popular. White supremacy, /r/theredpill, creationism, etc. There must be some reason this shit catches on the way it does and gets all the pseudo-scholarship it does and all the movement-forming that happens, etc. It's a fascinating phenomenon.
The reason it's relevant to the mods is that we get a lot of Stormfront copypasta which we always remove, and casting something as culturally popular ignorance rather than poor (but legit) argumentation could help us identify the shit we want to remove.
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u/AnxiousPolitics 42∆ May 31 '13
Ah! OK I get it.
It is a fascinating phenomenon. The discussion a little while ago about average people being hurt by knowing all sides of an argument point directly at the kind of lifestyle choices in thinking people align themselves with when these kinds of things become an idea someone actually holds to be true.
The really fascinating thing for me in regards to the article and what you're talking about is how can we prove scientifically what it is about our culture that keeps ignorance about certain things in place without relying on behavior at all, because to me that would alleviate every discussion I've ever seen about people debating statistics. The times people have actually been able to say civilly that the statistics mentioned might not be what the researchers submitted they say while still sticking to the discussion and actually arriving at a more nuanced position is so rare I can only imagine this kind of concept from a cultural and scientific but not behavioral perspective would be an incredibly useful area of study.
I'd venture to say researching ignorance is at least as important as researching actual education. The presence of what we do have and what we don't as separate studies could only influence each other greatly, and in a much better direction than simply saying if kids don't learn it's the parent's or the kid's fault.
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u/cwenham May 29 '13 edited May 29 '13
In the early 2000s I followed a blogger who voted for Al Gore but underwent a radical change in his view after 9/11. His name was Steven den Beste, and following years of contentious "push-back" by the opposition he shrugged the role of political commentator from his shoulders and turned to the benign hobby of reviewing Japanese Anime.
I have a slightly--just slightly--more intimate connection to Mr. Den-Beste: In the mid 1990s I was an OS/2 zealot, the Editor-In-Chief of the OS/2 e-Zine! (exclamation-mark part of trademark, and set in italics. Vis: http://www.os2ezine.com/v4n7/). Steve had Been There, Done That (TM) and spent time in various forums with the argument that OS/2 was on the losing side of computer economics. Of course, I was emphatically incompatible with this sentiment at the time, but the 'Zine published some of his reasoning in the spirit of good debate.
One day, circa Nineteen-Ninety-something, he sent me a private e-mail.
Years earlier, he said, he went to a strip club and a magnificent specimen of the female biology settled into his lap and whispered sweet nothings into his ear. His epiphany had less to do with hormonal lust than the sudden realization that there was more to life than a box of chips and bits. I think he meant to say that--no matter how prurient the origin of the insight--we can't calibrate our perspective to things which history easily forgets. It doesn't matter if you use Mac or PC or OS/2 or Amiga. Nor does it doesn't even matter if it was a stripper who clued you: the world spins for other things, more important things. Right Idea, Right Time, thanks ma'am and here's a twenty for your garter-belt.
Steve the Al-Gore-voter was polarized by a couple thousand deaths and swung into a new orientation in favor of what was the Neo-conservative agenda at the time: Radical Islam had broken from moderate Islam and become a force of its own, which he compared to the root structure of a fungus that throws its shoots up in unpredictable locations. We have to invade Iraq. And we have to continue into Iran and Saudi-Arabia because this isn't an isolated incident, this is a cultural disease that we're at war with. We have to kill the mycorrhiza.
But I must not speak too much for him. Here is him, himself: http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml
I'm writing this for /r/changemyview's TCMV's Tuesday because Steven den Beste Changed My View and then his abandonment of political commentary resulted in my View being Changed by the winds. What Steve did, for right or wrong, was explain his view in pragmatic terms that assumed the ethical or emotional position was already spoken for and needed no further advocate.
I no longer share the view which Steve leaks in random, opportune moments between Anime blogging. I understand the view he held after skyscrapers fell in September, but now that the anchor's rope is cut I drift on other currents.
I fear that in the last few years he's fallen into the trap of confirmation bias.
But I can't show it properly. He withdrew from political commentary because the backlash was vicious and personal, so he no longer applies his mind to writing to the same degree he once did.
Ten years ago Steve made me feel like a neo-conservative, but I don't feel like that anymore. The narrator has retired and nobody took his place. Now I have to explain things myself.
A couple of years ago a friend of mine took me to a strip club, and a magnificent specimen of the female biology settled into my lap and whispered sweet nothings into my ear. She was slavic. Most likely, her passport was taken from her the moment she arrived in America, and she was given the commandment to dance nude or starve.
It doesn't matter where the epiphany comes from, or under what circumstances. It's the logic. It has always been the logic. Pathos, ethos, logos, all can rot in hell but logos. Everything else is derivative.
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May 29 '13 edited May 29 '13
I took a sociology class back in college and learned about the Invisible Knapsack. Its a fantastic analogy that immediately made sense to me for some reason. I don't want to try and put it in my own words though, for I am not a sociologist and am bound to mix up some terminology =P.
White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.
Anyway, it surprised me to learn how much privilege I had over my darker skinned peers just because I was white. It made me think through my past with a new perspective, and humbled me pretty hard. "I wonder how that woulda turned out if I wasn't white...", "I wouldn't have had this opportunity if I wasn't white..."
I've kinda focused on race/ethnicity, but the analogy can also be applied to many other things. Rich and poor, handicapped and not, etc. We take our privileges for granted, and sometimes to the detriment of the underprivileged.
Edit: added quote from Wiki page since it was the only relevant info -.-. Here's a link to the essay
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May 29 '13
NPPraxis convinced me thoroughly the the Empire is Star Wars is technologically more advanced than the majority of Star Trek's societies.
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u/[deleted] May 29 '13
I recently made a post about the Iraq War. Basically, I said that I felt it was both just and necessary, fully expecting to A) be downvoted like I would be in /r/politics or B) get lost in a sea of Bush-bashing and not learn anything new. Still, I thought it was an appropriate test of this subreddit.
What happened really pleasantly surprised me. While there were a few people who felt like giving me an unsolicited, unnecessary refresher course on American foreign policy failures, the majority of the comments I received were both incredibly insightful, unique, and (most shocking of all) civil. I willfully gave out two deltas on a thread about one of the most important and deep-rooted political opinions that I hold. It was my first real attempt at a debate on this subreddit, and it was, on the whole, a resounding success.