Are you sure about that?

[sysyphus]

"Many of the truths we hold on to depend on our own point of view" - Obi Wan Kenobi

 

[Nylan]

"Many of the truths we hold on to depend on our own point of view" - Obi Wan Kenobi

time for a paradigm shift

 

[pboily]

Either they agree with you on the probability it is true - in which case, they believe in something where the probability is less than 50%, and you can fault them on that (I can't help feeling that there are some people who are like this, since they always resort to "But but, it's a matter of faith").

Or, they disagree with you in the probability, in which case you can fault them on how they arrived to their estimate (typical examples would be people who seem ignorant of facts and only stick to believing things which are proven false, whether it's creationism or believing the moon landings are fake - yet there is still a non-zero chance that they are correct).

I feel pretty young, my daughter thinks me old. I'm not 100% certain I'm young, as I see youngsters all over the place. (Hell, I'm not 100% certain I can even define the notion of youth properly.) But I cannot fault her for not agreeing with me, even though she is clearly wrong. And she is also clearly right.

 

[bhsup]

Oh yes, my opinion is always the right one. Why else would I hold it as my opinion if I didn't think it was right?

 

[pboily]

Oh yes, my opinion is always the right one. Why else would I hold it as my opinion if I didn't think it was right?

You could just be lazy and hold the first opinion that came your way?

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I was always 100 % against this war, as I have been with every of the shameful imperialist enterprises of the USA. I regard it as important to oppose this as it was to oppose Germany in the 30s (For the thick ones; this is not someting that started with the current administration - I am unable to see any substantial difference between Reps and Dems and I couldn't stand Clinton).

Deep seated resentment carrying over from the Cold War? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this is what it sort of comes off as.

And I am not at all happy with the hippy references, I really hope that that is some kind of irony. The whole hippy thing did a considerable amount of damage to real radical movements.

In my mind, hippies deserve no level of respect whatsoever. All that BS they did to returning Vietnam Veterans will forever cast them in a bad light in my eyes. Hence they will get no respect, or a fair shake with me.

We're pretty generally 100% right in our minds. That's the problem with opinions, we're damn sure they're correct. Though I really try to read posts with an open mind. For instance, some people I am the exact opposite of (or appear to be) in OT, I couldn't agree with more in another forum or even on occasion ask for their opinion ###. And I can sometimes overlook posts I don't like if I really respect the person posting them, unless I find it grossly offensive.

85%-95%, because I pick my battles.

This is a very good point as well.

###: I remember one such PM between luceafarul in myself back in the day, about whether salt should be a luxury or resource for Rambuchan's unreleased/unfinished scenario. Speaking of Rambuchan, we have differing viewpoints on many things, but we are still pretty good friends (became that way through the creation of said scenario).

----------------------------------------------------------

I'll summarize my views on most of the controversial topics of today: No real need to discuss these here (that's for individual threads), I'm merely posting it to give you some reference on my stance.

Guns: Against new gun control legislation. People are the problem, not guns.
Abortion: Pro Choice.
Stem Cell Research: Two thumbs up.
Iraq Conflict: I support it. We got involved, now we must see it through.

 

[LucyDuke]

There are some things I'm 100% sure of, like that nobody has the right to tell anyone else what to do, or that marijuana is a safer drug than caffeine, or that we can never be 100% sure of anything.

Most things are composite, and have a lot of elements that I'm not 100% sure of. I'd rather challenge someone who is blindly certain by asking them questions than by asserting something that disagrees with them. I'd much rather learn the truth than pretend to be right about everything, and I don't like being wrong but I'm okay with it.

I voted for 80%, even though I don't think there's any validity to that kind of quantification.

 

[bhsup]

You could just be lazy and hold the first opinion that came your way?

Naw. For instance, it took me years and years to form an opinion as to whether Kentucy Fried Chicken was/is better than the chicken my mom made at home. Eventually, I did settle on the opinion that mom's chicken is/was better, and I know with certainty that I am 100% correct in that opinion.

 

[Richard Cribb]

@Luceafarul

Hello ! Good post man.

Hello Alex.
Nice to see you around, we socialists are about to be an extinct species here!

Sorry to say I agreed with war in Iraq at the time, but then again my Labour PM told me I only had 45 minutes to live, so I'm not going to retrospectively change my position, even though I've been proven to be way of mark.

What I can't understand is that anybody could trust that criminal weasel Tony Blair at all, but the most important is to come to ones senses - it is almost never too late.

I guess the trick is to be wise before the event.

Indeed.

I haven't changed my political stance since being on CFC even though some of the discussions on economics have been very intresting and educational.,

Compared to other boards, study circles or for that matter conversations with my wife (dude, she is an economist!), I find the discussions on economics here to be of very little interest nor containing any real nutrition value. The typical debater will more often than not regurgitate corporate slogans.

because my core socialist values have remained the same, and as you say life experience and study continues to reiterate those values.

I remember some time ago you presenting your core socialist values.
You sir are a wise and most excellent fellow!

CFC is many things but I don't think it has the power to shift my core beliefs, so in that respect I argue from a position of confidence, though I may not be 'right' whatever that means anyway.

Exactly.
When you reach a certain age you should be pretty firm on those core belief, and odds are heavily stacked against that those should be changed by an internet board consisting mainly of very young people from quite a narrow societal stratum.
A lot of other things should influence us more.

Having said that there are posters here who are very eloquent and put thier point of views in a gentle way, kudos to those posters I try to emulate them though not very successfully. Bozo always presents his POV very well.

Yes, I agree that most people here are intelligent, but that is in the way that they have a great learning ability.
There are also people who are genuinely knowledgeable, also about the facts of life, like for instance Plotinus, but many here have some miles to go before they can claim practical wisdom. Of course this is partly age-related, but it is also to a not modest degree about widening the social horizone, and I am afraid quite a few will fail here...

Deep seated resentment carrying over from the Cold War? I'm not trying to be a jerk, but this is what it sort of comes off as.

I am afraid that you don't totally succeed in that, somebody with a more delicate constitution than I might have taken offense to it.
As for your question; unfortunately I can only comment on what I understand, and said question does not fall into that cathegory.

###: I remember one such PM between luceafarul in myself back in the day, about whether salt should be a luxury or resource for Rambuchan's unreleased/unfinished scenario. Speaking of Rambuchan, we have differing viewpoints on many things, but we are still pretty good friends (became that way through the creation of said scenario).

I remember that one too, and I can say something similar about Ram.
And you should know that I have nothing against you. While I don't give much for some of your opinions, my impression of you as a person is quite favourable.
And seeing that you are young, I don't exclude the possibility that you will end up on the dark side...

 

[Sophie 378]

Ziggy, perhaps you would have got more votes/comments if you'd changed the poll question to "how sure are you about your opinion on Iraq?" Until you've read more than a page of posts, it isn't clear whether the poll is on this specific issue or in general.

How sure I am about things I debate varies greatly. Normally, the surer I am about it, the more vigourously I will argue it; the less sure, the more I will ask for information from the opposing sides, and include such qualifiers as "afaik, iirc, I think" etc.

 

[Swedishguy]

Oh yes, my opinion is always the right one. Why else would I hold it as my opinion if I didn't think it was right?

One bad thing about that is that your opinions will not be so flexible. If you hold an opinion right one time, it'll stay so for the rest of your life, even if it turns out that you are wrong.