I just surprised some people here at a conference by saying that I don’t have opinions on abortion or gun control. I have little use for such opinions, and so haven’t bothered to form them. Since that attitude seems to be unusual among my intellectual peers, let me explain myself.
Strictly speaking I wouldn't call any of those efforts "altruisitic". They do not reduce your fitness while increasing another's. They are mutualistic (assuming that both benefit)--because both you (social capital) and the recipient (improved knowledge) are better off.(That would be me sharing my intellectual research field in a mutualistic way)Cheers by the way. Have some social capital. No really it's on me.
Not really a very tight analogy. People can passively detect your socially non-normative nudity, and, if bothered by it, would need to take steps to actively avoid continued exposure, whereas you can just not ask OP what he thinks, which you are already doing by default.
Also, you should carry some disinfecting wipes for the public seats you use.
Some people don't seem to really get what you mean by having no opinion on something. I call it choosing to reserve judgement because I don't have enough information to have a definite belief one way or the other. That's something I choose to do on many topics.
Certainly, if required to make a decision I have to form at least a basic opinion on the topic, even just resorting to a shortcut as you describe in the original article, but the vast majority of things out there require no decision on my part and thus it seems more accurate to not have an opinion yet and hence free myself up to not commit mentally nor tactically to what is likely a mistake view.
One side effect is if I believe something to be true, I generally have good reasons for it and can intellectually defend my position against any counter-evidence I've previously encountered, otherwise I'd be reserving judgement on it.
I suspect you have a similar mental process to mine, but you're confusing some people who don't understand the concept of having information on a topic, even potentially extensive information, without feeling the need to decide internally what's true and thus form a definite opinion on the matter.
I'd much rather spend my time in conversation gathering more information on what's behind others' opinions on the topics of the day and how they think then expound an opinion of my own which wouldn't be well-founded. Of course, that approach may also lead to hemlock drinking, so it's not without social risks.
I like the "vibe" of this argument, but when one doesn't have an opinion about a given topic or problem, isn't this like not having a prior about that topic or problem ... If so, how can one not have a prior?
The gain QuiteLikely proposes is familiarizing yourself with the issues of the day. If I were a physicist like you, I might well say I have enough to familiarize myself with: I don't need the "issues of the day" added on.
I don't think this answer is available to a social scientist with broad interests.
The opinion you can form with only a few hours of study is 1) already been formed by millions(?) of others so who needs me and 2) not confidently right. So unless there is a big gain to having lots of incorrect opinions echoing each other, why bother?
While there are tons of *pure* signaling explanations there is at least one good one.
In cases where it is important for a group (be it your tribe or your nation) to reach a consensus on some issue without any natural experts people going around discussing the question will generate more ideas than one person studying the issue and telling everyone else what to think. Not to mention that the later method likely won't produce consensus.
Not only does holding an opinion encourage discussion but it acts as an indicator of your current view of the pros and cons thus giving other members of your community information about the judgement of others.
American society is still on the near side of robotification. People who can’t conjure up the relevant sympathy in the presence of other people are still felt to need various kinds of remedial help: they are autistic or sociopathic, it may be said—those are two of a range of clinical terms. Less clinically we may say that such people lack a certain affective range. However efficiently they perform their tasks, we don’t yet think well of those who in their everyday lives maximize efficiency and minimize considerate, responsive, and unrehearsed interaction, whether they neglect such things from physiological incapacity or a prudential fear of squandering their energy on emotions that are not formally necessary.
I've been trying to put my reaction to this post into words, and I think you hit it exactly with "perceived duty to the collective."
You have a moral obligation to hold a negative opinion about things that kill people. By choosing not to care about abortion, you are saying that whether or not fetuses are people you don't care about them being killed. By choosing not to care about gun violence, you are saying that you don't care about people being killed whom you don't personally know. You care SO little about generic human life that you won't even put in the effort to decide which political party will save more lives.
From a utilitarian perspective, it makes sense for a single x-risk issue to determine which political tribe you vote for and advocate that others vote for. There is indeed little value to learning about other topics that you are unlikely to influence except by voting. But there's a big difference between "abortion isn't worth having an opinion on" and "abortion isn't worth having an opinion on if I have an opinion on global climate change."
Wearing clothes in warm climates is only "convenient" due to social pressure against going around naked. I don't see positive net value in spending money on clothes, however, so I resist that pressure.
If it really helps discipline you against distraction, I admire your focus. But it sounds more like a way of registering a protest (essentially, I think, a "libertarian" protest against social obligation).
It is only "convenient" due to social pressure against not having opinions. I don't see a positive net value from generating such opinions, however, so I resist that pressure.
That's why representative democracy is more prevalent than a pure democracy (citation needed). In the US, we've implicitly decided it makes more sense to pay/elect people to think about complex issues for us and trust they come to the "right" conclusion. And we use heuristics (e.g., political party ID) to decide whom to outsource to.
Even so, there's also some rational expectations argument to be made too. Assuming RE, it doesn't require that everyone learn EVERYTHING about a particular proposal before determining what they think the results of the proposal would be. On average, people's expectations are right. Of course, people are wrong all the time, but the magnitude and frequency of their wrongness depends on how much information they consume.
Strictly speaking I wouldn't call any of those efforts "altruisitic". They do not reduce your fitness while increasing another's. They are mutualistic (assuming that both benefit)--because both you (social capital) and the recipient (improved knowledge) are better off.(That would be me sharing my intellectual research field in a mutualistic way)Cheers by the way. Have some social capital. No really it's on me.
Not really a very tight analogy. People can passively detect your socially non-normative nudity, and, if bothered by it, would need to take steps to actively avoid continued exposure, whereas you can just not ask OP what he thinks, which you are already doing by default.
Also, you should carry some disinfecting wipes for the public seats you use.
Some people don't seem to really get what you mean by having no opinion on something. I call it choosing to reserve judgement because I don't have enough information to have a definite belief one way or the other. That's something I choose to do on many topics.
Certainly, if required to make a decision I have to form at least a basic opinion on the topic, even just resorting to a shortcut as you describe in the original article, but the vast majority of things out there require no decision on my part and thus it seems more accurate to not have an opinion yet and hence free myself up to not commit mentally nor tactically to what is likely a mistake view.
One side effect is if I believe something to be true, I generally have good reasons for it and can intellectually defend my position against any counter-evidence I've previously encountered, otherwise I'd be reserving judgement on it.
I suspect you have a similar mental process to mine, but you're confusing some people who don't understand the concept of having information on a topic, even potentially extensive information, without feeling the need to decide internally what's true and thus form a definite opinion on the matter.
I'd much rather spend my time in conversation gathering more information on what's behind others' opinions on the topics of the day and how they think then expound an opinion of my own which wouldn't be well-founded. Of course, that approach may also lead to hemlock drinking, so it's not without social risks.
I like the "vibe" of this argument, but when one doesn't have an opinion about a given topic or problem, isn't this like not having a prior about that topic or problem ... If so, how can one not have a prior?
The gain QuiteLikely proposes is familiarizing yourself with the issues of the day. If I were a physicist like you, I might well say I have enough to familiarize myself with: I don't need the "issues of the day" added on.
I don't think this answer is available to a social scientist with broad interests.
The opinion you can form with only a few hours of study is 1) already been formed by millions(?) of others so who needs me and 2) not confidently right. So unless there is a big gain to having lots of incorrect opinions echoing each other, why bother?
While there are tons of *pure* signaling explanations there is at least one good one.
In cases where it is important for a group (be it your tribe or your nation) to reach a consensus on some issue without any natural experts people going around discussing the question will generate more ideas than one person studying the issue and telling everyone else what to think. Not to mention that the later method likely won't produce consensus.
Not only does holding an opinion encourage discussion but it acts as an indicator of your current view of the pros and cons thus giving other members of your community information about the judgement of others.
Above-it-all rationalists appear to be like a bug zapper for the right: http://dryhyphenolympics.co...
A spot-on quote:
American society is still on the near side of robotification. People who can’t conjure up the relevant sympathy in the presence of other people are still felt to need various kinds of remedial help: they are autistic or sociopathic, it may be said—those are two of a range of clinical terms. Less clinically we may say that such people lack a certain affective range. However efficiently they perform their tasks, we don’t yet think well of those who in their everyday lives maximize efficiency and minimize considerate, responsive, and unrehearsed interaction, whether they neglect such things from physiological incapacity or a prudential fear of squandering their energy on emotions that are not formally necessary.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/nuookyn
What about the insufferable bore who is you?
Do you vote?
I've been trying to put my reaction to this post into words, and I think you hit it exactly with "perceived duty to the collective."
You have a moral obligation to hold a negative opinion about things that kill people. By choosing not to care about abortion, you are saying that whether or not fetuses are people you don't care about them being killed. By choosing not to care about gun violence, you are saying that you don't care about people being killed whom you don't personally know. You care SO little about generic human life that you won't even put in the effort to decide which political party will save more lives.
From a utilitarian perspective, it makes sense for a single x-risk issue to determine which political tribe you vote for and advocate that others vote for. There is indeed little value to learning about other topics that you are unlikely to influence except by voting. But there's a big difference between "abortion isn't worth having an opinion on" and "abortion isn't worth having an opinion on if I have an opinion on global climate change."
Wearing clothes in warm climates is only "convenient" due to social pressure against going around naked. I don't see positive net value in spending money on clothes, however, so I resist that pressure.
If it really helps discipline you against distraction, I admire your focus. But it sounds more like a way of registering a protest (essentially, I think, a "libertarian" protest against social obligation).
It is only "convenient" due to social pressure against not having opinions. I don't see a positive net value from generating such opinions, however, so I resist that pressure.
That's why representative democracy is more prevalent than a pure democracy (citation needed). In the US, we've implicitly decided it makes more sense to pay/elect people to think about complex issues for us and trust they come to the "right" conclusion. And we use heuristics (e.g., political party ID) to decide whom to outsource to.
Even so, there's also some rational expectations argument to be made too. Assuming RE, it doesn't require that everyone learn EVERYTHING about a particular proposal before determining what they think the results of the proposal would be. On average, people's expectations are right. Of course, people are wrong all the time, but the magnitude and frequency of their wrongness depends on how much information they consume.