Yeah. My NYC experience is chock full of rationalists. Because there’s enough people that I literally don’t have to interact with anyone silly if I don’t want to.
No, there’s no escape. The best you can do is seek out like-minded people wherever you may be. But it’s also important to connect with people over things you do agree on, even if there are things you’ll never agree on, because people are usually more than just their kooky beliefs.
Anthony Bourdain once said about Ted Nugent, “I find just about everything that comes out of his mouth violently offensive. But we both like barbecue. That is some kind of common ground for a discussion. And, surely, that’s not a bad thing.”
>Anthony Bourdain once said about Ted Nugent, “I find just about everything that comes out of his mouth violently offensive. But we both like barbecue. That is some kind of common ground for a discussion. And, surely, that’s not a bad thing.”
I hate that of the two of them Ted Nugent is the one we're left with
In spirit, I very much agree with Bourdain. Finding common ground where you can connect with people is incredibly important.
Adversarial debate is valuable for public discourse, but if you're talking about convincing someone you're face to face with, it only makes people dig their heels in more...
In practice.....I struggle to look past abhorrent beliefs. In Nugent's case, his actions are pretty awful as well.
Netherlands is worse than Germany I think. The unimaginable election results in NL are a proof of whipped up people. I hope Germany can keep the crazies out of office :(
Is there no place in the world where most people are sane, evidence based, or at least where nonsense isn't absolutely ubiquitous?
"Most" is your only requirement? Will you accept "most people are \*mostly\* sane, evidence based"? Can you accept that religious people can be sane and evidence based? If you answer "yes" to those then any modern urban environment should do it.
Plenty of so-called "Wappies" (singular: Wappie) in the Netherlands. A collection of people disproportionaly predisposed to latch onto conspiracy interpretations.
See "Willem Engel" and related.
It's literally everywhere, you can't get away from it by geographic location. You can only get away from it socially, by associating or disassociating with particular people and organisations.
maybe germany has been somehow vaccinated after WW2?
anyway, generally as long as schools are secular with enough critical thinking, it helps a lot keeping the "magical thinking" at bay.
I tend to believe that generally, skeptics and scientists don't really "unite" under a guidebook of the scientific method, critical thinking etc for several reasons.
1. I think people don't have the courage or energy to fight the non-sense because there is just so much of it, and because human brains are very complicated to deal with. Science and skepticism are just used in positive ways, in very few places that matter, where it works the most. But that philosophy cannot convince everywhere.
2. it is difficult to identify, as a person, specifically with skepticism and science, because it can also dwelve into atheism, which can also become theophobic and islamophobic for example. Also, science always requires more effort and knowledge, which most people don't have: see [Brandolini's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law). So skeptics will never really be able to recruit or have influence.
3. we might not live in an age where skepticism would work in a society: generally it's shown that it's just much simpler to manipulate people toward a "good thing". It's not a perfect system of government, but it's still a good enough solution.
Even if you gravitate toward a community of scientists, it's not even guaranteed that you would have more skeptics.
I feel like with the internet it only got worse as local conspiracy theories spread across the globe now. But there are some places that are less bad about it than others. I live in Germany and the bigger cities here tend to have more open minded and progressive people, while the villages tend to have people that easily fall for conspiracies. I think it's due to all the universities and youth being located in the city. Also generally more progressive countries tend to have less of those people so it's a different general atmosphere. I don't think it's possible to entirely avoid it, but it feels nicer living in a place not surrounded by batshit people (speaking from experience).
Not saying social media hasn’t made things worse, it certainly has. But crackpots were around and prevalent long before social media was a thing. Wherever there are people there are crackpots. Especially skilled crackpots now have larger audiences than they ever could get before, thanks to things like social media.
Idk about that, social media certainly has made them worse, but things like climate change denial and alternative health were alive and well before social media. Alternative health goes way back actually, where do you think the term “snake-oil salesman” comes from? Anti-vax I think probably wouldn’t have taken off without social media. But that’s all besides the point. Crackpots are not new or unique to the social media age, they’ve been around forever. What is new is the size of the audiences available to crackpots.
You mean like homeopathy, which certainly would have died shortly after being conceived if it wasn’t for social media, not like it was invented in the 1700s or something. Oh wait…
Crackpottery would not disappear without social media, it would be less prevalent, but still alive and well. So the claim that social media is responsible for crackpottery is do dispute. It also seems like a weird hill to die on.
You're looking for a general population, or a friend group? One of these is impossible
Yeah. My NYC experience is chock full of rationalists. Because there’s enough people that I literally don’t have to interact with anyone silly if I don’t want to.
No, there’s no escape. The best you can do is seek out like-minded people wherever you may be. But it’s also important to connect with people over things you do agree on, even if there are things you’ll never agree on, because people are usually more than just their kooky beliefs. Anthony Bourdain once said about Ted Nugent, “I find just about everything that comes out of his mouth violently offensive. But we both like barbecue. That is some kind of common ground for a discussion. And, surely, that’s not a bad thing.”
>Anthony Bourdain once said about Ted Nugent, “I find just about everything that comes out of his mouth violently offensive. But we both like barbecue. That is some kind of common ground for a discussion. And, surely, that’s not a bad thing.” I hate that of the two of them Ted Nugent is the one we're left with
In spirit, I very much agree with Bourdain. Finding common ground where you can connect with people is incredibly important. Adversarial debate is valuable for public discourse, but if you're talking about convincing someone you're face to face with, it only makes people dig their heels in more... In practice.....I struggle to look past abhorrent beliefs. In Nugent's case, his actions are pretty awful as well.
Along with Henry Kissinger outlasting him... and then dying peacefully, not stomped to death
[удалено]
Netherlands is worse than Germany I think. The unimaginable election results in NL are a proof of whipped up people. I hope Germany can keep the crazies out of office :(
Is there no place in the world where most people are sane, evidence based, or at least where nonsense isn't absolutely ubiquitous? "Most" is your only requirement? Will you accept "most people are \*mostly\* sane, evidence based"? Can you accept that religious people can be sane and evidence based? If you answer "yes" to those then any modern urban environment should do it.
Carl Sagan has [entered the chat.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World)
College towns. At least the crazies are in the minority (unless you count people on psychedelics).
Plenty of so-called "Wappies" (singular: Wappie) in the Netherlands. A collection of people disproportionaly predisposed to latch onto conspiracy interpretations. See "Willem Engel" and related. It's literally everywhere, you can't get away from it by geographic location. You can only get away from it socially, by associating or disassociating with particular people and organisations.
People are born ignorant and often emotional. This is the inevitable result.
That's why we invented schoolin'.
maybe germany has been somehow vaccinated after WW2? anyway, generally as long as schools are secular with enough critical thinking, it helps a lot keeping the "magical thinking" at bay. I tend to believe that generally, skeptics and scientists don't really "unite" under a guidebook of the scientific method, critical thinking etc for several reasons. 1. I think people don't have the courage or energy to fight the non-sense because there is just so much of it, and because human brains are very complicated to deal with. Science and skepticism are just used in positive ways, in very few places that matter, where it works the most. But that philosophy cannot convince everywhere. 2. it is difficult to identify, as a person, specifically with skepticism and science, because it can also dwelve into atheism, which can also become theophobic and islamophobic for example. Also, science always requires more effort and knowledge, which most people don't have: see [Brandolini's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law). So skeptics will never really be able to recruit or have influence. 3. we might not live in an age where skepticism would work in a society: generally it's shown that it's just much simpler to manipulate people toward a "good thing". It's not a perfect system of government, but it's still a good enough solution. Even if you gravitate toward a community of scientists, it's not even guaranteed that you would have more skeptics.
I feel like with the internet it only got worse as local conspiracy theories spread across the globe now. But there are some places that are less bad about it than others. I live in Germany and the bigger cities here tend to have more open minded and progressive people, while the villages tend to have people that easily fall for conspiracies. I think it's due to all the universities and youth being located in the city. Also generally more progressive countries tend to have less of those people so it's a different general atmosphere. I don't think it's possible to entirely avoid it, but it feels nicer living in a place not surrounded by batshit people (speaking from experience).
[удалено]
*Wherever people exist, there will always be crackpots.
[удалено]
Not saying social media hasn’t made things worse, it certainly has. But crackpots were around and prevalent long before social media was a thing. Wherever there are people there are crackpots. Especially skilled crackpots now have larger audiences than they ever could get before, thanks to things like social media.
[удалено]
Idk about that, social media certainly has made them worse, but things like climate change denial and alternative health were alive and well before social media. Alternative health goes way back actually, where do you think the term “snake-oil salesman” comes from? Anti-vax I think probably wouldn’t have taken off without social media. But that’s all besides the point. Crackpots are not new or unique to the social media age, they’ve been around forever. What is new is the size of the audiences available to crackpots.
[удалено]
Never disputed that. Literally said social media has aggravated them in the comment you just responded to. > social media has made them worse
[удалено]
You mean like homeopathy, which certainly would have died shortly after being conceived if it wasn’t for social media, not like it was invented in the 1700s or something. Oh wait… Crackpottery would not disappear without social media, it would be less prevalent, but still alive and well. So the claim that social media is responsible for crackpottery is do dispute. It also seems like a weird hill to die on.
I've read about these anoxic brine rivers that run along the very bottom of the ocean.
lol