How do we create a willing ear?

[Bradskii]

Nobody knows what you are referring to yet.

I guess that you could tell us rather then everyone making the obvious assumption.

 

[SkyWriting]

I guess that you could tell us rather then everyone making the obvious assumption.

I have no clue what you are claiming i stole from others.
Though you've been on this rant for ages.

 

[Bradskii]

I have no clue what you are claiming i stole from others.
Though you've been on this rant for ages.

I haven't claimed anything. Let alone that you stole from others. Are you confusing me with someone else? You said we don't know what someone was referring to. Yet. I was suggesting that you could tell us so that no-one jumps to a wrong conclusion.

 

[SkyWriting]

I haven't claimed anything. Let alone that you stole from others. Are you confusing me with someone else? You said we don't know what someone was referring to. Yet. I was suggesting that you could tell us so that no-one jumps to a wrong conclusion.

My fault.
Nobody, including me, has a clue what I'm accused of plagiarizing.

 

[tas8831]

Like this?

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• Quoted portions of any work should not exceed 20% of the total work. Materials owned by the Associated Press must be quoted using only one sentence. All quoted copyrighted material must be linked to the web page from which it was taken. Do not violate the copyrights of others or promote another work as your own.

Copyright Legalities, Spamming and Advertising, Signatures, Videos

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[tas8831]

My fault.
Nobody, including me, has a clue what I'm accused of plagiarizing.

False.

 

[tas8831]

But plagiarists do not deserve such an ear.

 

[tas8831]

I don't. If you'd like my sources on anything, just ask.

Provided an example. Should not be a need to ask.

 

[driewerf]

I dunno. But...maybe this goes in cycles and we're on an upswing. I sincerely hope so because we don't want to drop any further.

The last few years have been pretty testing. Divisions over Brexit, Trump, global warming, covid, race, gender...hell, I think I'll stop there. And it's been a top down problem. I think that we all had a good idea of directions that we needed to take. But there was disagreement about how we should get there.

I agree with the list you gave there, and it corresponds with mine - give or take - but what is worrying me the most is the unwillingness (is that a word? According to my spelling corrector it is.) to listen, the impossibility to dialogue. That is what is worrying me. I see you quite often in the American politics section too. And there these stumbling blocks are even bigger than here.
This morning I saw an article on the Guardian that asks how to discuss with anti vaxxers, and the answer was basically "just don't".
How do you argue with anti-vaxxers who believe they’re on a noble mission? | Myke Bartlett
Yet, we have to. It's a matter of life and death. Their lives, but ours too. So we better do find a way.

Now...we have people pointing in completely different directions. Led by those we've voted into power.

Which is not a bad thing in itself. The bad thing is the conviction that "the other side" just want to destroy their own country and is hence not worth to speak with. And the worse thing is that some politicians, instead of leading their followers to reason, moderation and respect for the institutions, aren't leaders but followers, that follow their most fanatic crowd.

You could ask a hundred politicians what their aims are for the next few years and I think that a depressingly large proportion would say ' to remain in office'.

Such an honesty would be refreshing. A depressing number of politicians can't speak in more than buzz words and platitudes that serves their base.

 

[timothyu]

There is no need to be anti-anything. That creates division. We are to be pro ourselves, the only thinking we can control. Just as with the original Christians they spoke their peace and went their way. No need to argue like in the temples. Everyone should have the right to speak their beliefs but no one should be expected or forced to adhere to those beliefs. All throughout history confrontation has only benefitted the powerful who would oppress. The foolish masses play along, while the wise ignore the game.

 

[driewerf]

Yes, you can't change someone's mind unless they are persuaded by your argument. IOW they must change their mind themselves. You're more likely to antagonize them than persuade them by being condescending and telling them directly that they're wrong. It also helps if they can see that you understand their point of view.

Science is at a disadvantage in its principles that explanations are always provisional and it doesn't deal in proof or absolute certainty. To someone brought up in the certainty of their beliefs, this can seem like a weakness rather than a strength.

Shouldn't it be the task of every science teacher to start with explaining what science is and what it isn't. Should it be part of the curriculum to be able to indentify science from pseudo science?

 

[AV1611VET]

Any thoughts?

Quit making mistakes, stop firing your whistleblowers, listen to yourselves more and take yourselves more seriously, don't rig votes, don't cater to your sponsors, don't give equal airtime to things you shouldn't, stop Arab phoning Bible terms, stop lighting fires then putting them out, quit rushing off to magazines and newspapers prematurely with half-baked inventions and discoveries, don't put discoveries on Page One then retract them on Page Sixteen, stop with the fake doomsday reports, quit boring us with future schemes that you know you'll never achieve, quit telling us how the rest of the world isn't as smart as you guys, yadda, yadda, yadda, ad nauseum and so forth.

And stop hypocritically telling us how to live, when you guys live the same way.

 

[Estrid]

This is a global issue, not some localized political one.

Isnt there a conspiracy section?

 

[TLK Valentine]

This thread is slightly inspired –or is at least becoming more urgent due to Pitabread’s thread about the dangers of creationism.

Creationism is but the tip of the iceberg in terms of science denial. You have climate change denial, antivaxxers, body positivity movement that slides into denial of any health consequence of obesity. In the nineties of the previous century I remember people denying or mocking the existence of the ozone depletion above the Antarctic.

When the Obamas (especially Michelle Obama) launched a campaign for healthy nutrition for children there was a huge backlash. Somehow it is bad to care for healthy food for children. The argument? “Unelected experts don’t know what my kid needs”. Well, no. That’s exactly the very definition of being an expert. Someone who knows better.


And here we are at the core of the issue. Too many people seem to think that reading one or two Facebook posts equals years and years of study and practical experience and make someone an expert on whatever subject. Any idiot with a keyboard and an internet connection can produce whatever text he wants and is put on a par, if not higher, than leading experts and Nobel prize winners.


How do we restore the notion that no one knows everything? That experts are – yes people who know a lot more and better – about a subject that the layman?

How do we restore a willing ear again for knowledge science and expertise again? It’s not a fanciful question. It is a matter of life and death. Whether it is about obesity, climate change or vaccinations, taking the wrong decision implies taking huge risks.

Any thoughts?

There's little for it, I suspect. These people are in a "moral panic," moved by fear and paranoia at the ways the world around them is changing.

Rational thought did not bring them to this; it seems unlikely rationality will bring them out.

The panic will have to either die out on its own, or be replace by something new to panic over.

 

[AV1611VET]

The panic will have to either die out on its own, or be replace by something new to panic over.

Y3K?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Y3K?

We won't have to wait nearly that long... religious types never run out of things to panic over.

You would think that faith in the Almighty would make people feel more secure... but all observations show the exact opposite.

 

[RDKirk]

Simple. People can become experts at anything they wish. If we restore that idea, then we can dispense with the talking heads. (Not the band of course.)

No.

A person can become an expert in anything, yes, but not everything. Not even more than a handful of things.

I have dabbled a bit in Spanish, Latin, and koine Greek, and I know some things, but I'm not an expert in either as the people who have immersed themselves in the study of those languages for decades.

I don't have enough time left in my life to become the expert urologist that my urologist--who is half my age--already is.

 

[RDKirk]

It is going to be a tough fight to restore any sense of the recently deceased normality as the whole purpose of the Great Reset is to throw confusion into the mix while an old system is eroded on all fronts from education, health, supply and business, in order to produce a new one. Everything today is about confusion, not expertise. The whole idea of today's so called experts changing their stories every few days is to bolster that confusion and wear down if not break, the people's will. The quickest way back to the old normal is to stop listening and reacting until the old experts with no vested interest in the Great Reset are once again allowed to speak.

Satan is the author of confusion, and he started that a long, long time ago.

 

[RDKirk]

To become an expert you need to learn from the experts. There is plenty of reliable information on the internet that point to the experts if you know what you are looking for and if you take time to search for it.

That doesn't make you an expert, that makes you well-read.

Being well-read is a good thing, and arguably a necessary thing, but it's not the same thing as being an expert.

 

[timothyu]

Isnt there a conspiracy section?

Could be, but globalization is a reality and at the moment runs the show.