Today I want to talk about a trend that’s been troubling me. We seem to be lacking nuance lately. An insufficient amount of nuance is leading to a lack of open dialogue. Instead of engaging, it’s often easier to simply remove from our lives those we disagree with. Whether we’re discussing police brutality, systematic racism, or Caitlyn Jenner, I think it’s important to foster a culture of open dialogue. Continue reading “Caitlyn Jenner and the Importance of Open Dialogue”
Tag: politics
How to Participate in the American Election Without Being a Bad Guy
This is the version where I replace inappropriate words so my mom can read it without thinking I’m a bad guy. Here’s the regular post.
I recently came to a revelation: We should be nice to each other this election season. Boom. I know. Let me explain how I got here.
So things are starting to heat up politically. There have been a lot of online discussions about which candidate is best. They mostly leave everyone feeling angry and unchanged. Part of the reason we leave angry is the other side rarely seems to even hear our reasons for why we see things the way we do.
A lot of people I know are planning to vote for Donald Trump. I think he’s an obvious cartoon Disney villain. But, I like a lot of the people who still feel compelled to vote for him, so I decided to really try and understand their side of things.
Full disclosure: I’m a left-leaning liberal, at least at this stage of life. I bring my own confirmation bias into this election cycle but I genuinely wanted to see what it would take to convince myself to vote for Donald Trump. It was a fun time. Continue reading “How to Participate in the American Election Without Being a Bad Guy”
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How to be Willfully Ignorant and DESTROY Your Opponents
This post started out about evolution but, due to natural selection, morphed into a post about evolution, politics, and how in-group thinking hijacks our free will and makes us robots who think just like everyone around us, but we feel really individual about it. I expect it to do very poorly in terms of shares as people have routinely shown me they are disinterested in these types of posts. Let’s jump to it.
The lesson to take away from this article is, “Hey man, let’s give people the respect of trying to understand their claim before we argue with them.” If you can internalize that you don’t really need to read the rest of it.
Wait, come back. Continue reading “How to be Willfully Ignorant and DESTROY Your Opponents”
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Confirmation Bias- How to be Stupid and Proud of It
“Confirmation Bias is a hell of a drug.”- Mr. Burrito Bowl
There’s a movement by the intellectual elitists happening right now. They climb down from their ivory league towers and say condescending nonsense like, “You guys should look at all the facts before making a decision.” Wow. It must be nice to have the time and/or inclination to look at facts before choosing sides of an issue. Insufferable.
For a long time, I tried to be one of them. I tried to be objective and not form opinions based on feelings but rather on logic. Being an intellectually honest observer was hard. The sweater vests were too hot and I always felt like I was stuck on the sidelines. I’d see the rational points of each camp instead of blindly hollering into the void. It was miserable. After giving up this life I’ve never felt better. If you’re someone who enjoys critical thinking, please, give confirmation bias a try. Continue reading “Confirmation Bias- How to be Stupid and Proud of It”
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The Spectrum of Belief and the Circle of Influence
Today I want to talk about the spectrum of belief, the circle of influence, and how those two interact to move our society forward. If you feel tempted to Google those phrases, don’t bother. I made them up only to later realize they already exist. No matter.
This is a political post, so if you’d rather me not touch the sacred grounds of politics, maybe read one of these articles instead.
Anyway, without offending anyone…
Let’s talk about why the left kind of sucks
Continue reading “The Spectrum of Belief and the Circle of Influence”
