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74 lines
3.1 KiB
74 lines
3.1 KiB
Title: Embrace being proven wrong
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Category: Blog
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Date: 2021-11-26
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Tags: culture, politics
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Status: Draft
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I recently posted an article on my Twitter feed about the shortcomings
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of Flatpak. It resonated with me and my opinions on a subject that,
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it turned out, I didn't know enough about. I had conversations with
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people who were far bigger experts in this area than me, both some in
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favour of Flatpak, and some sceptical, and came to new conclusions.
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Don't get me wrong: I'm still not 100% convinced. I still have
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criticism of Flatpak, as I think anyone can have about anything.
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But I opted to delete my tweet because I didn't feel comfortable with
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the hyperbole of the article. Worse even: in some corners of the
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internet the article had garnered a reputation for "speaking truth to
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power", feeding into a weird Red Hat conspiracy theory that I felt
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even more uncomfortable with.
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## Discourse neurology
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This style of rhetoric, the "taking apart an argument so I don't have
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to think about it too hard", has become very common in modern
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discourse. This is driven by the "fight or flight" response of the
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amygdala in our brains. A feeling of physical anxiety floods us when
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we are on the defensive, for whatever reason. And all logic goes out
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the window.
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Many of the arguments you see online (and many offline too, don't get
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me wrong!) center around this emotional response and it is one that
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our culture fosters as well.
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Admitting to being wrong is seen as a weakness and connected to shame,
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a loss of status, and humiliation. And so, we are never wrong. We
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attack our intellectual oponents in order to relieve ourselves of the
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responsibility of having to engage with an argument that makes us
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uncomfortable. This is how filter bubbles get created too.
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## Hope for the future
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But that's not how it needs to be. And that's what this blog post is
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about.
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Because let's face it: we're all wrong about most things. There are
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too many things to be known, and too little time to know them all.
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And because society favours whitty comebacks at surface level
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discourse, this doesn't change the fact that we are filtering
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ourselves from properly engaging with arguments that we might find
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uncomfortable.
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**There is an antidote however: radical vulnerability and humility.**
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Being wrong is an opportunity to learn something new and to broaden
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your perspective on some topic you didn't understand previously.
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Approach arguments that make you uncomfortable with an open curiocity
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and you will find yourself agreeing with more things than you
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previously thought.
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And this isn't about just changing your opinions either. By engaging
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more openly with things you disagree with you can actually increase
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your resolution on ideas that you hold dear. I'd also like to point
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out that not all ideas are equally valid. Fuck you if you think this
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justifies debating nazis...
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Ultimately I want to approach life with a curiocity that doesn't
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exclude me from new and exciting things that may be happening in the
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communities I'm in, or from ignoring uncomfortable truths about how
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the system we are forced to live in works.
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And maybe, if enough of us do this, we can make this world just a
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little bit better too.
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