this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
115 points (91.4% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26903 readers
1638 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I have come across a lot's of people like these. like 99% of them. Sometimes it makes me think twice if what i am saying is wrong? What's wrong with them. Is it so hard to swallow your pride and acknowledge that the other person is speaking facts? When they come to know they are wrong they proceed to insult/make fun of others to save their ass. Just why?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The problem with this is the quiet nihilism baked into it, which is the same reason so many people believe that widely supported science could be wrong.
In the absolute sense, it is true. Though things like "the sky is blue" is more about linguistics, but for a layperson it's kind of inconsequential either way. While there is a small possibility that scientific consensus could be wrong, there is orders of magnitude bigger chance that unwarranted skepticism is dangerous. Reality does exist, regardless of how much epistemology you choose to wave away.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I don’t think so, and he and I have discussed this in epistemological terms several times over the years. “Sky is blue” example was probably bad as would have been “earth is round” etc. The point isn’t that anything can be wrong, though strictly speaking, I guess it can. What we mean is precisely that our minds have the ability to mislead us and powerfully so. But part of the drive to minimize that is to understand the value of consensus in both scientific communities and wider communities.

To have the best ratio of things about which were correct vs incorrect, being confident in things like the outcome of refereed science is helpful.