The internet polarizes us, emphasizing our similarities and differences

The internet polarizes us, emphasizing both our similarities and differences

We vary in how many of our concepts and opinions overlap, sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less,
but no matter how similar we are to each other, there will always be some topic where we end up with a diametrically different view.

Because we are unable to comprehend how the other person's view formed, we will perceive the other person as illogical, irrational, and nonsensical, from the point of view of our own knowledge, experience and deduction.

On the internet, people are far more open with their opinions, which empowers this effect.

I will repeat my old view here, some people speak in an conceptually different language and will not understand each other, the other people will understand each other to a varying degree.

It's a tricky act of balancing to disagree on some things (sometimes to the level that the other person seems completely idiotic to us) yet work together on other things following a common goal.

Just some thoughts to ponder.

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My personal main goal is to stimulate people to think more, analyze more, to be more meta. I care less about specific opinions, and more about the process of thinking by itself. If I can influence anyone to be more curious and thoughtful of the world, I already fulfilled my main goal.

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Added:	9 years, 8 months ago 24 Aug 2014 10:18 CEST

11 Comments on this Journal

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dech

9 years, 8 months ago

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While that is true in some settings the internet makes us more understanding of others but there are places in the internet just spread hate and bigotry. I really depends on if your moral compass is strong enough to know what is right and wrong.... because sadly the internet can also breed the darkest of people....

sigmaweapon

9 years, 8 months ago

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Illogical, irrational, and nonsensical?

It's not the language of one's words that gives away if one is or isn't. It's the content. What they say, rather than how they say it. Specifically, their answer to the question, "why?"

The greatest indicator of an illogical, irrational, and nonsensical person is the answer, "because!"

supremekitten

9 years, 8 months ago

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@ sigmaweapon

Given the same set of facts two different people can come to two different conclusions, and both will see themselves as logical and rational, convinced the other person isn't. Even given two same conclusions two different people can argue with each other, unable to grasp the other person's speech.
Language in the sense of language of thoughts, what convinces us and the way in which we analyze and synthesize, as well as the way in which we verbalize our opinions.

sigmaweapon

9 years, 8 months ago

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@ supremekitten

"Why?" is the most important question one could ever ask. Reason rests on answering that question. The language one uses to answer "Why?" isn't nearly as important as whether or not one has an answer.

"It's wrong because it's wrong," indicates a person arguing from emotion rather than reason. In other words, making a claim while disregarding the question "why?"

Given the same set of facts two different people can come to two different conclusions, and both will see themselves as right, not necessarily rational. I've seen people admit that their claims aren't logical, but still insist that they're right because they claim that emotion is actually a higher authority than reason!

supremekitten

9 years, 8 months ago

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Edited 9 years, 8 months ago by Owner

@ sigmaweapon

See, there are indeed people who will seem emotion as higher than reason. And people who will go with the paradigm that skepticism and questioning things is wrong. But I would consider this to be a part of what I described as the language of thoughts.
A different language of thoughts and concepts.

for example look at this interesting yellow dressed guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjwKmHzUSl8
He goes on for 2 hours repeating stuff like "I can't explain this to you, because you are an universal skeptic, which means you are skeptical of things." That's the way he thinks, that would be his language of thoughts I suppose. From his point of view skepticism is not a valid way of thinking.

sigmaweapon

9 years, 8 months ago

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@ supremekitten

But what are the consequences of each method of thought? The true reason I call one rational and one irrational is, quite simply, results.

And I fully understand that, save the people going through cognitive dissonance, everyone thinks that they’re right. But consequences speak volumes of the merits of any way of thinking.

What are the consequences of seeing emotion, faith, and semantics as having greater merit than evidence, logic, skepticism? I can name a few: bigotry, institutionalized cruelty, wars of ideology, constant attempts at stagnating society, as well as a fair number of charities, revolutions, and lots of people feeling they’ve found meaning in their lives.

What are the consequences of seeing evidence, logic, and skepticism as having greater merit than emotion, faith, and semantics? I can name a few: almost every technological innovation ever made, vastly higher quality of life for all of humanity, a compulsory humility of admitting that absolute certainty is impossible at least for those who follow this form of thought, as well as giving incredible powers of destruction to people in the previous paragraph, along with the greedy and short-sighted.

And yet these destructive powers are lauded mainly by people who either don’t understand them, or selfish people. And the people who follow the ways of evidence, logic, and skepticism almost universally decry these powers, and seek alternatives to them.

So in the end, it’s such a bitter irony that the thing that has the greatest potential to save us all from the destructive powers unleashed by scientific thought, is more scientific thought!

Consequences, Supremekitten.

supremekitten

9 years, 8 months ago

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Edited 9 years, 8 months ago by Owner

@ sigmaweapon

It's not like anyone can stop human desire to research more sophisticated and often destructive technology. Best that can be done is to put effort in controlling that research so it doesn't get out of hand.

As for different ways of thinking it's problematic, because when you think differently, you will also see different things as evidence, and you will come to different conclusions, and assume different reasons for the same consequences. With how finite our knowledge and understanding is, it's not really possible to conquer this problem. This is further complicated by itself, when people who think differently, have different conclusions, in turn they have different agendas, and on top of that many people are deliberately not truthful for multiple reasons. So scientific data and statistical data is often misrepresented, or just straight out falsified to suit the person's goals. In turn the other people have nothing solid to fall on when coming to their own conclusions. So in the end I have to sadly admit, in many problematic topics we are forced to base our opinions on our own intuition, because there are many contradictory statistics, contradictory word of mouth and myths floating around, and social issues generally can't validated on a personal level either. I feel in a case like this you are left purely with your own intuition and experience, but these vary greatly based on the person, and often contradict each other for multiple reasons... and even if they weren't, it's a subpar way of finding truth.

It's a problem.

Weiss

9 years, 8 months ago

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"Because we are unable to comprehend how the other person's view formed, we will perceive the other person as illogical, irrational, and nonsensical, from the point of view of our own knowledge, experience and deduction."
This is especially true on Youtube.Over the years that o got there i noticed that if someone posts an opinion that goes against the majority of opinions(The fact of being wrong or right is irrelevant here) then the majority will jump at that person and constantly hammer the fact that they are "wrong" because their opinion goes against he majority. This is especially true when criticizing famous Youtubers