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by wutbrodo 3818 days ago
> People are pragmatic. We tend to invest in knowing the actual truth proportionally to how the issue is actually important to us. Hence most disagreements are about things that actually cost us nothing when we get them wrong.

This is even worse! You're substituting malice for stupidity. Someone who doesn't bother learning or even thinking about a topic but then takes actions that affect other people (like voting) should be ashamed of themselves: to me they're culpable in the same way as someone intentionally causing the same damage (tho I suppose it would be 50% as culpable for a binary policy). It's even less excusable when you consider that in your construction, the policy doesn't even affect them.

I've pretty firmly condemned lack of intellectual rigor for a long time, and by far the most common response I've gotten is "not everyone has the time or will to try to become informed on every issue". I fully agree, but I personally don't talk confidently about or act on any issue that I haven't at least attempted to learn about, and I don't understand why this is considered so difficult. The only reason I can imagine is wanting to feel and seem informed without putting in any of the time to become so. It's pretty despicable to me when that tendency ends up having real life policy impacts.

1 comments

> I've pretty firmly condemned lack of intellectual rigor for a long time, and by far the most common response I've gotten is "not everyone has the time or will to try to become informed on every issue".

Yeah. A lot of people don't seem to realize that not having an opinion is also a viable, and in those cases the right, option. But it ties to:

> The only reason I can imagine is wanting to feel and seem informed without putting in any of the time to become so.

I'll give you another one - signaling. Especially in debates that have some audience, it's a way for people to show their allegiance. The argument doesn't even have to convince anyone. It seems that most arguments on social media go like this.