| No, not because of his politics, but because of (among other elements) his political argument methods. If ESR would pose credible arguments and facts, exhibit critical thinking facility, not stoop to denigrating his counterparts, etc., I'd find his points of view more substantive. But he does none of that, and, rather, the opposite. I do seek out contradicting evidence, among my mantras (and a conspicuous posted note to myself) is "seek to disprove". I've changed my mind and/or views on a number of significant points and in some cases major views over the past few years. I do that based on evidence and argument, though. It's not a casual process, and doesn't happen easily. But being able to admit I'm wrong is a large part of it. Also: not insisting on being wrong (valuing belief consistency with time over consistency with observed reality). Questioning everything is, however, rather exhausting. Developing heuristics for when to start digging in to apparent bullshit claims helps a lot. https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/28ge14/on_nons... |