Just going through a slew of old Twitch whispers. I appreciate most of them, but it is hard to answer then all every time.
One thing became really clear, people believe what they want to believe no matter how much evidence you present to them, about anything. It was good to realize this for myself because I’m sure I’m not immune from it. The level of straight-up lies people have chosen to believe is absolutely astounding. Meanwhile, people who have put in the time to understand the issues usually come to the same conclusions that I have with the same information.
Another conclusion is that sometimes it is just better to remove oneself from the conversation completely, that no good will come of further engagement. This is not “cancel culture,” it is self-preservation. I know it contradicts the suggestion that conversation and dialog are the only path to human progress. But, there are times when a person demands so much time and energy and attention that it is simply unsustainable to maintain that relationship. The trick is knowing when to disengage. My greatest failure has been remaining engaged with people far too long, seeking to understand their position, allowing them to rob me of my time, happiness, and mental energy while the entire time they have not even the slightest desire to have an actual dialog, they just want to tell me what to think.
One of the reasons I linger so long with such individuals is my own fear of unknowingly being the victim of my own cognitive dissonance, of not truly trying to understand at least why they believe as they do. I sincerely want to understand them, until things get really obviously toxic.
My admonition to all is to identify and avoid such people immediately and just don’t engage with them. Here are the classic signs of such people:
Here are some solid examples of such human beings today:
This is distinctly different than those who are passionate, even adamant about a position they have well researched, but will change immediately when presented with new, objective information. If you are looking for examples of such people to emulate (who are the polar opposite of the former):
The biggest way to distinguish these people is to look into their behavior. How much of it is dedicated to improving the human condition (rather than ripping it down). And how often do the following three simple words “I was wrong” appear. If you never, ever see these words from that person you can rest assured that any engagement with them whatsoever will be an utter and complete waste of time, that listening to what they have to say serves no purpose whatsoever other than to understand how to combat such thinking.
For the record, I’ve been wrong about so many things there’s no way I could even keep track of them all, but then again, so have the world’s best scientists. But, I’m happy to count myself way lower on the list of people I admire who can say, “I was wrong” and improve. It’s the people who see no room for improvement in themselves at all (the “greatest”, etc.) that are downright dangerous to civilized society, and history has proved this over and over.