Intelligence: To pander or not to pander?

Take it to PMs, Tegumi! Let's not disrupt this ENTIRELY OFF-TOPIC DISCUSSION any further.

I just want to stop by and say this: I think people very easily fall into the trap of demonizing ignorant people. I fully understand WHY people feel that way, but I feel that a little bit of wisdom goes a long way: Being right isn't the most important thing in the world and being wrong isn't the ill in most need of curing.

For some reason we have this very primal instinct that we HAVE to correct people, that we can't just accept that they are wrong and move on. We go to such lengths just to argue and argue and argue. Ultimately it's silly. Like you say in the opening post, in perhaps a little too aggressive of terms, often times you won't convince anyone and there is a lot of antagonism on both sides.

Yes, there are definitely times where argument is warranted. There ARE important things that you should stick up for. But the vast majority of things in life aren't that important. Just let it go for the sake of social cohesion. Trust me, if you are so focused on being right you end up carrying around a lot of extra baggage and you end up hurting yourself.

I believe the need to "correct" people or "enlighten" them, comes from a deep seated reason within most of us to maintain control. Recently I've started to care less and less...

...and this article resonated deeply with my sentiment:
The Compulsion to Control: Book excerpt from Losing Control, Finding Serenity

I don't believe in any religion, and I'm a man of science but...

IMO

People have their own views and you just have to learn to accept that fact. It seems like you're trying to say that people who think differently than you are stupid... Not always a good thing to torment someone just because they're not on your side. It also depends on whether or not this discussion you're having is serious or not.

I'm more inclined to option 2 because it's a fight you're not gonna win. You can't coerce someone into changing and it's just wrong anyway. I actually favor opposing opinions because they help me determine my own opinion on the subject.

However there are certain things to watch out for:
-one being that someones argument failed to fully explain what they meant.
-lastly, the argument was one sided, meaning they failed to see the other persons point of view.

Now I'm not perfect by any means, and my opinion of stupid people may differ from you, but this argument you're having isn't valid and is actually ignorant.



Whoa... Tegumi... You are flipin' awesome, I love it!!! BTW I'm not be sarcastic. Also your words are filled with much wisdom I like it. Keep an open mind.

I stopped trying to argue with people when I realised that I had never once gotten into an argument and changed someone else's mind. Directly confronting someone on an issue generally puts them on the defensive and makes them even less receptive to what you have to say.

What imaginary argument are you talking about? Nobody is arguing here, except for tegumi and that idiot del for a little while.

that is the most maddening thing for me. when i lay out a valid, logical, well thought out statement, and my oponent doesen't even bother to listen. it seems people like that only understand the argument of the stick.


i'll not suffer fools gladly. people who take pride in their ignorance and refuse to see things from any other point of view deserve to be manipulated and taken advantage of.

Depends on my mood, and how dense the person is.

If the person seems open, sure, I'll discuss it if I feel like it.

If the person is a moron and resorting to ad hominems, then fuck it. Morons will be morons and it isn't my job to educate them. Any discussion where I suddenly drop out or not explain is an example, such as the torture thread.

Thank you, you practically took the words out of my mouth.

Culture rules everything in intelligence.

I try to help them to suit their needs, with numbing the words down or without. It all depends the persons background, to deem them truly ignorant. Ignorance is bliss. So, how is ignorance not the true intelligence, if intelligence makes you happy?

Just a question to add on.

Agreed. Wrong choice of words. But I'm sure you got the gist of what I was saying.

For most of your post yes. I wanted clarification on what you thought wasn't valid.

I'll stick with option 2. Mainly through what I experienced with other people.

Fight me Grover. I triple-diple-dog dare you to get your ass over here across space and time right now and fight me. Come at me bro, COME AT ME!

As I said before, maybe not clear and precise enough, but it sounds like you're personally attacking anyone who doesn't agree with you. Of course all this was just an opinion of mine and what I thought about the subject you were discussing.

Let me give you an example of a post you posted so you can understand what I mean.

You posted this video correct?



Well in this video the person discussing the subject understands both sides of the subject and can therefore give an intelligent answer that is both enlightening and informative. And again IMO you may be smarter than most but you let your arrogance get in the way too much.

Personally I prefer to leave em alone, it gives me more time to enjoy hentai. However it depends on what kind of environment it occurs in.

If wow, I gank and then corpse camp em if they're on my server.

If card game, cream them completely utterly crushingly destroyed in the duel.

To put it in simple terms, beat em up til they get ownt.

Its so far less annoying that way, unfortunately such a perfect solution doesn't work in real life unless you want cops touching your ass. Its better to politely leave and have fun somewhere else.

It depends on what you think of the person you're talking to. If you dislike the people you're interacting with, why try to explain things to them? For everyone else, you should explain what you mean if they don't understand. In life, you have to interact with people, so you'd best learn to at least tolerate them. For me, the key point is that remembering that we all work based on assumed knowledge. Just because I say something, it doesn't mean the person I'm talking to will know what I mean. If they don't understand, I explain it.

I was never talking about simple disagreements. This position I am discussing is only for when the person you are discussing something with shows themselves to be completely ignorant on the subject, and refuses to admit fault. I can see why my post would seem very arrogant if you assumed I was talking about anyone who disagreed with me, but that is not the case.

I seem to be confusing you way too much so this should completely clarify it. If not ask and I shall deliver a better response so that you can fully understand what it is I am trying to tell you.

When I answered your post the first time I was giving my answer to the subject and my thoughts of it. I wasn't saying anything about "simple disagreements", I was just giving out more information on the subject. The second paragraph has my actual response. But then you asked me for more information about my comment/opinion of why I thought your post wasn't valid when dealing with people intelligently.

I already told you why I thought it wasn't valid. What I was trying to say was that you thought this person was ignorant only because he/she didn't know what you knew, failing to see their point of view. Now because the only example you gave us was "religion" I based my response off of that.

So to clarify: your discussion is ignorant/not valid because you fail to see why they think or believe what they do. A intelligent response demands intelligent thinking. I used the video to give you an example of how to talk to someone who by you is "completely ignorant about the subject and arguing from their ass".

Also you seem to be contradicting yourself I'm afraid. You say "I'm not talking about anyone who disagrees with me" but then you say "The people I am talking about are completely ignorant on the subject, and refuse to admit fault." This person who "refuses to admit fault" is not agreeing with you and you're basically saying this person should admit fault because I'm right. Think about it, does everybody agree that this person is wrong or just you? When you talk about religion not everyone is going to agree with you so to them you're wrong. When scientists come up with new explanations to new things they don't just assume that because what i know to be true this is right. They think could there possibly be another explanation for this, one that I don't know. For instance, blackhole's are something that we have detailed theories for but we don't really know why it is there or what would happen if you went inside because we've never really experienced it, touched it, got close to it, etc. Just stuff to think about....

I would usually go for option two, because if they're too insistent on a certain subject, it's really hopeless to try and best them at being stubborn. I wouldn't want to end up in a fight, either, so that's an issue aswell.

But, for option one, if I'm really trying to get this person to understand what he/she is arguing about, like that person was being ignorant about a political issue and misunderstanding the whole idea of it. Sometimes, people are just very stubborn and wont listen to you though, that's a tough thing to deal with. It gets irritating when you try to tell someone something and it just goes in one ear and out the other.