legionnaire

Sometimes the circle-jerk nature of the majority of discourse on this website drives me insane. I don't know if it's endemic to the site itself or just a symptom of a society that values making people feel good about themselves more than any attempt to search for objective truth. But it's practically everywhere one attempts to look. What amazes me even more is that the rare attempt to inject logic or reasoning into a discussion is not only typically met with open hostility, but is rallied against, as if it were a form of oppression.

Ignorance is oppressive, not knowledge. The beauty of our culture is that since the enlightenment we've come up with simple rules of investigating cause and effect that make assessing a particular statement's validity rather easy. In light of that, changing one's opinion in the face of evidence to the contrary is not a weakness, but in fact strength of character. Continuing to defend an indefensible position because of hurt feelings is a celebration of ignorance. It's the text based equivalent of frat boys smashing beer cans on their heads; a joyful celebration self-destructiveness for its own sake.

Crimes Against Logic, a book I would and have recommended to just about everyone, opens with a rather saddening statement to the effect of "reading this book and following it has made [the author] less friends and less popular in social settings. People don't want to know when they're wrong." Logic is cold, it doesn't spare feelings, but it's right. It works. It's the basis for our entire civilization.