any number of people way smarter then I
It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves. - Franz Kafka
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell
the older I get i realise the less I know, which is the wisdom age should bring
You forgot Josh Billings, “It ain’t what you don’t know that’s the problem. It’s what you know that isn’t so.”
I do this often, but it does make people mad.
Oh well, can’t make miserable people happy
I routinely tell my mentees, “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer
“I dont know” may be perfectly acceptable, but the mark of great people is “let me go find out, and get back to you”
“I don’t know enough to have an opinion… so I’m just not going to vote”
And you wonder how we ended up with Trump in 24. I’m sorry, but that phrase works for a lot of things except politics where it’s your civic duty to educate yourself.
Theres plenty of things going on in the world for 11 months a year that im not up to date on to have a political opinion on. That doesnt mean that i dont vote.
These two things are not mutually inclusive
I mean if the trump voters could admit that we’d be ok
How about “… so I’ll read up on it and let you know what I find out.”
Phrase works fine if it’s a starting point, not if it’s an end state.
“I am not not educated enough on this subject to supply an answer.”
As someone else said a lot of people get upset with it. I can understand the frustration from the perspective of someone requesting advice or information from a professional but surely you’d rather have a professional who can admit they don’t have an answer and take the time to seek out the proper answer, rather than one who will just give you a wrong answer or a guess.
General problem. The same thing in science, negative results (tried this, didn’t work) are extremely valuable but not publishable in general, relegated to lab lore. So people constantly re-invent the wheel. Sucks.
Normalize saying “I don’t know.”
While we’re on the subject, we also need to normalize “No.” It’s a complete sentence.
There’s a great saying that “Saying yes is saying no to many things. Saying no is saying no to one thing.”
You’re also going to want to keep some version of “and I don’t trust that your explanation will be unbiased” in your back pocket.
also “this is my opinion, but I really don’t know much about the matter”
We need to vote in elected representatives who are willing to admit this.
To paraphrase Paul Krugman, politicians are often more easily swayed by well-dressed lobbyists than nerdy economists.
George W. Bush was infamous for this. He believed he was smart about everything, but then was swayed by particularly emphatic advisors. And soon he was surrounded by emphatic lobbyists.
Today we’re watching as Dunning–Kruger effect takes hold, since Trump believes he’s the smartest man in the room, and is remarkably easy to manipulate by foreign assets. In fact, it’s such an issue it should be regarded as a national security crisis.
I guess this all to say, don’t be like Bush or Trump.
People will still say that isn’t enough and that you need to have a strong stance regardless of your knowledge
What is this? A nuanced take? Why I oughta….
Listen here! This is lemmy! I’m now going to complain to the mods that your post and comments be removed because I either don’t like or don’t understand them!
this is literally an unnuanced take
It literally isn’t. It’s a suggestion that admitting ignorance should be normalized.
you consider the response of “I don’t know” …to have nuance to it?
me every day! it gets easier to say and accept the more you do it, kinda like working out.
there’s no shame in being ignorant. I think that’s the issue a lot of people have when trying to apply this mentality
Growing up and hearing old couples’ women complain about how the men can’t ask for directions even when they’re lost and then just laugh annoyedly at them made me realize this long ago
Promote and encourage climbing Perry’s Scheme of learning, and use Sagan’s baloney detection kit too, so you don’t fall for all the bs bad maga policies that aren’t good for the majority, like proven ways are. Join together in real truth and community, not conditional belonging of dualistic groups. Also so many people say they “feel” this or that, rather than actually search and learn about the topic with real info. That’s part of gathering quality data to weigh the evidence to advance up to real convictions, but open to new data.
