As one who suffers daily in trying to make sense of all the misinformation, disinformation, inversions, "coded" and mirror truths that are available for input into my overworked brain, your suggestions for sifting through the puzzle of possibilities while holding on to one's sanity are much appreciated.
Martin, this is a good way to put such a concept. However, it is only suited to a relatively small percentage of people, in my opinion. Research has shown that most people aren't capable of holding two differing ideas at the same time in their heads. My mind works like yours in this, as for decades I have been putting ideas and possibilities on what I call my Possibles shelves in my brain, and only over the last several years have I been able to move some of them to the Proved shelves. Conspiracy theories can end up on my Possibles shelves for decades!
The problem that seems more difficult and more needed to be resolved is how you get those who can't or don't have this method to join a discussion. For example, in my clear experience, some people are intellectually centered, others emotionally centered, and the rest movement centered. The Left-Right divide isn't strictly Emo-vs-Int, but there is a noticeable bias that way, and it is definitely part of the difficulty we all find ourselves in now.
How do you get emotionally centered people to do the heavy intellectual processing of holding hundreds of Possibles in their head? I doubt it is possible at all. So also for people in movement center. How can intellectually centered people like you and I come to a meeting of the minds - and hearts! - with emotionally centered people on the other side of the political spectrum? And the problem gets even more complicated if you consider the Briggs-Myers test results where some people are xxxP and others xxxJ. The Js want an answer, a judgment, not a lot of lazy considerations.
So here's a question I find interesting: Is there a way to develop a method of dealing with, say, a political issue or a moral issue where that method can obtain the cooperation of smart and stupid, intellectual and emotional and moving, and thinking vs judging people in resolving that issue reliably?
The only way I can think of to do that is that you have to have a single larger cause that unites all in a society and that generates good will among all, at which point public debate can be effective across the society. The uniting theme would be, say, a belief in God or in a nation's constitution and dedication to a higher Spirit. We had that in the USA at many different times when society functioned fairly well, and when we didn't have that, the society tended to blow up. Yet even so, there were evil people concentrated on the Left who have spent the past 200 years working to keep people enslaved. So we've never really had a truly united country even here in the US. Perhaps that is coming. But we still could use a uniting method of communicating and debating, one that also helps screen out the evil people so the rest of us can get on with things together.
Got any thoughts on how to unify all of this, Martin?
As one who suffers daily in trying to make sense of all the misinformation, disinformation, inversions, "coded" and mirror truths that are available for input into my overworked brain, your suggestions for sifting through the puzzle of possibilities while holding on to one's sanity are much appreciated.
When I grow up(I’m only 68), I want to be like you💞
Martin, this is a good way to put such a concept. However, it is only suited to a relatively small percentage of people, in my opinion. Research has shown that most people aren't capable of holding two differing ideas at the same time in their heads. My mind works like yours in this, as for decades I have been putting ideas and possibilities on what I call my Possibles shelves in my brain, and only over the last several years have I been able to move some of them to the Proved shelves. Conspiracy theories can end up on my Possibles shelves for decades!
The problem that seems more difficult and more needed to be resolved is how you get those who can't or don't have this method to join a discussion. For example, in my clear experience, some people are intellectually centered, others emotionally centered, and the rest movement centered. The Left-Right divide isn't strictly Emo-vs-Int, but there is a noticeable bias that way, and it is definitely part of the difficulty we all find ourselves in now.
How do you get emotionally centered people to do the heavy intellectual processing of holding hundreds of Possibles in their head? I doubt it is possible at all. So also for people in movement center. How can intellectually centered people like you and I come to a meeting of the minds - and hearts! - with emotionally centered people on the other side of the political spectrum? And the problem gets even more complicated if you consider the Briggs-Myers test results where some people are xxxP and others xxxJ. The Js want an answer, a judgment, not a lot of lazy considerations.
So here's a question I find interesting: Is there a way to develop a method of dealing with, say, a political issue or a moral issue where that method can obtain the cooperation of smart and stupid, intellectual and emotional and moving, and thinking vs judging people in resolving that issue reliably?
The only way I can think of to do that is that you have to have a single larger cause that unites all in a society and that generates good will among all, at which point public debate can be effective across the society. The uniting theme would be, say, a belief in God or in a nation's constitution and dedication to a higher Spirit. We had that in the USA at many different times when society functioned fairly well, and when we didn't have that, the society tended to blow up. Yet even so, there were evil people concentrated on the Left who have spent the past 200 years working to keep people enslaved. So we've never really had a truly united country even here in the US. Perhaps that is coming. But we still could use a uniting method of communicating and debating, one that also helps screen out the evil people so the rest of us can get on with things together.
Got any thoughts on how to unify all of this, Martin?
you are an amazing source of creative / original thinking, given wings by AI