Lesson: Laziness and Lack of Critical Thinking
Sunday, September 13, 2015
, Posted by ManilasMan at 8:28 AM
When I took an American History course (shit, 10 years ago), my history professor focused an interesting amount of her time on the myths of history and how the myth itself becomes so important that we actually need to focus on the myth. As she explained it, those myths take on meaningful, relevant and important role in the development of our culture. One area of focus that garnered immediate reaction from the class —some of which was anger— was the "Edison Invented the Light Bulb" myth.
She went into great detail pointing out just how much of a massive dick-hole Edison was, how he sued people out of business, how he slandered people. He was as crooked as the day was long. One of the angry students asked her [paraphrasing as best as I can], "What business is it of yours to destroy the legends of these people? We need great historic men to respect and if people like you tear them down, then we don't have anybody to respect."
See, he made an emotional argument. He needed the myth of X to be what it was NOT because it was true, but because his idealism depended on that thing being a slogan, a rallying cry for something he felt was of greater value than "the truth". My history professor actually agreed, slightly, with him. But only slightly. She pointed out, as I frequently do, that people are lazy and people want history to be easy, approachable and quick. They want our good guys to be all good and our bad guys to be all bad.
The danger as she, and I explain to you now, is that this creates a cyclical human experience whereby the lessons of history are forgotten and we fail to use discretion as we should. Instead of freaking out when we learn the truth about a thing, we need to understand that all subject matters are nuanced, complex and not just casually approachable. Everything, every human, every company, every event is highly complex and detailed. That is why it's lazy to hold Hitler up as "all evil" and Lincoln up as "all good".
It makes us lazy. And behind that laziness and lack of critical thinking, danger almost always approaches us. It sneaks up on us before it's way too late. That, right there, is the DANGER of saying, "Monsanto is evil!"
It employs this massive human fallacy of wanting things quick and easy. "What's the one sentence solution to X?" "Doctors hate him because of this one trick!" "Lose weight by avoiding this one food!" "Get rid of inflammation and diabetes by eating this one basic superfood every day!"
Monsanto is the rallying cry for a bunch of idealist, zealots who depend on that mantra in exactly the same way religious zealots shill the holiness of their deity or theological cause. It 100% mimics the techniques of the anti-vaxers as well. They employ the exact same techniques:
Here's the truth. Once we marry ourselves to an ideal, a cause, a thing, we become completely incapable of actually critically thinking about it. We lose touch with reality. Our emotional "buy in" prevents us from being objective and honest with ourselves. We perceive attacks on the idea as an attack on ourselves. We employ all sorts of fallacies and zealotry.
Does this sound familiar? Does it remind you of the tactics religious people use? Of course it does.
Now, there are certainly some studies done that show potential for danger in certain GMO crops. But the zealot / "bias confirming" individual sees those as the most important studies, all the rest (the, LITERALLY, thousands upon thousands done all over the world) that show that GMO's are safe, don't count. They are discounted.
The stories about how evil Monsanto is are elevated to gospel. People who doubt them are attacked. People who approve of them are deemed good. But as the actual, verifiable facts show, Monsanto is just a company. It is a mixture of good and bad (and there are things I don't like that they do), but Monsanto is no more evil than Google or Facebook or Microsoft or GM or Kroger. As a human organization it does things that we might not approve of, but the massive attention it gets is bloated by uninformed, fact-denying zealots who see their cause as righteous and any "white lie" told to destroy Monsanto is ultimately good and just.
Now, does this imply the opposite (that Monsanto is good, great or amazing)? No. We do not do "false dilemma fallacies". This only means that the "Monsanto is evil" claims are unsubstantiated. It means that we leave Monsanto in the very critical realm where skeptics leave things: neutrality. There is now a Social Meme that has taken on a life of its own ("Edison invented the light bulb", "Paul Revere rode!"; "Columbus was a great man!"), and to tear it down means incurring wrath. Monsanto might be evil, that's 100% possible, but it remains unproven and wholly unsubstantiated by empirical, original source (not propaganda) materials we have to examine.
But that's not enough. This mantra prevents the zealot from admitting that they were wrong. Like with anti-vaxers, is so humiliating, that the The Backfire Effect and Confirmation Bias further reinforces those beliefs more strongly to assuage the shame and buttress the idealism. It is a new religion and to oppose it means personal, profound attacks. As a skeptic, I reject all idealism that cannot be substantiated by strong evidence. Anti-Monsanto people may not be chopping heads off in the desert, but they're employing the same formulaic mental mechanisms that not only permit that vile behavior, but in the end, permit all sorts of human horrors.
Being a skeptic is hard. It means that EVERYTHING is doubted. Every cause. Every idea is inspected. And when an uncomfortable truth comes out, they take the unpopular stance, because the truth matters more than idealism. But that's hard and, in fact, far too hard for most people on Earth. We all need a religion, apparently, and those who find the older ones distasteful have seemingly latched on to this bullshit as a perfect substitute.
And this whole thing. . . right now, comes to you from me: the guy who wrote 15 answers here on Quora on how evil Monsanto was. I deleted every one of them one year ago (this month, 2015-February) because of a challenge (by Ryan Carlyle) that was posted to me and I post it to you: using ONLY original source, scientific and empirical evidence that is filtered to you through not ONE propaganda website, find anything to substantiate that Monsanto meets an acceptable standard of "evil". If you standard of "evil" is "capitalism" or "makes general mistakes that all companies do." Then so be it. Then all companies are evil.
But if your standard is pragmatic, then you will quickly conclude thatMonsanto is not shown to be evil (though, ALL auto manufacturers might well be -- but that discussion is for another time). BUT IT STILLCOULD BE. We may get strong evidence that proves me wrong and shows Monsanto is evil. But that strong evidence doesn't exist. Monsanto remains in that neutral territory where we watch their behaviors with unwavering criticism. (They're a company after all! They deserve the scrutiny of all of us)
I also submit to you (and openly taunt you and challenge you) do the same thing I did. Most people are married to their slogans and cannot let them go. It's too painful. It's too hard. It hurts to say publicly, "I was totally wrong. Everything I believe is suspect and subject to change at any time." Their social circles are built around those ideals. So even when the zealot finds out they are wrong, they still cling, because it means abandoning too many of the ancillary things that are important to them. If you're a skeptic, then spend ONE MONTH truly arguing against your cause.
But you won't. Not one person anywhere has taken me up on this challenge: using only court documents and original source materials, find evidence that Monsanto is evil. And no, Wikipedia doesn't count.
She went into great detail pointing out just how much of a massive dick-hole Edison was, how he sued people out of business, how he slandered people. He was as crooked as the day was long. One of the angry students asked her [paraphrasing as best as I can], "What business is it of yours to destroy the legends of these people? We need great historic men to respect and if people like you tear them down, then we don't have anybody to respect."
See, he made an emotional argument. He needed the myth of X to be what it was NOT because it was true, but because his idealism depended on that thing being a slogan, a rallying cry for something he felt was of greater value than "the truth". My history professor actually agreed, slightly, with him. But only slightly. She pointed out, as I frequently do, that people are lazy and people want history to be easy, approachable and quick. They want our good guys to be all good and our bad guys to be all bad.
The danger as she, and I explain to you now, is that this creates a cyclical human experience whereby the lessons of history are forgotten and we fail to use discretion as we should. Instead of freaking out when we learn the truth about a thing, we need to understand that all subject matters are nuanced, complex and not just casually approachable. Everything, every human, every company, every event is highly complex and detailed. That is why it's lazy to hold Hitler up as "all evil" and Lincoln up as "all good".
It makes us lazy. And behind that laziness and lack of critical thinking, danger almost always approaches us. It sneaks up on us before it's way too late. That, right there, is the DANGER of saying, "Monsanto is evil!"
It employs this massive human fallacy of wanting things quick and easy. "What's the one sentence solution to X?" "Doctors hate him because of this one trick!" "Lose weight by avoiding this one food!" "Get rid of inflammation and diabetes by eating this one basic superfood every day!"
Monsanto is the rallying cry for a bunch of idealist, zealots who depend on that mantra in exactly the same way religious zealots shill the holiness of their deity or theological cause. It 100% mimics the techniques of the anti-vaxers as well. They employ the exact same techniques:
- Slogans: "GMO is evil!" "GMO is killing us!"
- Unsubstantiated assertions: "Do you know that Indians have been committing suicide because of GMO crops!"
- Ad Hominem attacks: "You're obviously too stupid to see the evidence!"
- Straw man arguments: "What? Are you working for Monsanto? Are they paying you to say this?"
- Hot buttoning: "Monsanto is evil and you're defending this evil company!"
- Hysteria / Hyperbole: "Fine. You're going to die and all the biodiversity is going to be destroyed by this GMO business!"
- Outright lying: "Monsanto has sued farmers out of existence for false reasons!"
- Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: "Well, ever since we started using GMO, [insert bad thing here] has been on the rise!"
- Cherry Picking: "Monsanto has sued farmers for X." (never explaining the full legal details)
- Confirmation Bias: "I read on XYZ website how people who eat GMOs are complaining about X diseases now.¨
- Anecdotal evidence: "My friend/cousin was sued by Monsanto." Or, "Since I switched to all organic, I feel better."
Here's the truth. Once we marry ourselves to an ideal, a cause, a thing, we become completely incapable of actually critically thinking about it. We lose touch with reality. Our emotional "buy in" prevents us from being objective and honest with ourselves. We perceive attacks on the idea as an attack on ourselves. We employ all sorts of fallacies and zealotry.
Does this sound familiar? Does it remind you of the tactics religious people use? Of course it does.
Now, there are certainly some studies done that show potential for danger in certain GMO crops. But the zealot / "bias confirming" individual sees those as the most important studies, all the rest (the, LITERALLY, thousands upon thousands done all over the world) that show that GMO's are safe, don't count. They are discounted.
The stories about how evil Monsanto is are elevated to gospel. People who doubt them are attacked. People who approve of them are deemed good. But as the actual, verifiable facts show, Monsanto is just a company. It is a mixture of good and bad (and there are things I don't like that they do), but Monsanto is no more evil than Google or Facebook or Microsoft or GM or Kroger. As a human organization it does things that we might not approve of, but the massive attention it gets is bloated by uninformed, fact-denying zealots who see their cause as righteous and any "white lie" told to destroy Monsanto is ultimately good and just.
Now, does this imply the opposite (that Monsanto is good, great or amazing)? No. We do not do "false dilemma fallacies". This only means that the "Monsanto is evil" claims are unsubstantiated. It means that we leave Monsanto in the very critical realm where skeptics leave things: neutrality. There is now a Social Meme that has taken on a life of its own ("Edison invented the light bulb", "Paul Revere rode!"; "Columbus was a great man!"), and to tear it down means incurring wrath. Monsanto might be evil, that's 100% possible, but it remains unproven and wholly unsubstantiated by empirical, original source (not propaganda) materials we have to examine.
But that's not enough. This mantra prevents the zealot from admitting that they were wrong. Like with anti-vaxers, is so humiliating, that the The Backfire Effect and Confirmation Bias further reinforces those beliefs more strongly to assuage the shame and buttress the idealism. It is a new religion and to oppose it means personal, profound attacks. As a skeptic, I reject all idealism that cannot be substantiated by strong evidence. Anti-Monsanto people may not be chopping heads off in the desert, but they're employing the same formulaic mental mechanisms that not only permit that vile behavior, but in the end, permit all sorts of human horrors.
Being a skeptic is hard. It means that EVERYTHING is doubted. Every cause. Every idea is inspected. And when an uncomfortable truth comes out, they take the unpopular stance, because the truth matters more than idealism. But that's hard and, in fact, far too hard for most people on Earth. We all need a religion, apparently, and those who find the older ones distasteful have seemingly latched on to this bullshit as a perfect substitute.
And this whole thing. . . right now, comes to you from me: the guy who wrote 15 answers here on Quora on how evil Monsanto was. I deleted every one of them one year ago (this month, 2015-February) because of a challenge (by Ryan Carlyle) that was posted to me and I post it to you: using ONLY original source, scientific and empirical evidence that is filtered to you through not ONE propaganda website, find anything to substantiate that Monsanto meets an acceptable standard of "evil". If you standard of "evil" is "capitalism" or "makes general mistakes that all companies do." Then so be it. Then all companies are evil.
But if your standard is pragmatic, then you will quickly conclude thatMonsanto is not shown to be evil (though, ALL auto manufacturers might well be -- but that discussion is for another time). BUT IT STILLCOULD BE. We may get strong evidence that proves me wrong and shows Monsanto is evil. But that strong evidence doesn't exist. Monsanto remains in that neutral territory where we watch their behaviors with unwavering criticism. (They're a company after all! They deserve the scrutiny of all of us)
I also submit to you (and openly taunt you and challenge you) do the same thing I did. Most people are married to their slogans and cannot let them go. It's too painful. It's too hard. It hurts to say publicly, "I was totally wrong. Everything I believe is suspect and subject to change at any time." Their social circles are built around those ideals. So even when the zealot finds out they are wrong, they still cling, because it means abandoning too many of the ancillary things that are important to them. If you're a skeptic, then spend ONE MONTH truly arguing against your cause.
But you won't. Not one person anywhere has taken me up on this challenge: using only court documents and original source materials, find evidence that Monsanto is evil. And no, Wikipedia doesn't count.
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