Common sense is a rarity in people nowadays. This has created many problems, one of which is that people tend to listen to others’ opinions and accept them as their own thoughts, rather than trusting their own common sense and intuition. For example, they often rely on AI, doctors, celebrities, politicians, or other authority figures more than on themselves, who yes given plenty of incorrect information, allot of times intentionally. They might know something is a lie but ignore their skepticism because “Celebrity A” said it’s true. Sometimes, they even listen to their uninformed neighbors more than to themselves or to people on social media, who, ironically, also don’t listen to their own judgment. It’s a clown world.

  • squaresinger@lemmy.world
    1·
    10 hours ago

    People who listen to noone but themselves (ergo have no education and no outside resources to rely upon) will come to the conclusion that the earth is flat, because the concept of a round earth needs quite a bit of understanding to even come up with that idea.

    But you are shifting your point now. Now it’s not about whether listening to people is good or bad, but about which people to listen to. You are not acknowledging that you are shifting your point but claim that this was your point all along.

    That argumentative tactic is called the motte-and-bailey fallacy:

    • You start with a sexy, controverisal, but hard to defend position (the “bailey”): Listening to people is bad. People should listen to themselves.
    • When you see that you can’t defend that point, you switch to a more easy to defend position (the “motte”), but claim that it’s the same argument: Well, people should actually listen to the right people, and sometimes use intuition, especially to discern who to listen to.

    These two points are wildly different. The first one is plain nonsense, the second one is close to a tautology.

    And that’s the point of this strategy: If people agree to the second position, you claim that this is just a rephrase of your original position, even though that’s really not true.

    It’s a commonly used strategy (Jordan Peterson has practically built his whole career on that strategy), but that doesn’t make the style of argumentation valid.

    • Unpopular Truth@lemmy.worldOP
      11·
      10 hours ago

      You fake intellectuals are stupid beyond belief, I’m not switching anything I always thought it was bad to listen to people. I was saying from the beginning people listen to others more than themselves. Also I never said listen to NOONE. You are just taking it to the extreme because you missed the first point in the first place. Also this isn’t an argument this is you all not getting that you can be a free thinker while primarily listening to your own instincts, intuition, and utilizing common sesne. Which was my complaint (people seldom do it) but that doesn’t mean listen to no one in the whole world. That’s why in my original post I never mentioned that extreme position.