[ale] [OT] why political posts on ALE blow up into garbage

[Larry Johnson]

On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128490874
>
> "A new body of research out of the University of Michigan suggests that's
> not what happens, that we base our opinions on beliefs and when presented
> with contradictory facts, we adhere to our original belief even more
> strongly. "
>
> The article is a transcript of an interview so it's a bit disjointed. The
> meat of the discussion begins around the first
>
> (Soundbite of laughter)
>
>
> --
> --
> James P. Kinney III
> Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
> Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits
>
>   Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by
> faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.
>     Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith", 1992
>
>
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>
Pretty good interview, and not really all that off topic if we really want
to understand advocacy, and advance free software (and free music as well
((*lisp quotes intended) another issue of mine)).  We all tend to shut out
any ideas which contradict our predetermined beliefs.  In the OS sense I try
to fight that within myself by doing two things on opposite ends of the
spectrum.  One is installing whatever new OS Microsoft has released and
giving it a bit of a chance (Vista lasted three weeks -- Windows 7 is
actually usable. and I'm sporadically using a cheap laptop running it), the
other is  installing and configuring operating systems which are only used
by a small number of people (Minix 3 is my current project).

The moral of the story is to really examine wherever you are based on better
criteria than where you have been.  It's one of the reasons that George
Bernard Shaw is my personal hero.

Larry


Metaphorically I'd place Microsoft as mainstream conservatisim, Linux as
Liberalism (in the American sense of the term) the Libertarian right
represented by Apple, and the left fringes occupied by Minix 3, the Hurd,
etc.

-- 
"I see design standards that don't tell you how to come up with a good
design (only how to write it down), employee evaluation standards that don't
help you build meaningful long-term relationships with staff, testing
standards that don't tell you how to invent a test that is worth running."

                                     Tom DeMarco
                                      Slack
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