I am concerned that the clear‐headedness we Sol 3 hominids need at this time in history is being lost in damn stupid binary thinking. (Binary: this mode of thinking assumes that there are two possibilities … either A is right or B is right. One or the other.)
Suppose we have an important issue. We divide ourselves into opposing groups. For instance—and remember one could reverse the “pro” and “anti”: Anti folks tend to believe and repeat almost anything that reinforces their belief that pro isbad. Pro folks see a piece of misinformation repeated by anti (quite possibly among valid concerns and correct information)… “THAT piece of anti stuff is wrong,” they think, “therefore, we are RIGHT and they are WRONG.” Both sides often fail to question their own stuff and to consider the other guy’s stuff. C’mon, folks, the issue is complex.
Binary thinking can lead to failure to look at the other side intelligently. If they are sometimes bad and wrong this does not prove that they are never good and right. If they are wrong that does not prove that their human needs and processes are not valid.
An assumption that the other side is always the same and bad—this can cause many people to overlook important differences in those they think of as the other.
Questioning our own positions is important. It is unfortunate if dwelling on the other guy being bad undermines that. The bad‐wrongness of the other guy does not make us innocent and right.
Oh, and, let’s not binary‐think the issue of binary thinking. There will be a third, or a 3.14 th point of view.
Hey, waddif.. what if people, as a group, can learn to be smarter, so that the customs that govern people’s thinking can grow and change so as to make binary thinking less of a problem..
Whaddif … what if we were to encounter aliens from somewhere or other, and a terrible conflict is averted at the last moment when xcvrthz figures out the problem in communication. On the third hand, sht says, the humans fail to understand us because they evolved with that unfortunate bilateral symmetry……. cut it out Caril.
From Molten Wood and Feral Ideas chasens.ca/book