2025-03-26

Confidence in one's own idea as the absolute truth astounds me. When I see this attitude towards truth being exemplified by some people I see, I am met with a certain type of defeat that paralyzes my reasoning. How do these people can say for certain that what they think is the truth? Even at least without acknowledging that there is a huge possibility that they could be wrong? Alongside this sense of defeat, I am also feeling a strong frustration that exposes my own intellectual arrogance with the thought that this lack of intellectual humility is also a huge factor that sets humanity back from progressing.

Unexamined logical fallacies are being thrown in these supposed "debates" that we see online. Pitting one group of people against another who hold the opposite perspective from the other. While the "goal" of finding a common ground is one of the desirable outcomes that we want for people to start collaborating, it proliferates the idea that arguing is a valid method in which these things can be resolved. It sets an illusion under the guise of entertainment--despite valid points are being thrown around but their impact does not last because much of these conversations become myopic within five minutes. Jargons get thrown around, statistics (often unverified) are carelessly dropped as if it's a symbol of truth, anecdotal evidences are always being treated as a placeholder for truth, and the list goes on.

What we need is a Socratic dialogue that allows for refinement of thought and idea. Even if I know that this is more idealistic than what we have right now because of the various perspectives, each having their own respective biases and emotional attachment with these ideologies, these conversations must also be held responsibly by being emotionally and intellectually mature humans. The last thing that we should always want to do during an argument is to nitpick information, use that against the other person because of the simple fact that it is the lowest hanging fruit in an argument. The emotional hijacking has always been too visible. A lot of times, I get too fed up on watching people talk like this without being aware. A lot of times, it's just too much to accept that we have become like this. All of this is just a major disappointment.