Young shopper: Do you have any memes?
Owner: Every book here is full of memes.
Young shopper: Do you have any memes?
Owner: Every book here is full of memes.
@cy I mean, I've been at this a very long time. (Decades, both as a cult researcher and before that when I *was* in a cult.) The frontal approach never works, and neither does deconstructing every little detail of their point. You've got to keep it simple, pick a direction and ask questions, something they're not doing. Get down to basic values. Get them to 1. Become consciously aware of their own values, and 2. Compare those values with what they're saying. And even then it's hard, but the other way is impossible.
My questions don't actually make assumptions, I just go with him into his world to show him what his world looks like from a direction he's never seen. This is how you bypass the defenses placed there by his cult.
Or we discover that his deepest values really are hateful, and then he's just shown everyone else. He can't hide it under acceptable values.
#NextDoor #AbuseCulture (tagging to find later)
Wasn't sure if I was emotionally ready to go back into the fray, but my questions-approach to NextDoor activism is going well. Going in for the kill now.
I get back to basics, like we're in kindergarten learning sharing, which bypasses political indoctrination and talking points.
Questions put me in control of the conversation, reducing anxiety, and either getting them to think critically instead of feeling defensive, or getting them to show their gross values to everyone else.
Let's see which way he goes!
#NextDoor #Activism #AntiRacism
I do most of my research online anymore, though that’s becoming more difficult with enshitification. A big part of the learning journey is figuring out who to trust, developing personal standards for how to decide which sources or what types of information to trust, not based on confirmation bias (which my birth religion taught me) but on how well the sources have in the past matched known reality and third-party sources, etc. Because we can’t go out in the field and test *every* fact claim. But we can make sure a set of logic is internally and externally consistent. Generally sources that are themselves motivated by curiosity are more trustworthy than those motivated by needing to prove a particular stance. I’ve learned to pick up on clues.
@ashwin Curiosity might lead one to more reading. There are plenty of books and articles on the basics of eye evolution, and papers for further the details and methodologies. Natural selection is a solid theory which cannot be so easily disproven by this or that unanswered detail. But the eye question is fairly well answered. You have a choice to ask in doubt or curiosity.
@ashwin Here’s an example:
“Eyes are very complex and require many concurrent processes to evolve all at once. If the theory of evolution is true, then how did eyes evolve slowly over time through random mutation?”
This is one of many thought-stopping questions in a creationist’s artillery. Scientists also asked this question, and instead of that being the end of the story, they went looking. And found creatures that don’t have eyes but photosensitive cells that help them survive long enough to later have evolved the next layer, then the next, each offering a slight advantage, until we got eyes.
But no matter how many times you give this answer to a creationist, they refuse to listen, because the question comes from a faith-based doubt (“evolution is impossible”), not curiosity.
Whereas when a scientist or scholar asks a question, it is in the direction of curiosity, seeking reconciliation between two points suspected to be true but in apparent contradiction. The scholar suspects there may be an answer to allow both to be true, and begins to investigate, or to openly liste to whatever answer. The dissonance is resolved by, “Let’s find out, and if we can’t, we’ll be ok with mystery.
🧵
Children in high-demand groups are conditioned for the act of asking a question to stop thought. A Pavlovian reaction to dissonance leads them back into their box.
A point causes dissonance. They notice the discrepancy, but the dissonance is immediately redirected towards doubt circuits rather than curiosity: How can this be? Instead of a question to reconcile the dissonance, out comes a question meant to be an answer, closing the door to further thought. Often it is a repeat of a question they’ve heard their leaders use as an answer. It’s not even their own thought.
🧵
It’s also interesting here that doubt and unquestioning faith are two sides of the same coin. Doubt is required for unquestioning faith. A steadfast belief in A requires a steadfast doubt in B-Z, or basically everything else.
Whereas curiosity leaves little room for doubt. Doubt is only there in a small degree as a stop-gap from believing every possibility, only as itself a question: Is this answer true?
🧵
I’ve said in times past that faith isn’t the opposite of unquestioning faith, curiosity is.
Just now I was thinking of my dad and how he’d ask questions, say in an argument about evolution. I’m going to avoid using the term “rhetorical question,” and instead point out the difference of a question based on a faith belief (which are questions rooted in doubt) vs a question rooted in curiosity.
When my dad asked a question during a debate/discussion, he meant it as an expression of doubt. Here is my refutation to your point, and I KNOW you don’t have an answer. (When in fact I usually did, so my answer was met with more arguing.) But I’d respond as if he were asking from curiosity.
This is an important distinction, both for how we respond to other’s questions, and in how we approach our own. Does the question open doors? Or close them?
🧵
Shapeshifter: Make me a bigger egret!
Big Regret: I shouldn’t have done that.
Why don’t they just make all the cat food tastes like treats?