Ask Lemmy

If convictions are backed up by best knowledge we have and stand up to scrutiny then they are good until new information is discovered that updates the old. Don't fall for the ego control, be aware it wants to be right and fights new information, but shouldn't, learning new things is fun! Follow Sagan's baloney detection kit, and scientific method, and one part is don't get attached to a theory. To combine Sagan and Watts, we're all waves of one ocean, made of stardust, the cosmos observing itself, that's the truth that sets us free, test it :)

Edit: Convictions are part of Perry's scheme of cognition, and to get there it requires the skepticism to understand what is peer-reviewed and data backed and what is not.

One of my staunchest opinions is that most people including myself are idiots, so I probably should think carefully about all my opinions and I should be open to reevaluating them periodically.

I have changed my mind on enough serious issues over my lifetime that I was on the wrong side of that I do feel pretty confident that my most strongly held convictions are worth the strength with which I hold them. And also that they are not immune from being re-evaluated given enough good evidence against them.

Staunch? I am constantly reevaluating my positions; considering new data or hypotheticals to challenge them or debating them with myself to make sure they are worthy of me holding them.

I think the ability to adapt one's viewpoint to the addition of new information is a hallmark of maturity. It does depend on the ability to critically evaluate information, though, which is fallible in any human.

Some things yes. Somethings no. The question is, can you be a person about it?

If you are arguing about whether people have human rights inherently? Awesome. Keep that. If you are routinely arguing about how many wheels a train car should have? Maybe chill out. People are going to have different values than you so ymmv, but if you can make an effort to attempt to empathize most things aren't as cut and dry as even Lemmy makes them out to be.

My conviction of not comitting crimes or being dishonest to clients and customers at the behest of an employer has gotten me fired more than once.

But I never wished I was a piece of shit that would do so without question. I just wished I could get a job not run by pieces of shit.

Im pretty laid back but also pretty staunch in my convictions. My bar to engage was kinda high before the internet. I had to sorta respect your intellectual ability before I would. I will only knock my head against a wall so much though.

Why would I ever wish I didn't care about integrity and caring for others?

Staunch in some, not so much in others. Depends on the topic.

Only when people can't be bothered to defend their opposition to my stance. When people are actually willing to engage with what I'm saying, I'm perfectly willing to change my mind.

Wishing I wasn't staunch doesn't sound very staunch to me...

But you answer your question, yes, I'm resolute in my convictions. I don't have many of them but the ones I have are worth defending.

I often wish I could just sit back and not be so staunch :(

I remember having lengthy debates with myself in elementary school about how strictly I adhered to my personal convictions. It seemed like most people didn't care, or could easily let go of things. I wanted so badly to stop caring about the specifics of things and just be chill like everyone else, but I just couldn't let go. Without empirical evidence to prove me wrong, I just wouldn't budge in my convictions. I was practically in tears about it at times.

Many years later, in my late 30s, I found out that I have a severe case of ADHD. The doctor who diagnosed me had her PhD in ADHD studies and had been working as a researcher and therapist in the field of ADHD for 11 years. She said I was the worst case she'd ever seen.

Most of my childhood was lived through the '80s-'90s, when ADHD was just the "hyperactive kid syndrome." If you weren't constantly running around screaming and disrupting everything around you, you were considered normal.

I was always bursting with energy and internally screaming when I had to sit still for more than 5 minutes. But everyone just chalked it up to me being an energy-filled kid with a wild imagination and a love for playing outdoors. The fact that I could sit still meant that I was "normal."

But as the decades rolled on, our understanding of ADHD has increased and it turns out, it's a lot more complicated than we originally thought. Obsessing over details, pouring over concepts again and again to form strong opinions, and then refusing to change those convictions unless definitively proven wrong is 100% an effect of ADHD.

Not saying you have ADHD, OP, but your situation is very familiar to me, and ADHD was the answer I lacked for many years.

I have a very strict moral and ethic code - I cannot shut up if i perceive someone being treated unfairly or harassed, and it has gotten me into my share of conflicts (often out of the blue). I do not want to change that - it is an integral part of my personality that i think is a very positive feature, because it makes me stand up for others who might not be able to do it.

But it comes with a cost, because that strict code is applied to myself at a much larger scale and with much less leeway than i apply it to the outside. This makes every decision and action something i have to get my own approval for, and i am in no way benevolent or even slightly nice towards myself and my performance. I've been working on reducing these tendencies in therapy for years now, and i have made some progress (my therapist says it's quite a lot of progress in comparison to most of his clients, but i am a lot less forgiving and have a hard time appreciating how much i have already changed), but it's a pretty hard task. So if i had the option of being less rigid internally and more appreciative of my actions, i would take that for sure.

In my early 20s, I was close to what might now be called a budding christian nationalist listening to right-wing AM radio on my lunch break thinking people were lazy and just didn't work hard enough (I was making I think $26k/yr then at my first salaried "real job". It wasn't enough to save much money on even in the early 2000s). Had the internet been where it is now back then, I don't even want to think about what I may have become.

Fast forward to today in my mid-40s and I'm a left-leaning atheist union member who believes we need to have better social programs, free education, wealth tax, UBI, etc. If not a complete 180, at least very close to it.

I do change my mind on things as evidence and experience guide me to do so. When beliefs become too much of one's identity, whatever those beliefs may be, things start getting into very dangerous territory. I used to be very dogmatic and sure of my path in my 20s.

I'm pretty flexible with a lot of my perspectives in views, because it helps me see a lot of angles. The problem starts is when someone wants to ruin that fun by trying to convert me into their way of thinking.

Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?

No. It's rare that I can't see both sides of an issue, so I rarely come down especially strongly on one side or the other. However, I do have the bad habit of trying to explain the side contrary to the prevailing view in my circles online which can piss people off...

Below, Velma is referring to this thread where they had a very unpopular opinion, just in case you got the impression that they're doing anything other than trying to follow me around and yell at me. I don't consider that thread an example of this at all, because pretty much everyone had the same opinion as me there except Velma. The only link is perhaps my frustration at them being so "staunch" in their convictions that they're unable to hold a productive conversation about it, and instead can only repeat their firm belief again and again. I'm not here to trade "yes it is" - "no it isn't" for ever and ever.

My take, people being idiots sucks, but life's a pretty big joke really, it's not all that serious, you don't have be the fool of the joke by getting so worked up.

I am. And i don't wish i wasn't, because i came to these convictions through logic and reasoning.

I know when i'm uninformed about something and i know when i'm more informed than others about things; i'm not blind to my weaknesses nor to my strengths. Therefore people can still convince me of new things if it's an area i am relatively new to. I'm also still learning things about my own (current) area of professional expertise, and am not particularly opinionated about things there, for instance.

chungus homeboy

You only really need to be embarassed if your way of advocating your position is "embarassing," e.g if it descends to yelling. If someone asks me about my hard-to-explain stances i can be like calm voice "Well I believe A because B, and since C suggests B this indicates that with A is C."

on that note, while what i just said wasn't a syllogism/wasn't a perfectly constructed one, i would recommend looking into Syllogisms if you want to debate as succinctly and convincingly as possible. They'll become "long" as you start discussing more complicated things, because of added qualifiers.

I recommend this because i see people debate by virtue of bullying and intimidation all the time nowadays and it is a headache. Nobody has ever been truly convinced through mockery or raised voices.

I was much more so when I was younger, but the older I get, the more I love to be wrong. It is always an opportunity to question my biases and learn. But introspection need not always lead to change. As long as I am willing to reflect honestly, I’m happy.