Oh, well thank you for suggesting that my cringy ideas are worth conversation within the community! That’s very kind of you. Those ideas of mine were already discussed here, at least by me, and with some exceptions, have been met with indifference or a disagreement checkmark. That’s OK with me.
I was led here by a couple of Peter Singer’s books and then by Galef’s “Scout Mindset”, by the way.
I have revised her model of Scout vs Solder, in my own mind, to encompass a broader category and additional partitions outside her model. In particular, when exploring an area of knowledge with others, we can perform in roles such as:
Truth-building roles: mutual truth-seeking involving exchange of truthful information
scout (explores information and develops truthful information for themselves)
soldier (attacks and defends ideas in a ways that self-convince of existing beliefs)
Manipulative roles: at least one side seeking to manipulate the other without regard for the other’s interests
salesperson (sells ideas and gathers information)
actor/actress (performs theatrics and optionally gathers information)
The Scout and Soldier model breaks down when people believe that:
the truth is cheap and readily accessible, and so communication about important topics should serve other purposes than truth-building.
everyone else is engaged in manipulating rather than truth-building, and so it’s better to either withdraw or join everyone else in theatrics and sales.
One of several lessons I drew from Galef’s excellent work was the contrast between those who are self-serving and those who are open to contradiction by better information. However, a salesperson can gather truthful information from you, like a scout, develop an excellent map of the territory, and then lie to your face about the territory, leaving you with a worse map than before. Persons in the role of actors can accomplish many different goals with their theatrics, none of which are conducive to scouts engaged with them in developing truthful information.
I like being a scout, almost to a fault but for my own benefit. However, when exploring knowledge with others, that’s too difficult if their soldier or scout behaviors are neither, but actually sales or acting. Basically, this speaks to the importance of critical thinking when doing research, having arguments, etc.
So my cringy ideas reflect my beliefs, sorry if they made you cringe, I hope it wasn’t too bad for you.
That said, you offered a suggestion that I should revisit the IPCC reports in more depth, and to be quite honest with you, I don’t consider the IPCC reports to be the last word on climate science. They are an amalgam of information, with lots of scenarios not properly represented, for I don’t know what reasons, frankly. Not to mention that the science changes quickly, faster than Assessment Reports are released by the IPCC. However, the technical reports are good and worth browsing as an alternative to a search through Nature or PNAS articles, depending on my needs.
Oh, well thank you for suggesting that my cringy ideas are worth conversation within the community! That’s very kind of you. Those ideas of mine were already discussed here, at least by me, and with some exceptions, have been met with indifference or a disagreement checkmark. That’s OK with me.
I was led here by a couple of Peter Singer’s books and then by Galef’s “Scout Mindset”, by the way.
I have revised her model of Scout vs Solder, in my own mind, to encompass a broader category and additional partitions outside her model. In particular, when exploring an area of knowledge with others, we can perform in roles such as:
Truth-building roles: mutual truth-seeking involving exchange of truthful information
scout (explores information and develops truthful information for themselves)
soldier (attacks and defends ideas in a ways that self-convince of existing beliefs)
Manipulative roles: at least one side seeking to manipulate the other without regard for the other’s interests
salesperson (sells ideas and gathers information)
actor/actress (performs theatrics and optionally gathers information)
The Scout and Soldier model breaks down when people believe that:
the truth is cheap and readily accessible, and so communication about important topics should serve other purposes than truth-building.
everyone else is engaged in manipulating rather than truth-building, and so it’s better to either withdraw or join everyone else in theatrics and sales.
One of several lessons I drew from Galef’s excellent work was the contrast between those who are self-serving and those who are open to contradiction by better information. However, a salesperson can gather truthful information from you, like a scout, develop an excellent map of the territory, and then lie to your face about the territory, leaving you with a worse map than before. Persons in the role of actors can accomplish many different goals with their theatrics, none of which are conducive to scouts engaged with them in developing truthful information.
I like being a scout, almost to a fault but for my own benefit. However, when exploring knowledge with others, that’s too difficult if their soldier or scout behaviors are neither, but actually sales or acting. Basically, this speaks to the importance of critical thinking when doing research, having arguments, etc.
So my cringy ideas reflect my beliefs, sorry if they made you cringe, I hope it wasn’t too bad for you.
That said, you offered a suggestion that I should revisit the IPCC reports in more depth, and to be quite honest with you, I don’t consider the IPCC reports to be the last word on climate science. They are an amalgam of information, with lots of scenarios not properly represented, for I don’t know what reasons, frankly. Not to mention that the science changes quickly, faster than Assessment Reports are released by the IPCC. However, the technical reports are good and worth browsing as an alternative to a search through Nature or PNAS articles, depending on my needs.