From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Thu May 08 2003 - 11:24:41 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
> So whatever the outcome of (a), I discussed here no less than five
> other reasons. I think that those reasons have stood the test of time,
> especially including (f).
Ron H. wrote:
> I still feel the same as before. Sadaam's General Gas threatened us
> with gas -- for me that was and is proof enough. If he was bluffing
> that was his problem. But, his words were proof enough.
John Clark wrote:
> Before the war I said that half of me was in the peace camp and the
> other half was a war monger. If I knew then what I know now about the
> true threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction I'd be about 70 30. If
> I also knew how well the war would go militarily and that we wouldn't
> have 1600 oil well fires I'd probably go back to the original 50- 50.
Damien Sullivan wrote:
> I think I'm still agnostically opposed.
If you are trying to be rational, it's something of a danger sign if
your opinions are unchanged by facts. It could be an indication that
your beliefs are being controlled by an ideology. In order to protect
themselves and remain stable, ideologies control your perceptions and
make it hard to change your mind about things.
Given all the surprises and unexpected developments of the circumstances
surrounding the Iraq war, I think it would be quite unusual for a rational
person to be able to look back and say, if I knew then what I know now,
my degree of support for the war would be unchanged. I think the odds
are that most rational people would find that their opinions had changed
to at least some degree.
The only exceptions would be (A) if everything happened exactly as they
predicted; or (B) if the good and bad news basically cancelled each
other out, as John Clark says explicitly in his case.
(A) seems unlikely - if anyone did predict the details, they would
certainly deserve a great deal of credit. And even (B) is a rather
suspicious coincidence. Even with an intelligent person, an ideology
can take hold and fool you into believing that you are weighing all the
evidence, and that the result comes out the same as before.
However, I don't think this is the situation in John Clark's case, because
most ideologies would not accept a 50-50 level of support for a cause.
Grounds for suspicion only arise if your before-and-after position was
the one supported by your ideology.
In order to avoid having the list fall back into the endless, pointless,
vicious ideological debate about the pros and cons of the war, I would
encourage people to emphasize the *change* in their position, rather than
how stable their views have been. Even if you still support or oppose the
action, has your degree of support changed? Embrace your flexibility!
There is no shame in changing your mind. Indeed, I continue to believe
that proudly announcing that your position hasn't been swayed by the facts
is one of the worst signs of closed-mindedness and irrational thinking.
Hal
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