whitecoast said:
I got in a debate with a close friend of mine on Christmas eve about my online posting from that "fake news site" (he said he liked the esoteric stuff there, but the political stuff much less). He disliked it because he thought posting online about things wouldn't make a difference at all ever, etc. etc.. But I think it largely stems from the fact that he's been chatting online with a person who lived in Aleppo these past few years. He has the empathy to sympathize and remark about how tragic it is, but I don't get why that lets him call me or another a "know-nothing" (so to speak) just because I rely on investigative journalists by 2nd or 3rd hand to figure out what's going on there. I asked him if he had another idea for helping to fix the middle east, and he suggested I never drive a car again and take transit instead.
I've been on a few airplane flights this year. Even if I never drove again that would not compensate for the fossil fuels burned from flying.... I lost a lot of respect for the guy because it's the typical hippie martyrdom. He uses the same types of arguments to justify vegetarianism. Also, I think he underestimates the power of truth and information shaping the cosmos all on its own.
Whitecoast,
I too have been belittled (known nothing? How ignorant of HIM to say that) by that form of "elitism" In this case it is somehow more important to be there or some kind of authority from there to get credibility, even if your data is perfectly clear and documented. My ex girlfriend was a doctor, and anything that pointed out issues in her field was quickly put down by her reminding me that I'm not a doctor or researcher. Needless to say, I got angry and told her that the data speaks for itself if she wasn't too lazy to skip over it!
I hate to say it, but it helps me to label those kind of people as a form of authoritarian follower. They don't think for themselves, by using critical thinking he could have seen that some things are not always true.
I think it's best just to not convince him anything. The irony is that without oil profits, the middle east might have issues, as we have seen before the Russian sanctions which slowed oil sales from there. Sigh, everyone has a "genius idiot" solution to the world's problems... haha
LOL, By the way, flying is very efficient. An almost full plane taking into account the number of passengers more than offsets the fuel per person. I saw an analysis of a 747 almost full getting about 100 mpg per person.
It's also funny when it comes to the danger of flying vs driving. Per mile, flying has much less odds of being hurt or killed than driving (or public transit, haha).
But I'm preaching to the choir here, we use critical thinking- where most people hardly seem to think.