How stubborn are you?

[SomeRandom]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

 

[SalixIncendium]

It depends on whether or not I'm right.

I used to be very stubborn in my younger days. Over the years, this stubbornness has waned significantly.

 

[Nimos]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

Obviously it depends on how people present their information, if they are very mean or rude about it, I tend to not even care to listen to them. But in general if people can make a good argument or present good evidence for something, I have no issue with changing my mind, I have watched and listen to a lot of debates and talks over the years, where people have presented arguments for all kinds of things that I find interesting, and that have influenced me and made me think differently or changed my mind about different things.

I decided long ago that Im interested in truth and holding as many true beliefs as possible and as few wrong ones. And then it just have to take me where ever, Ill rather change my views than to believe in something that is clearly false or is unsupported.

 

[SomeRandom]

Obviously it depends on how people present their information, if they are very mean or rude about it, I tend to not even care to listen to them. But in general if people can make a good argument or present good evidence for something, I have no issue with changing my mind, I have watched and listen to a lot of debates and talks over the years, where people have presented arguments for all kinds of things that I find interesting, and that have influenced me and made me think differently or changed my mind about different things.

I decided long ago that Im interested in truth and holding as many true beliefs as possible and as few wrong ones. And then it just have to take me where ever, Ill rather change my views than to believe in something that is clearly false or is unsupported.

This leads me to ask you, if you don’t mind.
What do you think consolidates a good faith vs bad faith argument?
I’m very aware of troll like tactics. But I can also recognise that some folk are just lashing out in hurt and anger. Do you think it’s beneficial to try and console such emotions of your “enemies” in debates/discussions? Or do you think it’s utterly fruitless?

 

[RabbiO]

I am not stubborn……. And you’ll never get me to change my opinion.

 

[Secret Chief]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

Another word for stubborn: principled! OK, we'll go with stubborn. For me at least, my most basic beliefs have remained mostly consistent over my lifetime. Isn't that a part of what makes us what we are? There have been relatively small changes over the decades but not a great deal. So you may call me stubborn!
As to "confronted" .... well let's take an actual example....Over nearly 40 years I suspect I've been "confronted" by every "reason" as to why eating meat is actually OK. There isn't a "reason" I've not heard. So I'm not likely to become a meat eater any time soon. Any change (vegetarian to almost vegan) has come about through my own research, not by any "confrontation" or attempted persuasion. It can be a two way street I suppose but on RF I try not to repeat myself on any one particular thread. I'm not trying or expecting to persuade anybody of anything unless asked or seemingly genuine interest is shown. I'm mostly just expressing myself. I'm even more disinclined in the real world to "confront" the opinions of others in most circumstances.

 

[Augustus]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?

I change my position on issues all of the time, issues that are not emotionally important to me anyway.

While I like to think of myself as open-minded, I have to accept that on strongly held beliefs there are a whole raft of cognitive functions that are acting to prevent attitude change. No one is remotely fair minded in this regard, although some may be less bad than others.

If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

We tend not to change anything when confronted, simply double down as confrontation supercharges our cognitive biases.

People rarely change their mind on deeply held issues, they tend to decline over time as a wedge of doubt expands and drives attitude change. Other people don't change you mind, you need to change it yourself and this process is often more indirect than direct.

As an example, I used to be a "New Atheist", "Rationalist" of the kind that you commonly see here Many of the views I held were quite patently wrong, such as the Conflict Thesis where religion had held back scientific progress for 2000 years.

When I held those beliefs, anyone who tried to point out this was utter nonsense would be dismissed out of hand as an "apologist". Despite having no idea about the history, I simply assumed I was correct as "everyone knows" religion is anti-science and other "New Atheist" types agreed and we were all Rationalists sop our view must be evidence based.

I wouldn't look at things with an open mind, just anything that disagreed with my worldview must be wrong so I would look for reasons not to accept it as true; classic cognitive dissonance.

What started to change my views was when I stopped being a Rationalist as I gradually came to realise the very obvious truth that humans are not remotely rational animals. So the foundations of my worldview were undermined and I gradually revised my beliefs.

I then started to look at information with a more open mind and it was embarrassing quite how obviously wrong I had been on many things simply out of ignorance, prejudice and bias.

When I was a "Rationalist" though I would have sworn blind my beliefs were rational and I would have changed my mind had
I been presented with sufficient evidence to the contrary.

I sometimes wonder what beliefs I hold now that I will later look at in the same way.

Self-identity and being a good member of whatever group you identify with are far more powerful forces than reason and we all have to be aware of that. Facts rarely change minds on their own, emotions get in the way too easily.

We sometimes like to think we are the special ones who are objective and open-minded, but that's just hubris and conceit.

 

[Nimos]

I’m very aware of troll like tactics. But I can also recognise that some folk are just lashing out in hurt and anger. Do you think it’s beneficial to try and console such emotions of your “enemies” in debates/discussions? Or do you think it’s utterly fruitless?

Trolls are trolls, don't spend any time on them. They do what they do to annoy people and are not interested in a given topic anyway. If you mean people that are rude or try to cheap shot you? then I tend to not care about it to much, to me it simply shows that their argumentation is very weak and that they probably know it, but won't admit it.
Besides that, I don't really get offended by people writing mean things to or about me, its just words and they don't know me and most likely I will just not bother spending time on them.

What do you think consolidates a good faith vs bad faith argument?

I don't know if I would call any faith good to be honest. Faith to me, means several things, first something hoped for, to have trust in something or someone for no good reason and an expression of lack of knowledge (not to be confused with being stupid).
But I think faith can be useful as a transitional stage, if one is drained from energy (not spiritual meaning) or what to say, so for instance having faith in someone getting well from sickness or that things could be better, whether that is in ones personal life or globally. But ultimately, I think one is better off dealing with reality of things rather than hoping or having trust in things for no good reason.

So to me a good faith argument would be one, where people admit that they currently ain't able to deal with the reality of a situation and knowing that they are unable to influence a situation. A bad faith argument, is anything that ignores or where a person refuse to seek or look at evidence to gain knowledge about something, but prefer to just have faith in something. Because to me that is where one's faith is actively preventing a person from developing themselves.

Which again, is why the methods for figuring out truth is so much more important to me, than believing one have arrived at the truth. Because the methods help one to not fool oneself, and we really have a difficult time knowing when we are actually fooling ourselves, because we are obviously not aware of it, as we think it is the truth.

 

[Secret Chief]

I gradually came to realise the very obvious truth that humans are not remotely rational animals

Being on RF must have helped a great deal in that.

 

[Secret Chief]

Seems a good time to roll this out...

 

[Augustus]

Being on RF must have helped a great deal in that.

Of course I always knew that people who disagreed with me were irrational, then over time realised that all humans were irrational.

Finally I realised that all humans including me were irrational. I might be irrationally wrong on the last bit though

 

[ChristineM]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

Me stubborn? Never... Except when i am proven to be wrong and falsifiable evidence is provided to convince me.

 

[Secret Chief]

Of course I always knew that people who disagreed with me were irrational, then over time realised that all humans were irrational.

Finally I realised that all humans including me were irrational. I might be irrationally wrong on the last bit though

I think it should be compulsory to view the above video prior to RF membership acceptance

 

[Vinayaka]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

I don't think self perception on such things is that accurate. Better to ask the person's spouse or their friends. Also, it depends on the topic. Some things need a harder stance than others.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

It depends on how close I am to my beliefs. I don't know what views I'd change since I don't have many religious views and political ones aren't based on what sides believe what just whether one side effects the economy and people. I usually root for the sports team that makes a good score rather than pick a favorite team.

 

[PureX]

As I've gotten older, I've realized that very few ideas are worth the fight they require to protect and maintain them. And anyway, I don't really have to forfeit or reject the idea to disengage from fighting on it's behalf.

 

[Audie]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

Depends

 

[Lain]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

It is fairly likely. Due to various life circumstances and events concerning this I consider myself to be a broken man. Being defeated or humiliated and changing my position based on it is not a strange feeling to me, and I just move on. Sometimes too quickly.

 

[Brickjectivity]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

I have changed many of my opinions and positions over the years. I recognise that I have held some very toxic ideals in the past. And my stubbornness and pride held me back from dropping such toxicity. Much to my (in hindsight) regret.
But I have noticed that I am less likely to do so when directly challenged. Which I recognise as probably hypocritical of me.
How stubborn are you, really?

I have a small turn radius, but I am driving a tank. I have only a little slot to see through. There is also some additional help: somebody up top shouting down what they can see from the turret. I can often hear them over the engine but not always. I don't do the shooting, but I am told that we occasionally hit something. That makes it worth while.

 

[Jainarayan]

How likely is it for you to actually change your position on issues? I mean really?
If you hold a conviction pertaining to a political ideology, religious beliefs or even just social beliefs in general. How likely do you think it is for you to legitimately examine the criticism of your chosen ideology (in any format) and actually change your stance? How likely is it that you will just dig in your heels and double down when confronted?

...

How stubborn are you, really?

I’m usually strongly committed to my beliefs or opinions... call it stubborn if you will. But stubborn connotes a resistance for resistance’s sake, whether changing is warranted or not. If someone can make a compelling and logical argument for why I am wrong or should rethink, I will rethink it. If their argument is based on their own opinions or emotions or beliefs, no chance in hell they’ll get me to change. The more vehement they are the less chance I’ll see their view. In a word, don’t back me into a corner. It will work against their attempts to change me.