"The art of disagreeing has disappeared but we desperately need it back"

[tszaboo]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-26/art-of-disagreeing-has-disappeared/8986470

To say the words "I agree" — whether it's agreeing to join an organisation, or submit to political authority, or subscribe to a religious faith — may be the basis of every community.

But to say, I disagree; I refuse; you're wrong — these are the words that define our individuality, give us our freedom, enjoin our tolerance, enlarge our perspectives, seize our attention, energise our progress, make our democracies real, and give hope and courage to oppressed people everywhere.

Galileo and Darwin; Mandela, Havel, and Liu Xiaobo; Rosa Parks and Natan Sharansky — such are the ranks of those who disagree.

And the problem, as I see it, is that we're failing at the task.

I've noticed the same thing. A generation grew up, and they are incapable of imagining things that are opposed to their opinion. Internet discussions are confirming Godwin's law on first page. People wished me to have a deadly accident, because I had different opinion than them, and I dared writing it down.
I left two forums as of now, because the bar was too low. People were jumping at each others throat, because their choice in CPU brand. Or choice of transportation. Or anything really.

Let me say this now: It is not an USA only problem. This is not a political discussion.

To make matters worse, Google and Facebook closes people to an "idea bubble". They only get news and information for one side of an idea, and they are completely cut off from anything else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect makes sure, that they no longer see things clearly, nor do they want to. Some even go to the effort and link google search suggestions from their computer as evidence to support their theory about something.
I wonder when will will courts turn into complete jokes. "Your honor, the defendant is clearly an idiot moron, because he has an X branded car, and he is supporting the Y political party, and he thinks that Z should be allowed. We should sentence him now."

Its like people are no longer willing to talk, or listen. They just want to force other people to their opinion.

[Mr. Scram]

This is the way things have always been. However, the internet provides an easy platform to those who used to be resigned to bar brawls before. The idiots can be heard now, but don't make the mistake of thinking there must be more idiots.

[jpanhalt]

I wonder when will will courts turn into complete jokes. "Your honor, the defendant is clearly an idiot moron, because he has an X branded car, and he is supporting the Y political party, and he thinks that Z should be allowed. We should sentence him now."

Its like people are no longer willing to talk, or listen. They just want to force other people to their opinion.

In the United States what you suggest has pretty much happened with our 9th Federal Circuit court.  It is the most reversed court in both number of cases and percentage.   For 1999-2008,  its decisions were reversed or vacated 80% of the time! (https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/intelprop/magazine/LandslideJan2010_Hofer.authcheckdam.pdf ).   In other words, it got 20% right.    That is not even an F in most schools.  One can pretty much predict the 9th's decision just by knowing the political parties involved.  And it has gotten worse under President Trump.

Conservative commentators refer to that court uniquely as the 9th Circus.  No other Federal court gets that same appellation.  Two justices on our Supreme court seem to always vote with that court.

As for the rest of your comment, I agree.   Even on this forum, a comment about free shipping from DigiKey turned into America bashing.  I fear using that example will spark more flames of that type rather than any rational discussion of such incentives being offered by various vendors.

[The Soulman]

I agree, especially the people that grew up with google, they haven't trained the ability to think for themselves,
they just google it and come up with something that they accept as fact without knowing a thing about it. 

Feel free to disagree. 

[Mr. Scram]

I agree, especially the people that grew up with google, they haven't trained the ability to think for themselves,
they just google it and come up with something that they accept as fact without knowing a thing about it. 

Feel free to disagree. 

I do disagree, because I don't think Google has changed anything. These same people would have done the same with what they read in the newspaper and books. It was printed on paper, after all, so it must be true! Different medium, same phenomena.

[tszaboo]

I agree, especially the people that grew up with google, they haven't trained the ability to think for themselves,
they just google it and come up with something that they accept as fact without knowing a thing about it. 

Feel free to disagree. 

I do disagree, because I don't think Google has changed anything. These same people would have done the same with what they read in the newspaper and books. It was printed on paper, after all, so it must be true! Different medium, same phenomena.

Well, kinda. There was always leftist and rightist (they mean entirely different things than in the USA BTW) newspapers when I grew up. Now after the autocratic state capture of El Presidente Orbán, they bought all the leftist media, and ruined it or closed it down. Now there is only rightist printed media, or TV stations, and you need to go online if you want to read anything else. So you cannot say clearly, that "online is evil".

[wraper]

There is an old soviet documentary about unreliability of human mind. There are experiments when people start calling black being white when single man is put in the vast majority which intentionally says something opposite to the truth (second part of the video). Pretty interesting thing to watch.

[orolo]

Its like people are no longer willing to talk, or listen. They just want to force other people to their opinion.

So, after all, it's not a matter of 'I agree' or 'I disagree'. The problem is that, today, people/ideologies/governments won't leave you alone. If you agree with them, maybe you don't care about their interference. However, if you disagree, trouble begins.

As Heinlein put it: "Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws--always for the other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of the trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: 'Please pass this so I won't be able to do something I know I should stop.' Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see their neighbors doing. Stop them 'for their own good'--not because the speaker claimed to be harmed by it."

[b_force]

This is actually part of another discussion we started elsewhere on this forum.
I don't think it's a matter that people don't 'agree' or 'disagree' anymore.
It's a matter of respect, trust and honesty.

The reason why I left many forums, is simply because all the 'roosters'.
Especially the field we are in, 'testosterone' can be pretty high in some discussions.
This also counts for 'offline' discussions.
By that I mean, it's not about finding the right answers for a solution anymore, but people care to much about their own believes and status (yes, in some cases even a simple tech discussion looks like a fight between religions).
Always try to see it from a different perspective and if in doubt, just simply ask for clarification. 
Also, there is nothing bad about admitting you're wrong or simply saying you do/think stuff because of subjective reasons.

Unfortunately this correct way of dealing with each other isn't really being taught to people.
In fact, in things like politics, governments and companies it's even being the opposite (unfortunately).
Were criticism and not (always) knowing the right answers is being seen as weak and even 'disloyal' (that word only belongs in the old medieval times)
In the long run it's actually a very stupid approach and doing more harm than good.

That being said, I do see how bad the knowledge is nowadays, even for people 'in the field'.
Most of them are only to stubborn to admit it.
 

[dmills]

You might want to watch that statistic on the 9th circuit, as I recall it was 80% of the cases that were given cert by the supreme court, not really the same thing as the percentage of cases that even try is tiny, and the number taken less then that!

in 10 years,
the Federal Circuit terminated a total of 15,781 cases and the
Ninth Circuit terminated 114,199 cases. As shown in Table
2, the Supreme Court, in the past 10 Terms, has decided
only 30 cases appealed from the Federal Circuit and 175
cases from the Ninth Circuit.
4 Thus, the Supreme Court only
reviewed 0.177% of the total number of appeals terminated
by the Federal Circuit and only 0.151% of the total number
of appeals terminated by the Ninth Circuit.

This is a quote from the paper referenced upthread, and note that that 0.151% number is a percentage of the number of appeals in the first place, which puts things in a slightly different light. 

Interestingly the federal circuit actually has a worse record as does the district of Columbia, but as the federal circuit deals with patent cases in the fabulously broken US patent system....

Come on people, Engineers are supposed to be able to do numbers in a more nuanced way then just reading the headlines, that would be like just reading the first page of a datasheet.

[vodka]

I agree, especially the people that grew up with google, they haven't trained the ability to think for themselves,
they just google it and come up with something that they accept as fact without knowing a thing about it. 

Feel free to disagree. 

I do disagree, because I don't think Google has changed anything. These same people would have done the same with what they read in the newspaper and books. It was printed on paper, after all, so it must be true! Different medium, same phenomena.

Well, kinda. There was always leftist and rightist (they mean entirely different things than in the USA BTW) newspapers when I grew up. Now after the autocratic state capture of El Presidente Orbán, they bought all the leftist media, and ruined it or closed it down. Now there is only rightist printed media, or TV stations, and you need to go online if you want to read anything else. So you cannot say clearly, that "online is evil".

I don't know like is Hungary, but i can comment the crazy situation of my region that is Catalonia. Here , all regional TV are controlled by the regional goverment , and they are emitted all day slogans to favour the Independace, thus for 7 years. You don't know how many people are abducted, reaching to fanaticism, on some place you can't talk versus the independance because the abducted begin to bulling you , to insult you ,to attack his ownership.

Here ,there are a paradox : the repressed are the repressors and the repressors are the repressed , an insane situation neariest to civil war.

[vealmike]

"The art of disagreeing has disappeared but we desperately need it back"

Oh no we don't.

[tszaboo]

"The art of disagreeing has disappeared but we desperately need it back"

Oh no we don't.

Ok, that's a good one

[rhb]

Humans only understand things in the context of what they already know.  When a DC-3 crashed in the New Guinea highlands during WW II, the natives built a replica of reeds to attract other.  They understood bird behavior, so they assumed that airplanes were similar.

The value of general knowledge is that it makes understanding new concepts easier.

Much of the problem stems from excessive emotional involvement in winning the argument rather than arriving at the truth.

I started a topic in the metrology group looking for someone knowledgeable of vector network analyzer design and classical digital signal processing at a PhD level.  In my first post I asked people to be quiet if they did not have the requisite math background.  The net result was a lot of noise about how arrogant I was and other irrelevant comments.

Not one response addressed my question:

Causality suggests that the phase response of a passive 2 port can be derived from the magnitude response by means of the Hilbert transform.  The Kramers-Kronig relationship places similar constraints on dispersion and absorption.  This *should* mean that a spectrum analyzer and tracking generator are sufficient to perform the function of a vector network analyzer with the addition of a good bit of computer processing.

As is generally known, this is not accepted practice in the EE world, however, this is fairly routine at research level in reflection seismic processing.  I am deeply skeptical that either geophysicists or EEs  are any better at this.  So has this simply been overlooked or is there some aspect of the difference between electromagnetic and elastic wave propagation that comes into play?

I'm accustomed to arguing such matters with PhD level scientists.  There is always the hazard that there is some detail you have overlooked.  We never view such conversations as disputes with a winner or a loser.

Real PhDs draw very small boxes around their statements.  They will be very assertive when discussing topics in which they have done extensive work and very quiet on topics in which they have little experience.  There are always exceptions, but the real PhDs laugh at them behind their backs.

[Fgrir]

...but the real PhDs laugh at them behind their backs.

I understand what you are saying, but in all fairness you are a bit arrogant...

[kaz911]

There are always exceptions, but the real PhDs laugh at them behind their backs.

I have in my life met a lot of great thinkers that had a PhD - but I have met just as many where I wondered if they was actually present when they did their PhD's.

I think a PhD is just like anything - a tool or a badge - but it should not stop you from wanting to learn more.  Apart from that there is a huge difference in PhD's from different parts of the world. I won't mention countries but some have in general very low entry barriers for granting PhDs.

So I don't give a hoot about a PhD or degree. Show me practical experience and hard work and you have a winner. 

Many PhD's (as per above rant), New MBA's and former consultants from McKinsey are mostly not welcome in my companies..  unless they can show they have kicked their bad habits.

[b_force]

PhD is just a label you get when you follow a certain way of learning*
That doesn't automatically mean that someone without a PhD can't be as smart or even smarter.
If people say so, they need to reread the very basics of science, because this is a classic example fallacy.
Also, there have been a lot of very well known highly respected scientist that changed the word without any official degree in anything.

I have also seen many companies hiring two (or multiple) people, with a master degree, the other with a lower education.
In a lot of cases the second guy climbed up the ladder much quicker with much smarter solutions.
You see over and over again that a degree doesn't say anything about someones performance.

*In fact you can even get a PhD without doing a master degree or follow any kind of education

[IanMacdonald]

"Humans only understand things in the context of what they already know.  When a DC-3 crashed in the New Guinea highlands during WW II, the natives built a replica of reeds to attract other.  They understood bird behavior, so they assumed that airplanes were similar."

This was successful. Another large metal bird flew overhead, of a different shape. This one must have been a female, because it laid an egg.

Unfortunately, there is now only  this big hole in the ground where our village was.

[metrologist]

A man goes into an interview. After 45 minutes of questions and verifying experience, the interviewer asks the man what his biggest weakness is.

The man thinks for a second and says his biggest weakness is being too honest.

The interviewer replied, "We value honesty at this company. We don't think that's a weakness."

The man said, "I don't give a fuck what you think."

[rhb]

@metrologist

Was that a Richard Feynman joke?

For the other's:

I'm a failed PhD candidate.  Beware of anyone who advertises the fact.   After 4 years my supervisor fired me when I proved him wrong.  In fairness he was going blind because of spontaneous retinal detachments.  I'm luckier, I can still see despite later having had them in both eyes.

Jim Williams could trounce just about anybody in the analog domain and he didn't even have any formal electronics education.  I don't have any formal electronics training either. How you learn is irrelevant.  What matters is learning.  It's not a competition  where someone wins and someone loses.  The only way to lose is to fail to learn.

Someone once said to me, "The problem with you is you don't care what people think about you."   I thought for a minute and said, "That's not correct.  I care very much what people think of me.  I just won't trade, I'll like you if you like me."

If someone wants to view me as arrogant for asking that people not respond unless they have relevant mathematical background, that is their right.  I'm looking for someone to tell me I'm wrong who has the ability to prove it in the arena stipulated. the mathematics of Norbert Weiner and his students.

It is not necessary, nor even desirable that everyone agree.  What is need is that we work together.  That is the theme of this thread.

[Halcyon]

I have in my life met a lot of great thinkers that had a PhD - but I have met just as many where I wondered if they was actually present when they did their PhD's.

I think a PhD is just like anything - a tool or a badge - but it should not stop you from wanting to learn more.  Apart from that there is a huge difference in PhD's from different parts of the world. I won't mention countries but some have in general very low entry barriers for granting PhDs.

So I don't give a hoot about a PhD or degree. Show me practical experience and hard work and you have a winner. 

Absolutely whole-heartedly agree with your comments.

I know someone who is completing a PhD right now, she is bright and very switched on in her field but is completely open to new ideas, thoughts even if they challenge her own. She will do very well in her field.

Likewise I've met and work with some brilliant minds who only have a fairly mediocre educational history, yet their knowledge and expertise in the industry I work in is absolutely astounding and will give any PhD recipient or Professor a run for their money.

It is not necessary, nor even desirable that everyone agree.  What is need is that we work together.  That is the theme of this thread.

You also make a very compelling point.

I'm openly gay, I really couldn't give two shits about what someone thinks of me. In my workplace, I act professionally and work hard with an almost OCD level of perfection when it comes to my own work. I've recently started working with someone who is very religious and was against me joining the area I work in, simply due to my sexuality (he'd never met me before).

Fast forward 6 months; This guy and I work together brilliantly. He is an excellent mentor and I try and absorb as much as I can from him. Likewise, he shows me respect because I respected him and how much he knows. It'll be a sad day when he retires. I also admire him for being able to look past his own beliefs (which I personally consider crazy) and focus on what's important.

[Vtile]

"The art of disagreeing has disappeared but we desperately need it back"

Oh no we don't.

Ok, that's a good one

I'm afraid to say, but in my opinion that is not artfull disagreement and thus not particularly good.

[Mr. Scram]

I'm afraid to say, but in my opinion that is not artfull disagreement and thus not particularly good.

That's the point, and the joke. He blatantly denies needing the art of disagreeing, while the lack of subtlety shows that he very much does need it.

Now I've explained a joke. I will sit in the corner in shame, contemplating my sins.

[timb]

"The art of disagreeing has disappeared but we desperately need it back"

Oh no we don't.

Ok, that's a good one [emoji6]

I'm afraid to say, but in my opinion that is not artfull disagreement and thus not particularly good.

Allow me to explain with this detailed illustration:

ROFLMAO <— The Joke








:-}.. <— Your Head

[0xdeadbeef]

When we look back in history, there was almost always a institution or government that enforced a certain view of the world and there was little opportunity for a different opinion to be respected.
Even then of course, not every different opinion was sensible. We focus on the few persons who were right (well, from our perspective) and not on the many who were wrong.
Now for the first time in human history, freedom of speech was cherished in the last decades. The possibility for an individual to utter his/her opinion became better and better and culminated in the many ways to present your views in the internet.

So while this would sound like a dream come true for anybody who lived in times where freedom of speech was not a common value (or lives in a part of the world where this is still not the case), this also means of course that the possibility for liars, deceivers and lunatics has increases to spread their view of the world. It's fascinating (and worrying) to see how the the trust in "official" media channels dwindles down while at the same time people put their trust in dubious internet sites. Don't get me wrong: of course it's important to not believe everything they tell you on TV. There are enough examples where politicians or owners try to influence the coverage. Still, the growing distrust in official media seems to be as unjustified as the growing trust in "independent" sites. Especially since it has become obvious that there are attempts to manipulate the public perception by social media bots or paid web brigades. To what extend and how successful is a different matter, but of course the mere fact that this kind of manipulation has become a reality breeds discord in internet forums and the like. E.g. there are news portals in Germany where any report even touching the topics Russia/Putin or Ukraine led to hundreds of posts within minutes accusing the journalist of being paid sock puppets which again resulted in these sites disabling the feedback possibilities for certain topics.

So the misuse of freedom of speech results in (self-)censorship. Actually, suddenly "common" people who would have defended freedom of speech ten years ago now endorse censorship in social media etc. to stop the spreading of hatred and lies. Which is disturbing to say the least.
I still want to believe that a democracy has to be able to accept a certain amount of misinformation and a well informed, politically mature citizen should be able to decide on his/her own what to believe. Still, it really seems that a growing number of people is not able (or willing) to do so. Which is a dangerous development as it shatters the principle of democracy.