I can't take all these opposing views anymore!

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I can't recall ever posting in this part of the forum, and none of what I'm going to say is directed at anyone in this forum.

I'm tired of hearing so many opposing views about so many political and social issues! I do my best to listen to different views on different topics, but it's making my own opinions not very definite. How can I form my own opinion when I keep hearing different ones for so many people? It seems like there's this societal expectation that we ALL have to have some sort of view on a political or social matter, and it seems so black and white. I can't take it!

Does anyone else feel bombarded with so many different opinions that you can't form one of your own? Please let me know if I need to give examples.

I hear ya.

More of us get opinion fatigue than admit to it I suspect.

Even in traditional media there is more of an echo chamber in each ideology then there used to be in my boomer childhood days of the sixties and seventies.

And now with the internet and social media, you dont have to be a newspaper editor/owner to make your views public before the global audience. Every person has access to a global audience. But we as consumers of both old and new media are all expected to be democratic and open minded, and to listen to all opposing views despite this recent explosion in the number and in the degree of opposing views.

So now if someone on WP, or on U Tube, argues that the Earth is flat, and that this round earth thing is just a lie foisted upon us by a conspiracy of NASA, and globe manufacturers, you feel you have to take the person seriously, and to calmly debate with them each of their hysterical points one at a time. It gets harder and harder to keep your mind open without letting your brains spill out! Lol!

I have my own listen AND
Stop clicking on certain topics and even TV or Radio stations.

It kinda freaks me out. Billions of people and each one with their own unique viewpoint. It's like trying to understand the vastness of the universe. I try not to think about it and have accepted that agreement is the exception rather than the rule.

Consider the alternative. Suppose there was only -one- opinion. Is that what you want? Then whose opinion would it be? Yours?

I don't mind familiarizing myself with what's out there but just to know it's out there doesn't really qualify hours, let alone weeks, of research unless it's covering a sizable swath of the human condition that I didn't previously have that firm of a grasp on. I think what paralyzes are agendas, particularly where people spend all day obfuscating an issue and you find out that they hold their beliefs based on one or two boxes a party checks off which deeply effects their own lives thus they'll defend everything else they do for right or wrong.

Seems humans are social beings first and foremost and you see most people's logic and reasoning stop at tribal borders. That's part of why I'd rather educate myself and pick up something to read when curiosity impels rather than wade through everything everyone is saying; most of the later is rope-a-dope anyway.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes when someone asks me which side of an argument I side with, I just say, "I think both sides have good points," but that's not a good enough answer for them.

The most tiresome and exhausting thing about this forum are the posts which adamantly present personal opinions and beliefs as if they were universal truths; the conflation of the two creeps into most topics here in one way or another.

It's the internet; all kinds of people use it, all with their own thoughts and views on things.

No. But I can understand why some people find it overwhelming and become attached to a single ideology in order to take shortcuts. It must be far easier for those who allow others to do their thinking for them.

Having "my own opinions not very definite" is the point of argumentation, I suppose... if no one budges even when there is evidence to the contrary then one might be in a cult... which is why opposing views are actually healthy, as having some singular source for everything is the antithesis of clarity... which I suppose is why a variety of newspapers along with encyclopedias could be useful, but when it comes to social media, especially as most posts there tend to be shorter than on forums, more extremes could be witnessed too, although, as usual, following the opinions of just a single person with a singular hue is unhealthy... unless criticality is applied.

Its the lesser evil than having a commissar, or a Ayatollah, dictate what one opinion you can read.

Personally I enjoy the disagreement. There is something to be learned from pretty much anyone. In fact, I've found that talking to people I disagree with very strongly helps me to understand and articulate my own ideas better. And occasionally I do change my mind as a result of a discussion.

But when you only talk to people with similar opinions or only talk about where you agree, you are less likely to evolve your perspectives, because you are avoiding anything that might challenge your own opinion.

Though I do understand the frustration when it comes to people getting defensive and emotional, and not even attempting to understand opposing views. It gets tiresome trying to have an open discussion when 90% of the responses are simply people attacking you, or saying the same thing over and over without elaborating, and just generally refusing to even engage the argument being put forth.

So, it's not the disagreement that is bad, but rather people's unwillingness to be confronted with disagreement. Over half of the responses to many of my threads have been people calling me names, trying to change the subject, and generally accusing me of being unwilling to consider (what they really mean is "agree with") other perspectives.

But, I think that is always to be expected to some degree. You just have to learn how to sift through all the BS, especially if you're trying to have discussions of this kind on the internet.

That's most of them, really. I increasingly think that reasonable, rational debate with aspies is a fools' errand. Makes me wonder what other people must feel like around me; but then, I've mostly learned to keep my own counsel on my opinions so they wouldn't have to feel that way.

Anyone who says "aspies are more logical" is deluded.

It's not really the diversity of opinions that gets to me, it's the inability of many people to even slightly budge from them in the face of any amount of evidence, logic or new information. It's made me too tired to provide those in most situations (especially on this forum), and the temptation I often give into is to go "you're an ignorant ass" and move on.

It might be an age thing - I was big on debating things all over the forums in my mid 20's, now I really prefer to just read other people's posts and get a good working model of their ideas rather than get into exchanges.

I think one of the big turning points for me was when i realized that I could lay out all of the details of a position in full clarity and all someone had to do to lay that post to waste was give a once sentence rebuttal pointing out that I misspelled such-and-such word in such-and-such paragraph. The degree of honesty and integrity on the internet (IRL equally so) is just too unreliable for me to get enthusiastic about debates anymore.

Agreed. I have views on things that many people don't agree with, so I'm willing to allow others to have opinions I don't agree with. I may not *like* other people's opinions sometimes, but if I can have mine, then they can have theirs.