Free The Thinker!

The new media!

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 01:00:00 +0000

As the US seems to be more divided than ever, what does the Mainstream media and Alternative Media have to do with this?

I mainly have questions and speculation about what is happening, I don’t really know if any of this is accurate, but I’m curious about the possibility.

So, in the past, when everyone relied on the Mainstream Media for all of their news, you could go to work, or talk to family, or talk to almost anyone, and either they saw on TV what you saw, or they didn’t see anything. Either way, there was no conflict, as it was either news to them, or it was what they believed. With the spread of the Alternative Media, and the fall of the Mainstream media, this is no longer the case.

There are fewer and fewer people getting their news from the TV, and more getting it from places like Facebook and Twitter. Now, I’m not a big social media person, and so it wasn’t till the last few months that I’ve spent more than a few minutes a month looking at this. It was around election time last year (November, 2016) that I actually signed up for a Twitter account. I have yet to post anything, but I do follow a few people. Some are people who I’ve paid some attention to over the last few years on Youtube, but many I’ve only heard of lately. What I do find interesting is how you can tailor your news to be exactly what you want to hear. So, if you are following someone who has an idea different from your own, and you no longer want to hear it, well that’s easy to remedy, unfollow them, and you never have to hear that different point of view again!! Do that enough, and all you hear is exactly what you already believe to be true. The problem with that is twofold. First, it keeps you from having to think, as everything you hear is exactly what you expect, and you don’t have to question your beliefs. Second, you end up living in an echo chamber that reinforces everything you believe, so your beliefs are strengthened and reinforced by repetition.

I’m sure many of you have heard of the term ‘Cognative Dissonance’ but are you familiar with ‘Cognative Inertia’? Here are the first two sentences from Wikipedia:

Cognitive inertia refers to the tendency for beliefs or sets of beliefs to endure once formed. In particular, cognitive inertia describes the human inclination to rely on familiar assumptions and exhibit a reluctance and/or inability to revise those assumptions, even when the evidence supporting them no longer exists or when other evidence would question their accuracy.

So, the main question is if this new media is a source of ‘Cognative Inertia’ for some people? Is that why there are so many younger people who just cannot seem to handle even listening to different points of view? Is the Cognative Dissonance so stressful that they can’t function, so they are asking for a ‘Safe Space’?

The problem I have with Safe Spaces and this inability to have a discussion on topics that are worrysome, is that there will be a lot of topics that will be pushed underground. The issue with that, is if there isn’t a free flow of ideas, those topics can end up in a echo chamber of their own, and not get the scrutany they should before welling up in some kind of display of outrage. This display of outrage could be many things, including violence, and I think we can all agree that talking, and even shouting if necessary, is much better than outright violence!!

Let me know your thoughts. You can find me on Minds.com @freethethinker.

What are these Actors in Hollywood thinking?

Sun, 05 Feb 2017 01:00:00 +0000

Now, this is mostly a rant, and I’ll be speculating a lot, so don’t take anything here too seriously!

Since the election had been called on November 9th, 2016, there have been a number of videos and protests with actors from Hollywood both in the news, and on Youtube. They range from scripted rants intended to manipulate people into thinking that it’s the end of the world now that Trump is elected, to just plain bullying rants by individuals that want to punch or kill Trump. Here is a video of De Niro saying how he’d “like to punch him in the face”. I find it interesting in that all De Niro is doing is name calling, much like a second grader who doesn’t have the ability to reason yet. There is no discussion about things he has done to deserve these names, just juvenile name calling. What makes this even more interesting is what De Niro had to say back in April according to the LA Times:

“Don’t go out there and say things unless you can back them up. How dare you? It’s awful. Just go out there and speak and say these terrible things? … It’s crazy.” - Di Nero

But it seems to be OK when he does just that.

So, I see two questions here. First, what causes people like this to do what they previously said was “crazy”? And, why don’t people, when watching stuff like this, see through the fact that there is no evidence presented to back up their claims?

Lets start with people doing things that they previously called “crazy”. From the many years of research I’ve done into how the brain works, there seem to be a lot of things that play a part in this. A lot of it boils down to how someone was raised, and if things were good or not. I won’t be going into much detail, but will leave links to some sources, because the information available would probably fill an encyclopedia. If we start with what a person believes, we can categorize those beliefs into two main categories.

First it is beliefs that are based on reason and evidence. Things like dogs have 4 legs. Now someone may say they had a dog with 3 legs, and that may in fact be true, but based on the many dogs you’ve seen in your life, you know that the average dog has 4 legs. And for you to change your mind, you would need to start seeing a lot more three legged dogs, and if you did at some point realize that a majority of dogs had three legs, you may change your mind based on what you’ve seen.

The second type of belief is those based on emotion. For instance, kids are told Santa Clause is real and brings presents at Christmas. As a child, most people in our culture have heard this enough that they truly believe it. They will even sometimes have fights with friends who try to tell them the truth that Santa doesn’t exist! Some kids are so invested in the idea of Santa, that when someone tells them something different, they will even believe it stronger, at least for a while. Here is an interesting video that shows how reasoning works. It is called “The Death of Reason”. That is a video in a bigger series called “The Bomb in the Brain” which gets into more detail. The fascinating thing is that when someone has strongly held beliefs based on emotion, and they are challenged with reason and evidence, they tend to believe those things even stronger.

There is a lot more that could be said about beliefs based on emotion, and if you are interested, you can start by looking at r/K Selection Theory, and that could keep you busy for quite some time. This is research based on how certain genes are activated or deactivated based on events in a child’s life. At a high level r selection can be thought of as the way rabbits are raised. It’s purely a numbers game. Have as many rabbits as possible, get them out on there own fast, and make more. It’s about using resources and not helping others too much. If you can run faster than your brother when the fox is approaching, you win and end up reproducing, so that strategy is to just not end up dead. The K is more along the lines of a Lion, where the mother will spend years teaching the kittens how to hunt, and fend for themselves. They have few offspring and spend time to teach them what is needed to survive. While these are two different species, there can be vast differences even in a single species. For instance, in Humans, when a father isn’t present in the house of a growing girl, she has an increased chance of reaching puberty months if not years before other girls that have a father in the house. In the past it was a sign of difficult times when the father wasn’t present. Things like war would kill fathers, and because those were tough times, reproduction had to happen faster, so those that reproduced earlier, survived. But in good times, when there was a father in the house, people did better when more time was taken teaching kids how to successfully live.

Now lets look at why people don’t even ask for evidence when they see something on TV or Youtube that is basically just name calling. I believe it all boils down to Critical Thinking. Now, I’ve talked to many people who claim they are Critical Thinkers, but they aren’t. To be Honest, I even catch myself at times not thinking as critically as I should. These people had some class in school that is said to have taught them, and they may do better than the average person, but they still don’t truly think critically. If they did, I’d hear them asking a lot more questions.

So, why don’t people in our society think critically? Because it’s ingrained from childhood not to do so. What do I mean by this? Let’s look at the average child. How many times have you heard a child ask a parent or teacher “Why do I have to do whatever?” And the parent or teacher replies with “Because I said so!” There is no reason given, so what a child actually learns is that they need to just blindly obey authority. There is a famous experiment done to test this called the “Milgram Experiment”. There was even a movie made called Experimenter. And if you want to read about it in Stanley Milgram’s own words, you can buy his book called Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. What this basically does is prove that people will blindly listen to an authority figure. This includes doing what they believe may even kill someone. So, people listen because they are taught to believe an authority, which in todays society includes doctors, police, politicians, tv news, school teachers, celebrities, and many others. Many people just don’t ask questions because they were never taught to do that.

Another thing that I have to wonder about with these actors is if they even know who they are. Since it is their job to pretend to be someone else, do they in some cases spend so much time being someone else that they forget who they are? Or do they spend so much time being someone else that they never figured out who they are? I don’t know, but it is something I do ponder when they say or do stupid things.

Let me know what you think on the Contact Us form.

Rioting against free speech!

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 01:00:00 +0000

I’m not really sure where to start here. We could start by looking at some of the things said before the latest election that saw Donald Trump win the election. Here is a typical headline by the Washington Times: Democrats warn of a racist uprising if Donald Trump loses election. There were a lot of people who didn’t like Trump, who were predicting that there would be violence if Trump were to loose. Now that we can look back at that, we have to wonder, was this projecting on their part? We may never know for sure, but anyone who thinks for themselves has to wonder.

Let’s start by looking at what Berkley used to stand for. If you go to their home page at www.berkeley.edu, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the Equity, Inclusion & Diversity link, you can see the following text:

Each day, the Division of Equity and Inclusion works to build a campus where there are no ‘others’; where our diverse ethnicities and cultures, backgrounds and identities, struggles and strengths make us—the students, researchers, faculty, and staff—all the richer.

As you can see from this diversity message, they specifically say “there are no ‘others’”. So they are indicating that since there are no divisions between people, that they are all in fact together one people. And if they are all one people, wouldn’t that mean if someone has something they feel important to say, they would applaud that and listen to them? And that is what this was all about. There was a controversial speaker scheduled to speak at Berkeley that evening, and some people didn’t want anyone to hear what he had to say. Now if a particular individual doesn’t want to hear what someone has to say, they can just not be present in the room the discussion is happening, but in todays society, when someones speech is labeled as ‘hate’ speech, even without any evidence, it is no longer ‘tolerated’ by some. On many college campuses this is known as Social Justice. I did find an interesting article on Social Justice called “Social Justice: Not What You Think It Is” which is fascinating.

Now the idea of Social Justice is interesting in that it is looking for equality in general. Now there are different kinds of equality. The first one I will talk about is Equality of Opportunity. The idea here is that everyone should have the same opportunity as everyone else. So, if two people apply for a job, the one that is more qualified for the job based on their skills should get the job. It should not be based on race, religion, sex, age, or anything else. If the person is qualified for the job, and they are more qualified than anyone else, nothing else should matter. I think there are very few people in the US today who would have any kind of a problem with this.

The next type of equality is Equality of Outcome. In this case, the idea is that outcomes must be equal. There is a good example in that there are only a fraction of women in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields as compared to men, and that the only way things are equal is if this country is 50% female, then the STEM fields should contain 50% females. The problem with that is the STEM fields are preferred by men. Just as teaching is preferred by women. If we followed this logic through, then 50% of lumberjacks should be women, and coal mines should contain 50% women. And I don’t see anyone complaining that these last two jobs are filled with mostly men. The problem with Equality of Outcome is that it doesn’t take into account what individuals want. The important thing to understand is that there are general differences between men and women. For instance, women are generally better caregivers, as in the past, they have cared for the children of society, where the men were out risking their lives hunting for food. Of course there are exceptions, but here I’m talking about generalities. The other problem is if a hiring manager of a STEM business has too many men, they are limited to only hiring women, which could leave them short handed, even if there are qualified men for the job. This just isn’t good business in a free market.

So, enough about Social Justice, what about the riots? Now to be fair, most people at this protest were actually non-violent, and as always, when a protest turns violent, it is usually just a few who instigate it all. The big question is who were these violent people? Were they students? They could be called “Agitators”, but what kind of agitators were they? Were they “home grown” agitators, or were they funded by someone similar to what I mentioned in my “Expose the Agitators!” post? Any way you look at it, these violent people are trying to put a stop to free speech in this country, and that cannot be allowed to happen. If it does, then we will be taking a giant step back in time.

Let me know what you think!

Visa Ban - Muslim Ban?

Mon, 30 Jan 2017 01:00:00 +0000

First, lets look at Google’s auto complete function. Below is a screenshot from today showing you need to just enter two characters to get an option of Muslim Ban.

And it produces 37,000,000 results.

OK, now if you want to get into the details of the Executive Order, it is called “PROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES”. I would recommend you to read the entire Executive Order in the link above.

The first interesting thing is that in the executive order, there is no mention of any specific religion. It does reference religion, religions, and religious 7 times. Do a search above on the actual article, you can see them there.

So, the most important part of this is Section 3, where it references what is to be done.

Sec. 3. Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern.

What this Executive Order is all about is suspending the issuance of Visas from ‘Countries of Particular Concern’. So, what is a ‘Country of Particular Concern’? That is a good question, and I’m not sure where this list of 7 countries comes from. I did find a New York Times article that calls out these 7 countries. They are: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. What I found interesting, is that when I did a search on ‘Countries of Particular Concern’, I did find a government site that listed these countries. It is uscirf.gov, and it lists Burma, Central African Republic, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Usbekistan, and Vietnam. At least these are the ones listed as Tier 1 countries at this time.

The real question is if this can realistically be called a “Muslim Ban”. First, I’ll admit that it is possible to target a specific demographic without using the name of that demographic. There is at least some evidence that suggests at least parts of the drug war were put in place to target war protesters and blacks. That is just one article that could be used to support the idea. I’m not saying it does support the idea, I’m just saying it could be a starting point to do more research into it.

There are a few things needed to support this executive order being called a “Muslim Ban”, they are that it should target a significant majority of Muslims, and it should Ban them. If we start by looking at what countries have the largest Muslim populations per wikipedia, the top 10 are Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria and Morocco. Of these, only one is on the list of countries in the New York Times list is Pakistan. And on the other list is Egypt, Iran, Nigeria and Pakistan. Since this list of ‘Countries of Particular Concern’, don’t mirror very closely the most populous Muslim nations, it doesn’t seem likely that it is a ban on Muslims. As for the ban portion, according to the Executive Order, the term is ‘Suspension of Issuance of Visas’, which is not a ‘Ban’, but a suspension. If someone has their drivers license ‘Suspended’, it is usually for a particular time, after which time has expired, they can try and get it back. And that is exactly what is going on here. After a specific amount of time, those wanting a Visa to travel to the US, can reapply and be vetted again to try and gain entrance, if they pass the vetting.

Based on these simple facts, it is easy to call these ‘Muslim Ban’ headlines at best dishonest, and at worst, fake news. Let me know what you think on the contact page.

What about The Matrix!

Mon, 23 Jan 2017 01:00:00 +0000

It’s been too long since posting anything here. I kind of took the weekend off, and enjoyed some movies. I re-watched the ‘Matrix’ films, and I noticed some interesting things.

In the first movie, those of you familiar with the series, will remember the important red vs. blue pill moment. At this time, Morpheus tells Neo, “All I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.” Now, how do we define ‘The Truth’? That is the big question. It could be said that truth is subjective, and people will tell you that the ‘truth’ is, that chocolate ice cream tastes better than vanilla ice cream. What I want to discuss is truth that is Objective. What I mean by that is that it can be tested, and that test can be repeated. For instance, what is the truth about letting go of a rock that is 3 feet above a hard surface? We can do a test and do just that, let go of a rock that is 3 feet above a hard surface and observe that it falls down and hits that hard surface. As long as you are on Earth, and there aren’t any interfering forces, such as wind or magnetism, the same result will happen over and over again. The rock will hit the hard surface every time. In this article, I am referring to that context of Truth. Something that can be tested and observed to be true.

So, the movies start out talking about ‘Truth’, and as they go on, they are making decisions based on prophecies. Now, for a person to make a decision that affects them based on subjective ‘Facts’ is OK for personal decisions, but when it is important, it is best to use objective facts, when they can be obtained. Now, I know these are only movies, and they are only for entertainment, but I’ve started to see things like this in various media a lot lately. The issue I have with this is that something interesting happens when someone repeatedly hears the same thing over and over, from different sources, they start believing it, even without evidence.

Just take a look at this study done in 2009 that I’ll bet you never heard of. ‘New study puts final nail in the “saturated fat causes heart disease” coffin’. You can and should read the article, and it links to the actual study, but the short of it is this.

It pooled together data from 21 unique studies that included almost 350,000 people, about 11,000 of whom developed cardiovascular disease (CVD), tracked for an average of 14 years, and concluded that there is no relationship between the intake of saturated fat and the incidence of heart disease or stroke.”

How can this be? We’ve heard over and over again on TV and other places over the past 50+ years that saturated fats cause heart disease, and the research just doesn’t bear that out. Now, I’m not saying the case is completely closed, but based on current research and evidence, you shouldn’t be scared to use animal fats anymore. And make that pie crust with lard, it will taste awesome!!

So, what am I trying to get at here? I’ve kind of been all over the place. My main point is that in repeating unproven data, we can start to believe it. In this case it’s that of the movies always talking about doing what you ‘feel’ and not what the evidence is pointing to, and it can be dangerous. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes your gut feeling is all you have to go on, and you need to make important quick decisions based on that, but this happens way too often in movies. I’m curious how many people only go by their gut, and then they wonder why things so rarely turn out for them when it seems to work so well in movies! I get movies are an escape to many, and that is OK, just keep in mind that it is entertainment, and don’t take it to seriously! Also, remember that movies are fiction, and you shouldn’t base your life on them. But, if you are reading this, you probably already know that!

Expose the Agitators!

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 01:00:00 +0000

Earlier today I was talking to my brother in law. He is a black man, I am a white man. Not that that should make any difference, but if I don’t put that out there, someone will claim that I’m trying to deceive people.

So, we were talking about how to identify the real issue of what is happening with all of this hate in the US these days. Most of that hate seems to be around race. We went back and forth for a while before we both agreed that the real issue is not race, but class. So we then thought about how we could address this. We ended up talking about how everyone is going on and on about race, but the real issue is class. Why is it everyone is talking about the wrong thing? As we talked, the subject of the elites came up and how they try to control the narrative. What we decided is that a good place to start is to identify what we called the agitators. These are the people that keep steering the narrative to race and away from class. With this in mind, we decided to start with a concept we are calling “Expose the Agitators!”

What we need to do is expose the agitators, and get rid of the false narrative that the differences are based on race, when in fact the biggest differences are based on class. I have more in common with a black man, than I have in common with a billionaire. It is always the first step to identify the problem. It is only once it is correctly identified, that it can be addressed.

As thing go, I ran across an article titled ‘Ads in two dozen cities offer protesters up to $2,500 to agitate at Trump inaugural’. It references the ad below. I placed an image below because I don’t know how long this ad will be in place, so I have it here for posterity.

Now this article doesn’t get much into who the agitators, are, but I thought it interesting that as my brother in law and I were talking about agitators, here some of them are. It’s clearly a person or entity with a lot of money, as I couldn’t afford to pay anyone to do this. So, we need to find a way to fight against this and expose these people.

If we go back a few months, we can also see that there is big money in the BLM camp as well. The headline reads ‘Black Lives Matter: Produced By George Soros’.

So, let me know thoughts using the contact page if you have an idea on how to do this.

Not Ready

Mon, 16 Jan 2017 01:00:00 +0000

So, today I’m not prepaired for a new post, but in an effort to keep adding something, here it is, even though I haven’t prepaired for it.

So, I ran across this video on YouTube. It was from the Computing Forever channel, and the title was Anti-Trump Celebrity Cringe Fest. Now for those of you that have the ability to think about something without making a judgement on it, you will be OK, but if you are someone who just can’t talk about certain things, this probably isn’t for you. So, I guess this could be construed as a Trigger Warning. For those that don’t know what that is, I’d consider that a good thing.

Anyway, this video is about how Hollywood makes videos on trying to persuade people to do or believe something. Some of the main things lately revolve around Trump. For instance, there was one before the election that talked about how you shouldn’t vote for Trump. Now, whether you like or dislike any particular candidate, the important thing is to make decisions based on FACT, and not emotion. What these Celebrity videos do, is to evoke emotion, and although they do quite a lot of name calling, the one thing that they don’t do is present any facts. Well, if you are a ‘Thinker’, then the most important thing is facts, not emotion.

Another video was put out and it was trying to get the Electoral College to ‘Vote Their Conscience’, and not let Trump be elected. It was interesting in that when I first saw that video, the number of likes and dislikes were clearly visible, and it was almost 100 dislikes for every like. What happened next was amazing. YouTube actually removed the numbers next to the thumbs up and thumbs down icon, so you couldn’t tell how many likes and dislikes there are anymore.

I find it appalling, that people that are famous, and who are idolized by many, would use such manipulative tactics to try and get them to do their bidding. To me, that is bordering on evil! As most people in this country, and indeed many people in other countries were never taught how to really think and reason for themselves, these emotional tactics often will persuade people to do what they are told to do. If these people wanted to really help society, wouldn’t it be best for them to make a video that presents facts and uses those facts to try to sway the argument? It would at least be much more intellectually honest!

Really Thinking

Fri, 13 Jan 2017 01:00:00 +0000

What does it mean to Really Think? That is a good question, and there are probably many answers out there that could fit the bill. What I want to talk about here is related to thinking while listening to someone. For example, you are on the Internet, and end up on YouTube and you start to look at some videos. Now, you could just be looking at cat videos, or something similar, but lets look specifically at the many videos out there that were put there to try and tell us something. For instance, it may be an alternate media video, or even a mainstream media video. So, you are watching this video, and you hear them say something. The question is how do you start thinking about what they said? How do you ‘Think’ about it?

The first step is to try and look at the language that is being used. For example, lets look at something recently in the news. Lets look at this headline from Yesterday in the New York Times. The headline reads: As Trump Berates News Media, a New Strategy Is Needed to Cover Him. Just look at the headline and the language used. The word ‘Berates’ is interesting as it implies that what he is doing talking down to the media is unwarranted. But, if you look at a recent Gallop Poll, Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low, it is obvious that most people no longer believe the media. This poll taken last September shows that only 32% of people “have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media”. This means that 2 out of every 3 people don’t trust the media. If that is the case, then the media is truly not doing their jobs. Now, if you are one of the ones that still trust the media, this seems completely crazy that the media would be ‘berated’ just for doing it’s job, but if you aren’t one of the ones that trust the media, then you may look at this as deserving. Either way, the headline is designed to get both types of people to click on it, because if you believe the media, you want to read why they are being berated. If you think it is justified, you want to revel in why you are the one that is correct.

Thinking comes into play when you step back and try to understand why the headline says what it does. A headlines main job is to get people to react. In some cases it isn’t even to get them to read the article, as that might give them too much information. In this world of sound bites, what we have been taught to do is make decisions without really digging into any subject. Since there’s very little discussion on many subjects, including politics, it’s no wonder people don’t understand what’s going on in the world today. In order to keep someone’s attention, the media can’t talk about any one subject too long, as that would bore many people who would then turn the channel. Luckily, with the advent of the Internet, and places like YouTube, people can decide what they want to watch, and when they want to watch it. So, if someone does create a lengthy video on a subject, those wanting to see it can dig into more detail than is provided by the mainstream media. Another option with the Internet, is you can search for the apposing point of view, or any other points of view, so you can try and get perspective from all sides. That is something that is sorely lacking from todays mainstream media.

The next step is to then process what is being said, and see if it is not only logical (think logical fallacies), along with what evidence is provided to support their claims.

What is Russell Conjugation?

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 01:00:00 +0000

In the about page, I mentioned Emotive Conjugation which is a different name for Russell Conjugation. If you’ve taken a look at that page, you will have an idea what this is. It is using specific and intentional words that give feeling to something you say. It is a form of rhetoric that is used in many places. The most famous example is given by Bertrand Russell.

I am Firm, You are Obstinate, He is a pig-headed fool.

As you can see, each of those parts makes you feel different. They convey an emotion, even though there isn’t a specific emotion mentioned. In each of these cases, someone isn’t changing their mind, but the feeling you get is different for each. In the first instance, it gives a positive feeling, such that it implies the speaker has full understanding and you won’t be able to change his mind. In the second, the feeling you get is that the person won’t change there mind because they are uninterested in looking at things differently, and the last one implies that he will not change his mind because nothing else matters than retaining his thoughts.

This type of rhetoric is interesting in that it is used extensively in advertising, propaganda, and politics. The next time you see any of these, look closely at what words are used, and how they make you feel.

Here is another article I found that also describes this idea.

Welcome to FreeTheThinker.com!

Sun, 08 Jan 2017 17:23:53 +0000

I just came up with this idea the day before I posted this. So, I’m still fleshing out all of the details of what I want to be talking about. I’m sure it will change over time, and that is to be expected with any new idea. New ideas always evolve and as I learn more, I will be changing what I think. That is part of rational thought, as more information is provided, thoughts change.

An example of that is when learning how to fly an airplane. Landing an airplane is not exactly what one would think, and once you learn it, your thoughts change on the process. For example, during normal flight, you use the throttle to set speed on a simple aircraft, and you pitch to climb or decend. But, when landing, you adjust your speed with pitch, and how fast you are decending with throttle. So, if you are coming in short, and going too slow, you give it some throttle and pitch the nose down. Which seems weird to pitch down when you aren’t going to make the runway.

Other things that change over time is how people feel about race, religion, sex, politics, and other things that aren’t supposed to be discussed. I think it’s important to discuss these ideas, and they cannot be out of bounds to talk about. That only leads to not seeing all sides of a subject, and that leads to possibly missing the best option out there. As I’m sure most people are aware, there are usually more than two sides to any story.