When did someone last change your mind?

[igenlode]

"When did someone last change your mind?": an interesting question on this week's Radio 4 "Any Questions", that initially stumped all the panellists (according to the presenter's observations!), and which of course they all then proceeded to dodge/spin into political dogma -- with the exception of the Conservative peer, who thereby gained some respect in my eyes. Because yes, it *is* hard to think of any occasion in which someone else's opinion/arguments have honestly changed yours -- most of us are exceedingly stuck in our opinions, once we have actively formed them, which means that change, where it happens, tends to be experienced on an emotional level as the result of a violent apostasy or sense of betrayal. People are 'converted' from their opinions rather than simply changing their minds as a result of someone else's argument... (Which is one reason the jury system tries to go to some lengths to pick jurors who haven't heard all about the case in advance, and why press coverage is limited as soon as there is a case to be brought, in a nowadays fairly vain attempt to avoid bringing in a jury whose minds have been influenced by advance knowledge, potentially presented by those with biased opinions...)

Like the "Question Time" panellists, I too drew an immediate panicked blank in the face of that particular challenge; I'm not sure I can honestly think of *any* case in which an opinion of mine in one direction has been changed as the result of someone else's representations. Like most people, I cling to my prejudices even if battered by a tsunami of vociferous opposing arguments, which may shut me down but don't actually change my belief...

I think the best example that comes to mind, though it is not the result of anything that anyone else actually said to me, is my reluctant relaxation of my kneejerk distaste for Real Person Fiction. I could never understand why there would be any attraction in it at all; having now been lured by morbid curiosity into reading some (mainly because there was next to no *non*-RPF for that particular fandom, with only a handful of fics in existence overall) in a situation where I had a sufficiently detailed background knowledge to be able to appreciate the sources that were being drawn on and the very recognisable character dynamics... yes, I can say that I appreciated it and now realise that it *can* be done without being grossly offensive. Though I still wouldn't want the people involved to read it (as to be fair I understand that most of the writers wouldn't) and still find the attempted erotica neither convincing nor appealing; I did find the non-erotic interactions charming and funny, though, and can see that they were written from a position of affectionate --even if, in the most entertaining example, very silly!-- fandom.

So someone, or someones, did change my mind, albeit not by arguing out their case (which to be frank I don't think would have had any effect, just as pro-slash arguments don't make me like slash any the better) but by practical demonstration, which is probably the only way to do it.

Comments

[igenlode]

Yes, I think that an Internet that had developed under conditions of reduced energy availability would have automatically developed to prioritize efficiency -- just as the chips that were developed to operate in embedded devices were designed to operate on a fraction of the power (and generate a fraction of the waste heat as a result) at the cost of having fewer instructions available, and executing those simple instructions much faster. Intel *could* have been designing chips along those lines, but it chose not to, because development in those days was based on the assumption that hardware power would go on doubling indefinitely, so efficiency was a waste of development time and extra features were the selling point.

Just as English cars and trains are smaller and more fuel-efficient than American transport due to geographical limitations -- if they were designed along the same lines then they would be virtually unsaleable here!

But I'm afraid that so far as I recall the 1940s metric being cited was a measurement of *total* consumption averaged out to what the planet could support per head of population, not merely of energy supply. And that meant very few new clothes, little imported food (sugar was rationed up until 1953), very few private motor-cars among the population at large, virtually everything being repaired until it fell apart rather than replaced by a newer model, and a much higher proportion of personal income being consumed by the essentials of life as versus leisure and luxuries. That was the last period during which we were consuming no more than our 'fair share' of global resources, at a level which could be extended to the rest of the world without destroying the planet; at the moment, planetary survival relies on the vast majority of the world's population *not* living an aspirational consumerist lifestyle, while encouraging everyone to aim to attain it for themselves personally.

Just putting more electricity into the mix doesn't cover the other resource issues, unfortunately...

*Resisting the urge to dive into the Internet Rabbit hole*

[capri0mni]

But I'm afraid that so far as I recall the 1940s metric being cited was a measurement of *total* consumption averaged out to what the planet could support per head of population, not merely of energy supply.

Okay, now I want to dive through the Internet and look up how much (and in what direction) estimates of how much human activity Earth can sustain has changed through the decades, but I have more pressing matters I need to attend to, today.

In any case: Fewer private motor cars (and building cities to be walkable, so fewer cars are needed), repairing things until they absolutely fall apart (making "the right to repair" something that wouldn't even be questioned), having fewer, but sturdier, clothes in our wardrobes (that don't sprout mysterious holes after the third time through the wash, and shedding polyester microfibers into our water supply before ending up in mountain-high landfills of material that can't be recycled), doesn't sound all that bad, right about now.

Of course, now that we're here instead of there, unwinding our energy and material consumption back to what it was 80 years ago would be a catastrophic hardship. As the proverb goes: You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. But if we had taken the fork in the road away from fossil fuels 50 years ago, when we had the chance, I don't think I'd miss the material culture we have now any more than I'd miss pop-up ads, auto-loading videos, and a.i. slop.

Re: *Resisting the urge to dive into the Internet Rabbit hole*

[igenlode]

Well, the estimates definitely go all the way back to Malthus -- but we're getting to the stage already where a significant proportion of the planet's biomass is being used simply in supporting our one species, so even if you calculate the maximum possible carrying capacity of the Earth and contrive not to exceed it, that still implies that every creature that isn't directly involved in the human food chain has to be considered surplus to requirements :-O

Yes, my reaction at the time was that 'back to the 1940s' really didn't sound that bad at all compared to the sort of apocalypse I'd been expecting -- it was very little removed in practical terms from the sort of life I was living at the time, or had lived at points in the past! But that was a long time ago now, and I've become addicted to things like computer games and having archive film and newsprint available free of charge and on demand (and an endless supply of foreign-language programming to practise on, instead of a handful of course tapes...)

And no, you don't miss in any case what you've never had. Most people are quite satisfied simply to see themselves as having more than their neighbours, however little in absolute terms that may be :-)

Re: *Resisting the urge to dive into the Internet Rabbit hole*

[capri0mni]

Well, Malthus was a bigot and a eugenicist. Just 'cause he live a long-ish time ago doesn't make what he said correct.

I was talking about what the scientists of 50 years ago were saying about sustainability, compared to what new (if it is new) consensus they've reached today, and what new evidence they've used to reach that conclusion,

... Speaking of changing minds.

Re: *Resisting the urge to dive into the Internet Rabbit hole*

[igenlode]

My thinking was that people have been making dire predictions for generations ever since Malthus, and yet so far every generation has managed to milk a little more productivity out of the Earth; in fact people are currently contriving to die of *over*-eating, which seems ironic.

I did do a little cursory Internet digging and unearthed a 1980 United Nations prediction that the global population would have risen to 8 billion persons by the year 2025, which turns out to have been pretty much accurate: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/29363/files/un_1980_world_population.pdf

And that did not, for example, anticipate the fact that the vast population of the then USSR would *decline* from the 1990s onwards instead of increasing on its forecast curve... (Unfortunately I can't read the whole PDF since it consistently crashes for me after the first few pages, but I wasn't planning to do more than skim the hundred-odd pages anyway!)

Earlier apocalyptic predictions: The Road to Survival (1948)
and The Population Bomb a generation later, confidently (and, as it turned out, erroneously) predicting mass starvation by the 1970s. But I can't find anything about calculations of *technology* levels as opposed to food supply.

1972 projections: The Limits to Growth" (In 2015, both industrial output per capita and food per capita peak at US$375 per person (1970s dollars, about $2,890 today) and 500 vegetable-equivalent kilograms/person).



Current calculations ("to keep a comfortable European average per capita product of 11,000USD" -- for comparison, a 'minimum lifestyle' pension income is currently calculated at £13,400 per year (more like 18,000USD), which leaves "no room to run your own car" and one week's annual holiday within the UK) are apparently for a maximum world population of about 3 billion (thousand million?) people, although probably not the most disinterested of sources: https://overpopulation-project.com/what-is-the-optimal-sustainable-population-size-of-humans/