Certainty

To what extent are you comfortable with this- in particular, in matters that are clearly heavily subjective?

is certainty a tool that will get you ahead, an input into drive and all that hardedged consultant shiny armour shit

or is the need for it a weakness, a barrier to eg progress, necessary compromise, real-world practicalities?

To be sure

d-mac posts you read in a Michael Buerk voice, rather than an irish accent - to be sure!

IM ASKING THE BIG QUESTIONS LADA

ffs this phone

dud

Ppl are always like “this is good” “this is bad” fuck you

otm i think

(not sure rly)

`To realise the relative validity of one's convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly, is what distinguishes a civilised man from a barbarian.'

- Bob Marley

absolute Tosh

Honestly once you’ve agreed that a matter is purely subjective then you might as well commit to your (subjective) position

In all matters your position can & will evolve but mealy mouthed equivocation is a turnoff

v little is ofc purely subjective, but yeah i recognise the weaponisation of certainty as having huge utility in a world where the strength of yr case is measured in such a mishmash of ways

to the extent that certainty overlaps with a lack of self-reflection it's a bad thing

backing your own self-acknowledged subjectivity is fine really except your subjectivity could take you to some very bad places

trying to dissolve the subjective/objective as a hierarchy seems like a plan

A friend of mine used to have a saying which I have also adopted: "The demand for certainty greatly outstrips the supply."

But then, he was very much the rationalist and could properly evaluate the inadequacy of the evidence upon which most of us must base our decisions in life.

that seems a fair start as an aim nv

`To realise the relative validity of one's convictions and yet stand for them unflinchingly, is what distinguishes a civilised man from a barbarian.'

- Bob Marley

― Frederik B, Sunday, December 8, 2019 1:44 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

absolute Tosh

― calzino, Sunday, December 8, 2019 1:46 PM (forty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

no i think it was definite Marley

certainty as a retreat into self-care in a confusing and often non-co-operative world, maybe?

What did we used to feel certain about but now don't?

he's been on the yellow smarties again :p

Absolutely.

i spose one of the questions id have to the posters we have that are very certain of everything- now, ye know the ones, dont mither me for names:

if you lived in- or maybe rather say if your lived experience was of- a society/country/environment/structure that is broken, non-functioning, corrupted, etc to a significant degree (i think it clear that our very certain posters as referenced above tend to hold this view- theyre very certain of it tbh)

then to what extent can you rely on your own certainty in your asserted solution or set of solutions to address that situational deficit?

would there be not be room for a grain/shedload (or any amount in between) of doubt that your outlook in reaction to the dysfunctional surround is in itself not worthy of two firmly planted feet and a fey confidence as frequently exhibited

idk (<---- note the becoming uncertainty) just seems that certainty is a big reach, if i were idk from a country that didnt work id probably be not so sure of things

this observation, poor but mine own tho it be, etc, is an input into my wondering ( & now mind u im only wondering it) above about whether a lot of the certainty from our certain very certain posters from certain countries that certainly dont work very well isn't a method of self care or a pose along those lines that serves as a cloak against uncertainty in a cruel world etc

certainly seems plausible (not definite obv)

nb seems likely (tho not certain, obv) that asking ppl from the many countries that do work would be an interesting approach, even just to mix it up or to benchmark ones own unshakeable theoretical foundations, but certainly there seems to exist a certain aversion to that and in particular from our most totally certain posters

its definitely a strange one

I'd still have that question for em tbh

back in ur cave plato

Socrates in a Tottenham tee

To what extent are you comfortable with this- in particular, in matters that are clearly heavily subjective?

i must now read your later question but am going to have a shower first.

I think that was one of my original questions alright, certainty donned as a Lance and all that

I think that was one of my original questions alright, certainty donned as a Lance and all that

The only certainty in life is that I'm right 100% of the tiem.

I think I come across as more certain in text than I do to speak to, tone and punctuation matter and I am not 100% certain on many things in life.

However, it is quite self-selecting, like unless I’m shitposting or something, then I think a bit (a bit! ten seconds counts!) about the thing that I will put down on this public and eternal site.

Whereas if you are talking to someone in person or on the phone, you can always stretch your syllables to indicate that little centimetre of doubt or pause to indicate hesitation or any of the million normal things you do in speaking. People have told me almost as long as I’ve been online that they don’t like the way I speak as though I am dead certain in my opinions, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

On a personal level, I spent so much of my early adulthood depressed and self-doubting everything that I do try to say the things I believe are right when I can, like I’m making up for lost time or something. I think the more you do this and gain in confidence, the easier it is to convince people of things, the projection of confidence and therefore certainty is a total trick basically.

Sorry that should have said the way I write , I think i make much more sense not in text.

i wrote a long thing and then deleted it because it wasn't v pertinent. xposts.

It often seems to me like every important decision I've made in my life was a choice among alternatives for which I had far too little information to justify certainty and what little information I did have indicated not one of the available choices was clearly good or attractive, but only promised outcomes in various shades from middling poor to very bad. Most of my adult life has been spent learning to accept this state of perpetually moving forward into a dim and unpromising future, so I can just get on with it as best I know how. That task usually requires embracing courage and hope as substitutes for certainty.

Of course, it's easiest to manufacture certainty in matters that are the most remote from one's personal life and it's hard not to indulge in that luxury.

just on yr point gyac - i also think sometimes certainty can be a form of humility. like i don't really like people who try to block off every corner of argument by saying 'well you know, i do think that but it could also be this,' and i sometimes think have an opinion, or take a stance, expose yourself a bit. but i am very bad at this. however, i do sometimes just try to make a statement rather than worry about hedging it against any angle if you see what i mean.

Good post, gyac. When you have a history of constantly second-guessing yourself, including over trifles (and I speak from experience here), there is value in projecting certainty, be it only to convince yourself, and also because some things are worth fighting for. That said, I still have a tendency to break down almost every single claim I encounter out in the wild, especially those that appeal to my underlying idealism. Whatever proves most resistant to that deconstructive process is what passes for certainty in my book.

i wrote a long thing and then deleted it because it wasn't v pertinent. xposts.

xpost to gyac: Interesting! I think it might be the opposite for me - I convey more certainty in the way I talk, especially in groups, and I think there may be a gender element to it. That is, I know that as a woman, I'm socialized to convey doubt about what I'm saying in order to put people at ease with the fact that I'm talking at all. There's a tone of "Gee, I don't really know what I'm talking about but I'm feeling like maybe [insert complex thought that I've spent a long time perfecting], idk, maybe I'm wrong???" that can creep in when I'm not being careful, so at times I deliberately work to convey certainty instead.

I think my posting voice, on the other hand, was mostly trained by posting on Television Without Pity back in the day. They had very clear rules about using "I think," "IMO," "YMMV," etc. to keep from sounding aggressive, and I still reflexively check my posts to make sure they have enough qualifiers in them.

just on yr point gyac - i also think sometimes certainty can be a form of humility. like i don't really like people who try to block off every corner of argument by saying 'well you know, i do think that but it could also be this,' and i sometimes think _have an opinion_, or _take a stance, expose yourself a bit_. but i am very bad at this. however, i do sometimes just try to make a statement rather than worry about hedging it against any angle if you see what i mean.

That said, I still have a tendency to break down almost every single claim I encounter out in the wild, especially those that appeal to my underlying idealism.

One can also be certain-ish about one’s uncertainty, which further complicates matters, of course.

That is, I know that as a woman, I'm socialized to convey doubt about what I'm saying in order to put people at ease with the fact that I'm talking at all. There's a tone of "Gee, I don't really know what I'm talking about but I'm feeling like maybe [insert complex thought that I've spent a long time perfecting], idk, maybe I'm wrong???" that can creep in when I'm not being careful, so at times I deliberately work to convey certainty instead.

One can also be certain-ish about one’s uncertainty, which further complicates matters, of course.

Of course, it always helps to have certain people in a conversation because then you can try to see if you can argue them out of it. Not nearly half as fun with someone who has no strong opinion. :)

Oh of course, what I meant to say is that there are quite a few instances where the more you know about a given topic, the less certain you are in relation to it, to the point where that uncertainty becomes a kind of informed certainty. If you’re uncertain out of laziness and ignorance, then you def need to do your homework (unless it’s something totally irrelevant – a value judgment which also requires some amount of certainty).

Im certain that these are all good posts

I’m certain that you didn’t get the beef you ordered but maybe it doesn’t matter?

Secondary product of good discussion is v acceptable always

I’d have more to say about this but being married to an actual expert on bias and uncertainty means I am very uncertain about whether I can express the correct opinions in this thread. I am very comfortable with uncertainty in the sense that I feel well equipped to navigate it - I am good at estimation, good at decision making with incomplete information, and very good at narrowing down options based on criteria developed on the fly.

Basically I feel like having a rational framework for making decisions is an excellent substitute for certainty, and true certainty itself is a unicorn, seeking it out is hopeless.

Thread is about those who have it, tbf, absent any seeming reason for having it

People who are dead certain about things all have dunning-kruger imo

Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia all suck. Boom: certainty.

most of this stuff you posh clowns call "nuance" in defence of shit politicians and their policies, us folks in the ghettos, council estates, projects etc.. well we call this utter fucking bollocks

I think there are always some things you will always think the same on but a little pressing can return interesting results. And there is always nuance even in the certainty. To return to something I said earlier, I suppose part of why I ask a lot of questions is to get to the true answer of the way I feel about something. This is a very stupid example and I slept four hours last night, so do not tell me this is terrible, I knew that before I wrote it.

For example, Tottenham being top of the table. Is this good? No.

Would you prefer it was Chelsea? No.

Would you prefer it was [my team] fucking obviously, do you even know me?

However, you introduce a few more questions and therefore uncertainty.

Is Tottenham being top of the table something that will make someone you love happy? Yes!

Is it good when things happen that make someone you love happy? Yes.

Therefore, knowing what you do now, is Tottenham being top of the table good?

...Fuck no.

^united obv

Good example imo

i v much relish the uncertainty and process of working stuff out fwiw, which is why i always favour the 'fling it all at the wall and see what sticks' approach to political discussion, serves me v well

Not just politics now is it

ilx, along with the world, needs both its experimenters and its sticklers

^flung at the wall u see

I'd have have fp'ed imago about 45 times by now if wasn't such a soft bastard!

Experimental sticklers ftw.

the universe is a platonic discourse between dilettantes and artisans

^flung at the wall u see

and lowdowns

Oh god

I get a real "My Back Pages" feeling when I think about all the political opinion columns I wrote for my college newspaper - like, how did I think I was qualified to do that, and how did I have so much confidence in my own opinions and understanding? These days I can't even bring myself to post about politics on ilx.

socrates claimed to know for certain that he knew nothing. I think he was bullshitting but I can’t be certain

does certainty here require some kind of assumption about having privileged access to objective truth or some such dubiousness? or is what is called certainty something more like rhetorical stridency which seems to be lacking in humility and respect? they might look like the same thing sometimes but I don’t think they are

in the political realm challenge to the status quo will generally be perceived as more certain than a defence of it. I don’t know why, or when certainty became a bad thing in that kind of discourse. it feels like a relatively recent development but idk

The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity, I guess maybe, YMMV???

i still read that as 'your meat my veg'

Misread ‘veg’ as, uh...

uncertainty descends

Feels like the whole polarisation of the world has been made worse with this pandemic and far too many of us have nestled on a bunch of "certainties" that align with our team. Like people are made to feel weak and woolly if they aren't for opening or closing everything.

Working with uncertainty, change, estimating, etc. is definitely a skill I've learned through (often painful) experience more than anything else. Something I think I'm very good at is helping my teams to deal with it.

Dealing with uncertainty in my personal life is a whole nother challenge that probably needs a whole nother lifetime of experience to learn.

Typically measured response

I'd say that the polarisation has longer tendrils than that, though

Yes. If anything, I've been rendered less certain of all my personal opinions by the pandemic. However, I am more certain of my tenets (pacifism, commitment to education, etc.) than I ever have been before.

Maybe I mean that I feel I'm beset on both sides by (the appearance of) the certainty of others. Or a desperation for that certainty.

Have you had the pleasure of wandering past a "should the schools be open" conversation? Literally no-one wants to hear the relative low probabilities of risk versus the balance of wider social and developmental harms but bear in mind the demographics of the staff guy. It's all binary: either there's no risk and the kids need an education or the schools are a hotbed of covid transmission destroying the wider community and need to be closed. Nuance is the enemy.

I haven't been able to wander out of those conversations, unfortunately, but yeah I get that covids universality has made it a perfect vehicle for inescapable manifestations of the type of certainty we're I think both recognising

I think personalisation of everything is maybe the far end of that trend, but I've no thesis as yet or anything

That's a good example, onimo. I like to think of myself as a fan of nuance, but as a teacher, I do find that when people seem very certain that I should be teaching in person, it has a tendency to push me into greater certainty that I should not be teaching in person.

In the context of coordination of numbers of people, I think that there's often a time to commit to a decision that's usually never at the moment of actual certainty because of surrounding events/necessities, and I reckon that this opportunity cost of certainty has more and more come to be seen as something that is to be seized upon as always a mistake as opposed to the cost of acting in an obscure world.

There's no doubt that always-on news and social media have had a very corrosive effect on the willingness of those tasked with such action to defend this distinction, which is part of the nuance that we're discussing here.

The style of analysis currently fashionable where media moderators are no more than either the proxy mouthpiece for the most vociferous attack or the person responsible for ensuring that idiot bias gets its fair 50% of speaking time is also (I almost said "certainly", oops) likely a big input

Finally I think that social media strategies/alliances ensuring only the most partisan, extreme voices get oxygen have another big input.

That latter is relevant to the topic at hand as pertains to ilx imo, and iirc as to my intent either way.

"if you lived in- or maybe rather say if your lived experience was of- a society/country/environment/structure that is broken, non-functioning, corrupted, etc to a significant degree (i think it clear that our very certain posters as referenced above tend to hold this view- theyre very certain of it tbh)

then to what extent can you rely on your own certainty in your asserted solution or set of solutions to address that situational deficit?"

The assumption you are making is that certain ilx posters who see the corruption of our countries and society have any answers or solutions. I want the guillotine because I want revenge. Things as I see it are highly unlikely to be reset to any kind of parity with the powers that be. But I know I want their heads chopped off. Cold bloody certainty on that one.

Politically I often think that the right are the ones that project certainty. What was "Get Brexit Done" after all? Certainty isn't really a trait on the left but usually a characteristic displayed by bosses. Everybody else is trying to get by and re-adjust to certainties imposed on the rest of us.

Booming posts everyone

Feels like the whole polarisation of the world has been made worse with this pandemic

I don't have a good sense of whether this is true or not on a wider scale, but to me it seems the "don't know's" have had a good pandemic? They've seen a lot of the ball, although ultimately they seems short of ideas as to what to do with it

Im always disproportionately delighted when a good sports analogy sneaks into things

lol?

Ya

Certainty isn't really a trait on the left

i wrote a longish post about why i think this is demonstrably almost self-evidently RONG (one of those statements where I sort of sat up and went ‘Seriously?!’), but zing ate it, and as i didn’t actually come here to stir, but to see whether a long-ish post i wanted to write actually belonged here or on its own thraed i’ll leave it for now.

in fact now i feel i should ask the question whether it was a sarcastic joke?

Post it somewhere anyway.

Enjoying both the echoing in the post but also the um certainty of yr dname in context btw

Certainty isn't really a trait on the left

The left in general is more likely to acknowledge complexity, but ime this doesn't exclude members of the left arriving at the point of certainty as often as anyone else does.