2020s using Blogger. Kinda surprising, isn’t it.
The internet world has changed very much, from technology, social media platform, how it serve, how they serve us, how they’re designed, who owns them, or who tries to control them. We went from forums full of weirdos and nerds to timelines full of *experts*. Everything turned into a debate, a fact-check, a peer-review cosplay kind of. Yeah, I’m not saying about the specific person only, but merely a general population for what I can see, from this 2020s era, not only just the internet, a great change from late millenials adulting struggle memes to a glorification of self-depreciation by Shen Comix, I guess.
It’s not like I against over knowledge or science or kinda things. It’s more like saying I’m against the academician as well as I against the ulama for not to caring about it’s self-declaring heresy. Not because as an ideological beings or what they proposed into, but the social power that related to them is something that I against for. And what I’m against for is performers of knowledge, the culture when people have to weaponize over the information and data into something that make the conversation stopped, not as the conclusion about the topics, but to score points who the one who can drop the most links and PDFs in ten seconds. The justification to prove their group was right, because their data says so.
And, if the other side disagreed. They weren’t just wrong, they were anti-science, delusional, fascist enabler, self-defeatist, “not worth engaging,” “talking to the wall,” “need to touch the grass”, fallacies, postmodernist, schizopost, bad faith, clowning or whatever the insult and slur of the week is. Because, well, it’s easy to attack the people because *I* the prophet of knowledge, sent to spread the word from the holy paper of academia, isn’t it?
I mean, it’s good when people wants to be informed. I’m having fun reading politics and philosophy from any direction of the compass, but do I need to made a quotation or citation from a famous figure each time I talked to people like as reflection of it’s identity? Do I need to pulling up academic paper like they were in a peer-review warzone on every conversation? Do I need to brag “as-a-ism” to make the entire arguments become agreeable, because if I don’t, people would easily to discredit mine “doesn’t know what I’m talking about,” “just reading,” or “know-it-all person” as a form of mockery?
Yeah, yeah. It’s okay if you know or don’t know what the paper was really saying, I’m ok with that. You know what, it doesn't matters. I always thought that if the data alone could solve everything, why are we.. still arguing? That’s exactly why I’m against it as this sacred, debating manners with sparkling emoji.
And, we are not just merely a static data absorber. We are an intelligence beings, intelligence in the sense that we are messy, emotional, biased, sincere. And it’s fine to be wrong or losing, that’s how thinking works.
Maybe we don’t need to win. Maybe we just need to mean it.
It's OK to like, dislike, agreeing, or disagreeing something, seriously.
...but playing clique are not. That’s why I started this article.
Data is never neutral, we all know that. It’s always interpreted through someone’s lens. The problem is the people start forming a same-mind cliques. They hang around only with those who share the same sources, the same graphs, the same statistics. If you question the sources, you’re the outsider. If you telling something from the other side, you’re seen as a traitor. If you’re new, even if you’re in the same side with them, they won’t trust you unless if you’re ‘authoritative’ enough for it’s group. If you’re being the same of agreement but the group didn’t like you even because for the unrelated reason, they’ll still find something that disagreeing with you as possible even if it’s sacrificing the position of their aligned for. Oh well, fun stuff I guess.
Maybe it’s just all about the parasocial academia, how people defending their own idols; influencers, Youtubers, journalist that imagining that they're being a part of their "revolution" or, maybe checklist twitters that selling OnlyFans and gravure on it’s alter-account and hoping you’re being a part of it’s “benefits”. Or, maybe it’s all about algorithmic influence and power-taking; having much follower, likes, or "Top 1% Commenter" means I can stir the narrative or how people cancel each other by using community notes or organized brigading by upvote-downvote manipulation or imagining that I'm a friend with the one who had a power and I'm uncancelable. I don’t know, don’t ask me.
But in the end I know, it’s just all about “my data is not your data” kinda situation. In the end, people act like defending their data is defending for the sake of their identity. In the end, we weren’t talking anymore, we were just quoting someone else as a prove just because "it's popular therefore it's scientific and absolute right". It’s kinda ironic, they would become “the-most-logic-person-ever-because-the-data” become the very emotional things which what they hate for.
Listening feels like losing. Patience feels like surrendering. Not debunking it means “Big-L-Beta-Cuck-Ratio-Negative-Aura-Bro-Thinking-They-Are-Protagonist-Mending-Jadi-Biksu-X-3-Player”.
Don’t get me wrong, I like winning the arguments. I care about *truth*. I care about the papers. You can call everything you disagree is just a rhetoric, well, if you heard it from the other side, but I care to ask why people think differently. And I’m get something more if I understand how it works.
To understanding, not as to be a neutral side nor trying to *debunk* it in either way. Not trying to be the "me chad and yours wojak" nor try to living with harmony within each other differences with empathy within the "enemy". To understanding as to be the one who just listening for.. whatever it goes.
To find the sincere arguments is to against the external reason called the data is.
To find what is the matter to us is to knowing something that what we can approach.
Because, I’m nothing for this endless stream of information noise, so you’re also too, right?
...or not, o’ the holy messenger one.
Yes, people will always talk about their citation for its own, including mine.
Sure, people will justified it's collectivism for the sake of collectivist itself, just *because*; a human beings, same-mind beliefs, "Externalities-is-everyone-problem-just-grow-up-you-are-not-hermit-living," or "Bullying works anyway". Not to say to disagree nor to deserved it either way.
But, is it what you defended at is really the war you own?