add
4. if you haven’t done the work to be informed, don’t post.

(which i know is implicit for you, udhay).

these are all good conservation of effort (and sanity) rules.

as a side comment on “informed” opinion, i am quite amazed how Many Other People
have strongly held opinions about taboo subjects such as

• what is a “child”,
• what is “assault”,
• what is a “pedophile”,
• whether sex work is or should be legal,
• what one’s due diligence responsibilities MUST be when invited to dinner or 
given a free plane ride by an alleged billionaire who is trying to fund one's 
research,
• whether a Bad Person can ever do good things (before or after they are known 
to be Bad)

…
all of which opinions are often applied (with heat) independent of any of the 
evidence about actual
events that occurred and devaluing personal knowledge (even gathered over 
decades) of various
actors in the drama
...
and anyone trying to bring in facts or evidence is accused of collaborating, 
enabling, whitewashing or
normalizing perverse behavior  (of being a revisionist of history which has not 
even been written yet.)

(udhay, if you would you like me to spout no further on this subject, just say 
so.)


On Sep 15, 2019, 5:08 AM -0700, Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]>, wrote:
> I saw this line from silklister Heather Madrone on another list, and it got
> me thinking (shared with Heather's permission):
>
> > I have no opinion on Ito and MIT and the Media Lab. I'm not
> > interested in doing the work to develop a considered view of that
> situation.
>
> Setting aside the specifics of the Media Lab clusterfuck, this is a
> remarkably concise way of conveying that
>
> 1) It takes *work* to build enough perspective to have an informed opinion
> about something;
> 2) Having an informed opinion is a good thing; and
> 3) Not having an opinion is OK if one can't have an informed opinion.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Udhay
>
> --
>
> ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

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