It's advice we hear all the time: but what does it mean?

Nice :)

Explain! here’s another great chance to enlighten me

I don't debate climate change. It's boring and no one changes their minds and others are better at it than me. I just know all the charts are useless when we can't control the sun and solar flares and volcanos. Not saying we shouldn't be good stewards of the earth but this is another wealth redistribution plot. Why do you think AOC prattles on about it.

Oh, don’t be so modest. You’re still better at debating it than the vast majority of folks around here :)

I think you may change your mind on this in 10 years or so when the evidence becomes even more undeniable

Like Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas, who last year said “there is a growing consensus the days of ignoring this issue are over”:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/amp/Cornyn-says-days-of-ignoring-climate-change-are-13848205.php

Or the murderer’s row of elected Republicans and consultants listed in this article:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/climate/republicans-climate-change-policies.amp.html

AOC and crew have tried to make climate change about wide-ranging issues like “economic justice“ and even “fighting racism and imperialism,” as if this issue weren’t contentious enough already. Whatever the merits of that, those are fights for another day.

I am ready to support any Republican who will sign on to reasonable, market-based solutions to this problem. We need to find common ground or it will never get done.

I think it means searching out for yourself what is the truth. You can seek advice but remember we are all blind to some extent. No one is omniscient or infallible (save God) I like a person who can consider both sides of an issue and not just spout off the same rhetoric and hearsay. Thanks for posting!

Oh hey! You showed up.

Still not going to post links to those threads where you're whinging at me because Think Tank is... you know.. for thought.

You should totally whine like a bitch about it.

I've started to wonder about this. I'm sure we've all heard this advice before. However, "thinking for yourself" too much can lead you down rabbit-holes or even into despair.

When faced with a difficult problem, I find that soliciting competing perspectives is worthwhile. Often times, I find it best to find a trusted confidant and sound out my problems with them. Then I can take their advice and reconcile it with my own views on the matter.

In a political realm, it seems that thinking for yourself too much can lead you astray into conspiracy theories. Which I see a TON of on ImgFlip when perusing the "politics" stream. No one can really accuse, say, Alex Jones of not "thinking for himself." But: his viewpoints are so out-of-touch with reality that it doesn't do anyone any good. Honestly, those who listen to Alex Jones and consider themselves "free-thinkers" for doing so are more gullible than almost anyone. They apply ridiculous amounts of scrutiny to any viewpoint coming from the "mainstream media," but then eagerly lap up anything he says without any critical thought whatsoever. There are many, many other such peddlers of misinformation to be found on YouTube and other sources around the internet, and though it doesn't come from the "corporate media," there is no reason to automatically assume it's correct as a result. In fact, I think information you get from the so-called "corporate media" is more likely to be reliable, even though they don't always get it right, either.

To some extent, we all rely upon the external world to guide and validate us. And it's not really wrong to do so. If you are off in your own bubble all the time, then odds are the problem lies with you, not the rest of the world.

Thinking for yourself is suppose to mean don't blindly follow what someone else tells you even if you trust them. My description of thinking for yourself is asking who said it and why are they saying it? Everyone has an agenda. Alex Jones agenda is to sell over priced supplements and other garbage to an audience that thinks he is telling the truth because it makes them feel like they are right for hating another group. But if you follow what's happened to Alex Jones, he isn't a free thinker, he's a sales man that got caught and now is having to pay huge amounts in court ordered costs for lying on air.

Now I find that I prefer to listen to those I disagree with rather than just focus on those that I already share a common interest with. The reason for this is to avoid group think. It feels good to be part of a group and saying things that you think that the group wants to hear like I hate upvote beggers! is more of you wanting to be accepted.

But by listening to those you disagree with you hear a different side, a different thought process. I may still find what they say fundamentally wrong, but I have to have a reason why I think that. I have defend my position and more often or not you may find you actually share common ground, but given the group think aspect of us against them makes it hard to bridge that gap.

But I get what you say about those that are attracted to conspiracies. They think they are "woke", but what do they do? They wallow in their tight little group and try to fit in. Or as I like to say even anarchists have rules.

Great subject by the way :)

It also appears per the Think Tank stream description that we're not really supposed to get "political" here, although I know that rule inevitably gets bent sometimes.

But yeah keep posting these silly memes it only proves my point

Three hundred and fifty thousand, seven hundred and fourteen verses. Twenty lines per verse, and every line rhymes with the following one.

That’s how long Andrei Gheorghe’s poem is. It’s almost four times longer than the Mahabharata of ancient India. Forty times longer than The Iliad and The Odyssey combined and twenty times longer than Dante’s Divine Comedy.

It’s (appropriately) called The Longest Poem in the World and it’s composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme. Every day the poem grows longer by about 4000 verses. Some of it sounds inane (“Playing hide and seek at the park. 🙂 / Waiting on Heather and Mark!”) A lot of it sounds funny (“im hoping that its easy and i can finish it quickly / They made porcupine love, so stiff and stuck and prickly” and “Had a great gala evening and won lots of prizes / And also simulating p**is sizes”).

But most if it’s actually fantastically mundane. Boring. Stupid. People waiting for their favourite TV show to start. People twittering about God during the sermon. People announcing their hangovers like victories. People regurgitating sayings and Oscar Wilde quotes.

Gheorghe’s has called it a collective consciousness. And in effect it is—it brews an essence of human thought and if you read it for too long you’ll be moved. You’ll get angry. You’ll feel every ounce of wasted life like somebody was yanking your haemorrhoids with a tire-iron.

But perhaps this is humanity. Perhaps this is the essence of our being, making The Longest Poem in the World one of the most relevant pieces of art around. One that mirrors (a part of) reality in a one to one correlation. One that, if read in its entirety, would annihilate the little that may still be left of our souls and leave us completely aware of the emptiness that envelopes our lives.

The poem consists of what hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people deemed most worthy to communicate to the world and/or their friends at a given moment (in real-time). And it rhymes, which somehow accentuates the inherent nihilism of this deranged and disturbing poem.

I don’t blame twitter. The results would probably have been the same (or worse) if the material had been small-talk. In person. Offline. And I’m not sure my own statuses and/or small-talk would’ve been any more interesting.

Yet perhaps the sensation it evokes is false—not based in the reality it stems from. Perhaps the world is not as empty and meaningless as The Longest

You definitely are retarded

Speak intelligently or keep it to yourself please. Its not the personal insult tank.

Personal attacks on other ImgFlippers are not permitted per TOS

But I don't care enough to report it, and I'd rather these memes stay up honestly cause it just makes the person attacking me look dumb

Actual footage of what I’m not doing

You are one of the most pathetic libtards on this site. And you're proud of it.

Personal attacks are not allowed on this site but especially this stream.

Personal attacks are not allowed on this site, Say that again.

Is this a safe space stream for weak liberals that can't Meme?

Seriously, take it to another stream.

You were being dumb and I called you a dummy

Nothing to see here

You were being retarded and I called you retarded

Nothing to see here, Except a weak libtard hypocrite.

Personal attacks on other ImgFlippers are not permitted per TOS?

Because that's not the same exact thing you did on this same exact meme thread about the same exact memer only six hours prior without him knowing because it was behind his back, just like you do with all your other (non-Kylie) memes?

Goodness, do you not ever tire of the sheer wall of hypocrisy you don like a a big H stapled to your forehead?

This was not a personal attack but rather an on-topic description of something that happened, no names or links provided

Course it isn't *rolls eyes*

Do you gag much on the pass/aggr swill you constantly spew?

I dunno, I don’t seek it out really, drama just seems to follow me around

You sneakily posts memes and comments on other memes about other memers.
At least have the decency and self respect to acknowledge you do what you do. Heck, you wouldn't be able to do it if you weren't aware you were doing it, so skip the Forrest Gump dance for someone else.

On topic: I am right now in an extended debate with another memer in the "politics" stream who accuses me of not thinking for myself and keeps accusing me of copy-pasting stuff from "propaganda sites."

The thing is, I *do* sometimes copy-paste text for my comments when I encounter an excellent point. Whenever I do, I attribute the source, usually with a direct link. I typically like to cite Wikipedia, mainstream news sources, and respected scientific agencies like NASA. The idea these sources are "propaganda" is outlandish. I'd certainly listen if someone wanted to make that case that they are biased, but you can't just automatically conclude they're "propaganda" because you don't like what they say. I stay away from citing to opinion sites or articles.

The funny thing is, I didn't actually copy-paste a single word in this particular debate. I asked my opponent to prove his assertion that I'm copy-pasting and he just ignores.

I post links or charts from external sources to substantiate my points, not because I am brainwashed. Finding others who agree with you actually gives your arguments more credibility, not less. Particularly when those you are citing are experts in the field.

The other annoying thing this troll does is he tosses out ridiculous claims. I then challenge him by pointing out I've never read anything like that, and then he turns around and claims I bear the "burden of proof" of disproving his claim. That's not how burden of proof works. Example: If you accuse someone of misconduct, then the burden of proof is on you to back that up with evidence, not the person being accused to affirmatively disprove everything you just said.

Not going to post the link to this silly debate, since it's not that important, but it's an illustration of where "thinking for yourself" can go wrong. You can't walk around pretending you're a know-it-all, tossing out unsupported allegations, lazily smearing your opponent's sources, and pretending that is the equivalent of sound debate.