Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Thanks for this, was just thinking the same. Follow up question that I am still pondering: are you socially or morally obligated to try to learn more to understand the complex geopolitical events (to eventually form or get close to forming an opinion?

I’m leaning towards no because time for learning and thought are limited in a world of seemingly unlimited complex issues that one could theoretically devote time & mental capacity to (any one of which may have more impact once mastered and acted upon)?

"War is bad" *is* insufficiently nuanced, despite being a very strong starting position. And yet, that's not my point. Try again. Or don't.

It's supposedly good rationalism practice, but the problem is there's no page you can turn upside down to read the answers to see how you did. Unless of course you're playing the "make concrete predictions for 1 year into the future and see how you did" game.

But then your opinions have to be of the form "I think X will happen" and not "yay democracy" or "boo mullahs" or "boo US military industrial complex"

I *like* having opinions. Especially when I’m not supposed to.

Once got asked point-blank by some ex-Muslim friends-of-friend what I thought of Jerusalem etc situation... twas implied that I had to take a side but I managed "well, I don't really understand it well enough to comment, but it definitely seems like a mess" which was acceptable