Oddbean

Naw he seems like a good guy. But when you are actively arguing a point and a person says, that is not what this thing means and you keep arguing without checking and you are wrong. You have chosen not to find out and you don't know what you are saying. So you are Willful - actively making a choice Ignorant - lacking specific knowledge on a thing This is always worse when people are repeating what other have said. I always say, trust no one, even me, fact check everything. And there is a reason. To call a man ignorant to a specific thing is not an insult, it is not like calling them stupid. I am ignorant to many things but I don't talk about them like I know about them.

Honestly, to be fair, I know nothing about the guy in the thread, so it wouldn't be fair to single him out. In response to a generally willfully ignorant individual, though, it is the willful part that just grinds my gears. I worked with a group of guys in the tech industry during the Rona; individuals who generally tend to be really smart. These guys would feed off anything the MSM would feed them and attempt to mathematically prove how severe the disease was with the fictitious numbers they received, simply because they refused to question the original sources or think for themselves. Lately, anytime I debunk or deconstruct ignorant claims the counter party essentially refuses any level of continuance for our discussion, and states, "We'll just have to agree to disagree." A week later I heard them lean on the very same deconstructed argument when they were talking with someone else. Almost like our previous conversations have never happened. When I bring it up they get visibly angry. Just touched a nerve, I suppose.