LuckyR wrote:It is common for folks to use their personal experience as part of their "evidence" when making arguments. How much credence should you give to a man's opinion (based on their experience) on women's topics? Everyone deserves an opinion, but not all opinions should be given equal weight.
Opinions should not be given equal weight... slippery slope. I can devalue your opinion on this (not that I'd want to), if I accept that opinions are not given equal weight. I can assign more weight to my (hypothetical) opinion than to yours.
With this proposal you open a can of worms on a slippery slope. Because this opinion of yours is not expert-based; so the weight in my (possible) opinion that opposes yours has the same weight behind it as yours. We are both opinion-generators, that's our expertise; and as such, neither of us has more "expertness" by difference of background or experience, than the other. So if I wanted to oppose your opinion, that is, "not all opinions have the same weight", then all of a sudden all opinions have the same weight.
But if all opinions have the same weight, then your opinion of "not all the same weight" applies again... this is an infinitely flip-flopping logical switch, and that's what I meant by "opening a can of worms on a slippery slope".
Of course qualifying it that expert's opinions are more valuable, and added that having the direct, immediate experience of an opinion-generating event, should give the experiencer a higher "expert" status than to a non-experiencer. I admit this, but what about two experiencers of the same background with different opinions? If you give them equal weight, and their opinions still differ, then what? For instance, one multimillionaire's son wants to raise the taxes of the poor and decrease the taxes of the rich, and another multimillionaire's son wants to increase the taxes of the rich and decrease the taxes of the poor... which opinion must be given more weight, considering the sources they have come from?
On a more humorous note: I doubt most women would want to have the same weight behind their opinions as I have. I hit 195 lbs on the bathroom scale. That is approx. 87-88 Kg for our metric-minded friends here on the forums.
Roel wrote:
In discussions about pregnancy, I value a women's opinion higher as that of a man, in discussioms about being a father, I value a man's opinion higher as that of a woman, as in these cases only they know what it is like to be so.
See below
LuckyR wrote:
Exactly my point. Do you value the opinion of a white billionaire, son of a multimillionaire as pertains to the plight of common folk, the minority experience, the immigrant experience etc?
LuckyR and Roel: This makes good sense, of course, but only to a point. I had a friend who was a bachelor, and a virgin at 50, and he was and had been a successful marriage counselor for decades. Also, my father was a father, and yet he did not have the insight into being a father and how it affected others which a teacher of mine gained in five seconds flat meeting him. Or... or take Friedrich Engels, a leading social anthropologist of his time; he knew more about primitive societies, the problems they faced, the nature of their love life, the way they waged war, than the citizens of these primitive societies, despite not living in a so-called primitive society.
-- Updated November 8th, 2016, 6:58 am to add the following --
TSBU wrote:
Anyway, love and sex are something that cause a lot of anguish in many hearts, it's probably one of the most common suicide causes. There are too many jokes about that XD (at least in my country), and it's one of the most complex subjects to talk about, and, in most of cases, the final answer is "we are different"... .
You're right. We are all different. That's why most of us commit suicide or have suicidal ideation when our heart breaks over a lost love. Vive la differance.
I am jesting of course, again. I'll never forget this scene from "Life of Brian" where Brian gives a speech from his window to the multitude, and he says, "you don't have to follow me," and the multitude says in unison, "yes, we don't have to follow you", and Brian says, "we must all think for ourselves", and they say in unison, "we must all think for ourselves", and Brian says, "we are all different", and the multitude says, "we are all different," and in the ensuing short pause a single, squeaky voice pipes up, barely audible, "I'm not".
Ignorance is power.