That’s an interesting thought. However, I tend to observe that most people do not take strictly agnostic positions on most things. In fact, it seems that people tend towards certainty rather than uncertainty. So I’m not sure that I’m seeing people tend to give up on questions they think are too difficult or that they don’t have the expertise or time to really come to a conclusion on. From my perspective it seems that people really do fall into ideological camps where they believe a lot of matters have been completely settled and do not need further discussion.
An interesting sort-of reverse phenomenon that I’ve noticed, is that on matters where people really have more expertise, they actually tend to be a little more agnostic about and open to debate. So for example you might notice people having an in depth discussion on some aspect of software engineering, like a library or a framework, weighing the pros and cons of each and citing expert opinion—but on politics, which we understand even less about—you really don’t see this at all.
That’s an interesting thought. However, I tend to observe that most people do not take strictly agnostic positions on most things. In fact, it seems that people tend towards certainty rather than uncertainty. So I’m not sure that I’m seeing people tend to give up on questions they think are too difficult or that they don’t have the expertise or time to really come to a conclusion on. From my perspective it seems that people really do fall into ideological camps where they believe a lot of matters have been completely settled and do not need further discussion.
An interesting sort-of reverse phenomenon that I’ve noticed, is that on matters where people really have more expertise, they actually tend to be a little more agnostic about and open to debate. So for example you might notice people having an in depth discussion on some aspect of software engineering, like a library or a framework, weighing the pros and cons of each and citing expert opinion—but on politics, which we understand even less about—you really don’t see this at all.