The difference between what I strive for (and would advocate) and “epistemic learned helplessness” is that it’s not helpless. I do trust myself to figure out the answers to these kinds of things when I need to—or at least, to be able to come to a perspective that is worth contending with.
The solution I’m pointing at is simply humility. If you pretend that you know things you don’t know, you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you don’t wanna say “I dunno, maybe” and can’t say “Definitely not, and here’s why” (or “That’s irrelevant and here’s why” or “Probably not, and here’s why I suspect this despite not having dived into the details”), then you were committing arrogance by getting into a “debate” in the first place.
The difference between what I strive for (and would advocate) and “epistemic learned helplessness” is that it’s not helpless. I do trust myself to figure out the answers to these kinds of things when I need to—or at least, to be able to come to a perspective that is worth contending with.
The solution I’m pointing at is simply humility. If you pretend that you know things you don’t know, you’re setting yourself up for failure. If you don’t wanna say “I dunno, maybe” and can’t say “Definitely not, and here’s why” (or “That’s irrelevant and here’s why” or “Probably not, and here’s why I suspect this despite not having dived into the details”), then you were committing arrogance by getting into a “debate” in the first place.
Easier said than done, of course.