Why 'The War of Ideas' is important.

If you ever open Twitter or any News channel within ANY part of the world you will find a surprising division, lurking upon every site or page or Instagram post specially those who have some opinion and trying to tell something about a Hot Topic.

Twitter might seem like a warzone of Ideas (or a Bar at which everyone yells at everyone else) . Its full of all sorts of trolls, personal attacks & threats. And that is all simply because of the fact that some people disagrees with some other people on some Topic (even if its as simple as I like this chocolate or this celebrity). It seems like if you free everyone & give them the opportunity to meet each other in person.. they'll start a war and finally get some kind of revolution like in the end of the Movie JOKER [1].

Even as simple as uploading a photo on Instagram sometimes have bad consequences. I mean if you're in US or Europe and you post a photo of a melting iceberg, you'll have some conservative trolls OR If you're in my country and if you're a female, people might have something to say about your Clothes.

On News Channels we see Constant debate about this and that topic . Somebody's getting a divorce & some guy sitting on TV, thinks its a bad idea (even if the guy himself have been divorced twice) . So these things happen whether its Global warming, Universal Healthcare, Gender equality, Persecuting Minorities or killing Infidels. Every topic has some petty debate going on in the world right now.

But let's be honest truly important and worth having debates are not those that happen very often on the internet or on News channels. First of all Most of them are just trolls and Pure Personal attacks that have nothing to do with the real arguments, all they want is to look like they're having a serious conversation, Most of them do not have any value for debates , arguments or a simple conversation. All they think about is their agenda and biases like this and that Party , or xyz religion.

Still World is divided, and Specially in the Modern world because of the advent of free speech and free expression which have so many positive transformations by the way throughout the Human Progress.

War of Ideas is Possible in the Modern World

It is Possible in the 21st century to have War of Ideas , but that was not the case throughout the history.., Most of the world was governed by monarchies and religion and they don't really like to listen to contrasting opinions a lot.

In fact critical thinking would be the last thing that a religious belief or a 'Faith' can have because that is the most corrosive thing you can have for the 'Questionable Stories' you have invented in order to control and remain a dominant belief among an extremely large population.

So Religion always feared Reason and Questioning against the factual Credibility of their version of Stories about the Universe. So, for almost all of history what we have is.., if you have certain opinion about Something you always have to express it in a way so that the Religion or the Monarch of that local Nation or Territory don't get Offended. Also make sure you do not question anything "Unquestionable", so that you do not end up publicly executed Next day on the Streets.

This was the freedom of expression throughout the Human History, you can Question anything but there are 'EXCEPTIONS' , far too many exceptions in fact...

Disagreement and 'the War of Ideas' is Important

We differ in ideas all the time its inevitable to disagree on like 10 topics if you just start asking questions carefully to literally anyone - your boss, friend, partner or anyone (specially your partner).

We all have different experiences, different knowledge skills and different perspectives on virtually every known Issues in the World. Our minds are built in such a way that we easily believe things that has been indoctrinated into us for very long times. Eventually that belief becomes a Strong bias and we virtually fight to death to oppose anyone who tried to disagree with such a bias.

And that's where the Scientific way of thinking kicks in, Science recognized this pattern of Human behavior.

Many great thinkers of the enlightenment Era realized that human mind is not perfectly rational, we are subject to all sorts of biases and cognitive shortcomings that have inevitable consequences on our way of trying to understand the Universe and make judgements about it, so science come up with Some thought processes such as Empiricism, Rationalism and Skepticism .

Empiricism says that all source of True knowledge can only be acquired by going out there and Observing & Measuring the universe. That's what we call an Empirical Evidence. That is to say you cannot deduct the factual information about the universe just by thinking about it. Or with some kind of 'Insights'.

and Second Skepticism which says that in order to understand the truths of the universe we should become our own theories harshest critics because, We are the easiest person to fool. By critically Analyzing what we think is the best idea, we develop better theories or improve upon our existing beliefs because it is inevitable that we might come up with several inaccuracies in trying to make Assumptions about the universe and as professor Brian Cox brilliant put it "there is no absolute truth in Science" Every Idea can be replaced or modified if 'Sufficient evidence' contradicts the preceding theory. As Carl Sagan famously said,

That is why, it is important that we start to listen to the contrasting opinions and be open to new possibilities at least to some degree. (That is to say you don't have to be 100% sure about anything, there should always be room for doubt like you can always assign 5 to 10% uncertainty to your Conclusions, just like how a scientific conclusion works). Or At least not being too Certain of any Idea and keep Ourselves Open minded no matter how professional we become in our fields

And Always keep learning new things even from the people who completely disagree with us in almost every area. There's Always a Possibility that they know some things that we Don't.