What false beliefs have you held and why were you wrong?

Punoxysm

What is something you used to believe, preferably something concrete with direct or implied predictions, that you now know was dead wrong. Was your belief rational given what you knew and could know back then, or was it irrational, and why?

Edit: I feel like some of these are getting a bit glib and political. Please try to explain what false assumptions or biases were underlying your beliefs - be introspective - this is LW after all.

I would like to think people should still be able to decide on their own in the absence of judgement or coercion

What do you mean by this? While you believed that people had no choice about being gay/trans, you didn't seem to be at all bothered by the lack of choice.

With my previous (incorrect) knowledge, attempting to influence someone's sexuality had no redeeming features. Its only effect was to create confusion, self loathing and other negative effects/emotions in adolescents. If, however it can be effected by the environment then there exist situations, possibly controllable situations where children can be systematically influenced to one sexuality or other.

My immediate reaction is that people should still be able to figure it out for themselves, but the situation is less black and white than before. If for exam... (read more)

2gjm12y

How can you tell? In particular, what reason do you have to think that Jackercrack's former position was not something like this? * Beyond early childhood, no one has any substantial ability to change (1) whether they are sexually/romantically attracted to men, women, both, neither, etc., or (2) whether they find it highly distressing to have the sort of body they have rather than (e.g.) one with different sexual characteristics. * For exactly that reason, attempting to change those things is futile and the most likely effect is to distress the people it's applied to. * In particular, it should be up to them what sexual orientation they see themselves as having, what gender they present as, etc. * Not because they have a free choice about it, but because the alternative to leaving it up to them is for someone else to tell them what they have to be, in which case sometimes it won't match what they more-or-less-unalterably very much want it to be, and then they'll be miserable.

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What false beliefs have you held and why were you wrong?

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What false beliefs have you held and why were you wrong?

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