• I don't think that's the whole story behind people's refusal to consider training. Obviously, it can be a key factor, but in many cases the refusal will be caused, simply, by wounded pride. In my experience, most people are willing to learn new things, within reasonable limits, but when it touches on an area in which they feel pride, and cycling skills are, of course, a prime example of this, they're much more likely to refuse.

    One might argue that misplaced pride is just another aspect of an inaccurate self-image, and hence a symptom of ignorance, but pride is not incompatible with knowledge. (Pride is not vanity.) Someone might know that they might still have something to learn, but still take pride in their level of achievement, and the trigger for refusal could be, simply, that the person proposing cycle training (or whatever else) might inadvertently have wounded their pride. They might still, mistakenly, believe that there is no urgency for them to consider improving their skills (perhaps they have other priorities), but the crucial cause of their refusal might not be ignorance of their lack of ability.

    I also find it silly to define an 'effect' here and index it to the names of some recent researchers. The locus classicus of thought about ignorance and knowledge in dialogue, is, of course, in Plato's dialogues, in which success or failure of Socrates' philosophical interaction with his interlocutors depends very much on their knowledge-states and pre-existing beliefs, as well as the degree of openness that they have (and, importantly, Plato shows Socrates as far from blameless in numerous dialogues--some readers become cheerleaders for Socrates and consider his interlocutors totally stupid, which couldn't be further from the truth). Anyone who's had in-depth conversations about the desirability or not of cycle training with people will recognise a lot of the situations shown in Plato's work. These things are timeless.

    As a footnote, it is rather important to note, that ignorance and stupidity are completely different things, so the tl;dr version falls a bit flat, with or without a smiley. :)

    Did you hit on it because mellion linked to it in the Conspiracy Theories thread?

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