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What it takes to stand up to authority

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Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is overwhelming evidence to confirm that statement. Conscientiousness is the greatest predictor of lifetime success besides intelligence, and discipline is a core element of consciousness. You’re postulating that the entire education system is conspiring together to teach children a sense of self-discipline as part of some oppressive conditioning scheme. Any form of achievement in life requires discipline. It’s…

I think me and you have very different requirements for "overwhelming evidence" when it comes making a sociological claim. These are extremely difficult claims to prove and get overtuned pretty frequently. If it's a claim that seems to change every 5 years and is highly reliant on the society it was based on, the evidence for it was probably never overwhelming. I'm not sure if there's much to conscientousness besides…

Without trying to be rude, you’re talking from a position of complete ignorance on this topic. For starters, this is about psychology not sociology. The big five and intelligence are the only measurable qualities that been used consistently and over time to make predictions. This isn’t some flash in the pan pop-science, out of everything the field has produced, the big five is one of the only things you could point to and say “that’s definently science”, and out of them conscientiousness makes the strongest predictions of all.

You also don’t seem to even know what conscientiousness is.

>Conscientiousness is the personality trait of a person who shows an awareness of the impact that their own behavior has on those around them. Conscientious people are generally more goal-oriented in their motives, ambitious in their academic efforts and at work, and feel more comfortable when they are well-prepared and organized.

It can be broken down further into subcategories if orderliness and industriousness. Neither of those qualities are related to “obedience to authority”. Agreeableness is, but agreeableness is an entirely different personality trait. Industrious people are often very disagreeable.

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we would need to train everyone to be essentially an ubermensch - they need to be able to operate on meta-levels and use metacognition all the time. This is a hard task, you need cognitive resources (which means you have enough sleep, food, resilience, mental energy and a stress-free environment) and a lot of time and it's also very demanding to doubt essential beliefs about oneself and ones' own values. So I do…

I'm not sure exactly what 'ubermensch' implies, but I think I understand the point of what you are saying. And I agree, it is unreasonable, even biologically, to expect human beings to effectively perform at their mental peak continuously. Brains don't work that way. But, that's also not necessary. The vast majority of situations we face in day to day life don't really call on us to be able to muster complex well-rea…

> because they will be actively resisted for precisely that.

Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language. This doesn't help in the greater picture, but can help in individual interactions with anti-intellectual people.

- - -

> People revert to relying on intuition if for no other reason than it is easier and no longer bears many negative consequences.

I like the analysis. Pretty dark, but I agree with it. The fragility of civilization is often attributed to the interconnectedness and interdependencies, but the psychological implications are often overlooked.

Although I have to disagree with some parts: I don't think it's just a battle between intuition and reasoning that is the root cause for annihilation of social progress. Intellectualism and anti-intellectualism both produced horrible and positive things in the past. I don't think that both approaches are entirely right and that every generation has to find a dualistic point of view which combines intuition and reasoning into a framework that deals with emotions but also solves problems rationally. I've got the feeling that you see intuition and emotional aspects as entirely negative (Mao, unvaccinated children, killing each other over whose god is stronger, ...).

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think me and you have very different requirements for "overwhelming evidence" when it comes making a sociological claim. These are extremely difficult claims to prove and get overtuned pretty frequently. If it's a claim that seems to change every 5 years and is highly reliant on the society it was based on, the evidence for it was probably never overwhelming. I'm not sure if there's much to conscientousness besides…

Without trying to be rude, you’re talking from a position of complete ignorance on this topic. For starters, this is about psychology not sociology. The big five and intelligence are the only measurable qualities that been used consistently and over time to make predictions. This isn’t some flash in the pan pop-science, out of everything the field has produced, the big five is one of the only things you could point t…

No, people are not ignorant simply because they disagree with you or use different and perfectly applicable terms. The might think the topic is much bigger than its field of study, though.

> For starters, this is about psychology not sociology.

It's both. How humans are educated is absolutely sociology and most psychological topics relate to sociology some way or another since it's basically impossible to separate humans from their society. This is really not the point you should have went with if you wanted to score points calling someone ignorant.

> The big five and intelligence are the only measurable qualities that been used consistently and over time to make predictions.

You consider the Big Five acceptable because you are comparing it to other psychological models, but that's not the standard. The standard is in the hard sciences. This is not overwhelming evidence. This is "it's all right", maybe "it's better than nothing". The theory of evolution has overwhelming evidence.

These is not trivial conclusions that are being made here. The conclusions that are made from things like Big Five will affect our schools, our workplaces, our governments, our lives. It needs to be rock solid if it's to be bought as dogma. It's not sufficient for it to be better than the rest, or occasionally be predictive. The "evidence" for Big Five is hugely reliant on self-evaluations.

You're deriving "Any form of achievement in life requires discipline" from something that's mostly correlation, and you're using two term sets that are imprecisely defined: "achievement" and "discipline". How can there be overwhelming evidence for something so imprecise? How much discipline does a given person have? How does this interact with things like "grew up poor" or "had poor nutrition"? How much achievement is achievement? Is a happy person with 2 kids more achievement than a person with a 180k job? A study can look at one or the other but can it tell me who has more achievement? "There's mostly a positive trend between this thing and this other stuff" is not "overwhelming evidence".

Pretty much all our measurements of achievements and conscientousness correlate heavily with "acceptable and equipped for present society". Conscientousness is beneficial in a world where it's important to show up on time so you don't get fired and keep track of 30 different bills. Big surprise. What about a society where these things are not that important? Oh, wait, we don't have one. Put this in the bucket where larks are happier than night owls. How is this glaring problem with these styles of observations not obvious to you?

This is the entire problem with sociology, and, yes, I say sociology, because the problem with pretty much all psychology is that it forgets it's also pretty much always sociology.

> You also don’t seem to even know what conscientiousness is.

Here's the thing: terms like discipline or grit are much older than the Big Five model. "conscientousness" is not really a term people would use but that's effectively what it is a proxy for. But the term you used is "discipline". People are not obliged to use the Big Five's specific definition. Discipline is extremely strongly associated with conformity and authority obedience in human cultures. The topic of this discussion is about discipline instilled in education, a very authoritative environment. Another one that comes to mind is military. There's going to be a relationship there and your studies won't be able to get rid of it.

> It can be broken down further into subcategories if orderliness and industriousness. Neither of those qualities are related to “obedience to authority”. Agreeableness is, but agreeableness is an entirely different personality trait. Industrious people are often very disagreeable.

It's not really entirely different, it's been bucketed under a general "Stability": https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188690...

One of the criticisms of Big Five is that it overlaps with itself a lot: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...

It seems strange to say that a given factor is "entirely different" for a model known for its overlap. It seems further strange to get attached to specifics here when there are different styles of splitting up the model and when there are preexisting definitions of terms like "discipline".

> This isn’t some flash in the pan pop-science

Except it is. Google conscientiousness, grit, etc., and see how many articles will pop up. It's all the rage right now, and has gotten popular mostly due to a mix of influences Gardner and Dweck, the studies from both of which are very suspect. It's not really Big Five that made it popular.

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without trying to be rude, you’re talking from a position of complete ignorance on this topic. For starters, this is about psychology not sociology. The big five and intelligence are the only measurable qualities that been used consistently and over time to make predictions. This isn’t some flash in the pan pop-science, out of everything the field has produced, the big five is one of the only things you could point t…

No, people are not ignorant simply because they disagree with you or use different and perfectly applicable terms. The might think the topic is much bigger than its field of study, though. > For starters, this is about psychology not sociology. It's both. How humans are educated is absolutely sociology and most psychological topics relate to sociology some way or another since it's basically impossible to separate hu…

When I said ignorance, I meant it very literally. You clearly are not at all familiar with the domain. The effort to categorize personality traits has been ongoing since the 19th century, and the big five have been studied since the 40s. Nothing about this is pop-science. This is about making measurements and predictions, which is exactly what science is. The big five have been the most useful tools for measuring personality traits for decades, and have produced predictions with far greater precision than any other framework in all of psychology, barring IQ.

I have not stated a single opinion in this thread. Everything I’ve said is supported by decades of scientific research, all you’ve posted is a long-winded description of your opinions and feelings.

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#65
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a government weaponize this? By going around damaging people's brains with brute force?

Brute force is not required to damage/alter the brain. Food, aclohol, drugs or stress can easily alter brain chemistry in dramatic ways. Now, whether or not any government will do something like that is another question.

What do you mean? American society is full of cheap bad food, life is high stress, and drugs and deserts are being promoted daily and constantly in TV shows and movies.

I've noticed how smoking seems to be on the uptake also.

Best thing people can do is to turn off the TV but they won't.

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure exactly what 'ubermensch' implies, but I think I understand the point of what you are saying. And I agree, it is unreasonable, even biologically, to expect human beings to effectively perform at their mental peak continuously. Brains don't work that way. But, that's also not necessary. The vast majority of situations we face in day to day life don't really call on us to be able to muster complex well-rea…

> because they will be actively resisted for precisely that. Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language. This doesn't help in the greater picture, but can help in individual interactions with anti-intellectual people. - - - > People revert to relying on intuition if for no other reason than it is easie…

>Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language.

This is the problem... a person who values reason would see that 'emotional frame' as the most disgusting, base, unethical kind of manipulation. Sure, you could violate everything you believe and coerce people by manipulating them emotionally... but if others figure out what you are doing, they will realize you as a hypocrite and be even less likely to consider your viewpoint.

>Pretty dark, but I agree with it.

Oh, I left out the dark parts. The dark parts come when you start asking yourself 'how can we fix or avoid this problem?' I've been considering the problem for many years, and the only ideas I have ever been able to think of are stupendously unethical and would debase whatever society used them.

>I've got the feeling that you see intuition and emotional aspects as entirely negative (Mao, unvaccinated children, killing each other over whose god is stronger, ...).

I do not, actually. Emotion and intuition are important parts of human life, and an integrated view is key. We even have support for this in biology. There are people (maybe just one person, I can only recall reading about one case) who have a lesion in a very specific part of the brain which essentially destroys their ability to experience emotion. One of the surprising things found was that this also affected their ability to reason. Specifically, they could consider an argument and produce a list of 'pros' and 'cons' for choices, but no matter how lopsided the lists are, they're incapable of deciding upon a course of action. Utterly and completely incapable of making the leap from argument to decision. So you simply can't function without emotion coming in to play.

The reason intellectualism is the right path (and by that I mean relying on reason and science in situations where the matters are important) is that it can integrate all of this, it can recognize its own shortcomings, and it can formulate ways of dealing with them. All of the tragedies of the past can usually be traced back to someone (or groups) who had all of the tools available to them which could have said "you do not have the evidence to support your conclusion", but they let other motivations sway them from rigor. Total rigor is impossible, of course. We will always have limited information. Acknowledging this, and being circumspect and conservative in our actions, building in the ability to turn back, is something only intellectualism can do.

I do not and would not advocate a 'Vulcan' emotionless outlook. We are human, and we have emotion. It's not inherently destructive. However, our emotional capacity is an outgrowth of the functioning of our brain which evolved to keep us alive (just) while living in small tightknit tribes on the African savannah. It did not adapt to function in anything like the environments in which we find ourselves today. As such, it is often misleading. The silver lining is that whether it is or is not misleading is something that reason can determine. If our emotional responses are consistent with reality, great, reason will verify that and give us confidence. If not, reason can enable us to correct ourselves. As emotion is a trained response, enough repeated correction results in this not always being a 'battle'.

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they will be actively resisted for precisely that. Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language. This doesn't help in the greater picture, but can help in individual interactions with anti-intellectual people. - - - > People revert to relying on intuition if for no other reason than it is easie…

>Then your response has to be to adapt. Wrap some emotional frame around your reasoning and people will listen to your position because you speak their language. This is the problem... a person who values reason would see that 'emotional frame' as the most disgusting, base, unethical kind of manipulation. Sure, you could violate everything you believe and coerce people by manipulating them emotionally... but if other…

> but no matter how lopsided the lists are, they're incapable of deciding upon a course of action.

Reminds me of [1] from Futurama. Here [2] is an article about that man.

> As emotion is a trained response, enough repeated correction results in this not always being a 'battle'.

I agree to a certain extend. I think you have a very differentiated and reflected view.

> the only ideas I have ever been able to think of are stupendously unethical and would debase whatever society used them.

I would like to hear your solutions. Analyzing is one thing, but constructive ideas to solve these problems is another big feat.

[1]: https://youtu.be/1-bCIA_vyVc

[2]: https://www.thecut.com/2016/06/how-only-using-logic-destroye...

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#68
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a government weaponize this? By going around damaging people's brains with brute force?

By promoting hard-hitting contact sports to youth, and issuing equipment that doesn't do a good job at protecting the head? Even considering the underreporting with young, high school athletes, a large number of young football players in the US have suffered concussions[1] at a very young age when their brains are developing, and that's with equipment that we can reasonably assume is designed with safety in mind. If…

TBH, we're far better at reducing executive function and impulse control simply by widespread drug usage, pornography usage and (IMHO) highly rewarding, low-attention media, esp social meda, youtube, and video games. All of those are FAR more widespread than playing football, and in aggregate, are far more likely to render one subservient.

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a government weaponize this? By going around damaging people's brains with brute force?

This can be taken as conspiracy theory territory, so before it gets there, let me phrase it in a particular way. I have no doubt that some people in the mental health care industry have entertained thoughts about how some mental health care medications can be used to make people more docile and obedient. I'm not saying that is the intent. But the fact that such people have that kind of power without necessarily havin…

Very real problem. TBH, this is the utility of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories aren't necessarily useful because they're true. They're useful because the vulnerabilities which are brought up in conspiracy theories often exist in reality, and they need to be accounted for.

Do vaccines contain substances which might be used for social engineering? Probably not, beyond the obvious disease reduction. Might unscrupulous government forces be WILLING to do such a thing, in collaboration with the oft-demonized private corporations? Absolutely. Especially given the recent news that the biannual reports which HHS was supposed to give to congress on the reduction of adverse vaccine effects have not been done since 1987, when they were first mandated. These reports were (presumably) mandated as a condition for allowing drug companies to avoid suits for vaccines. (Solution: easily available independent testing)

Might the telecom companies and USGOV be monitering everything we do electronically, as Alex Jones was telling us? Yeah. Are they? Ofc. (Solution: Encryption)

So if mental health care practitioners wished to intentionally change the behavior of Americans to a more subservient one, might they? Have they? Have not Psychoanalysis and Public Relations been exactly this (see: Century of the Self)? (Solution: IDK)

Re: What it takes to stand up to authority

#70
Hmmm, I wonder if there might be some evolutionary reason why we shouldn't do this?

I mean it's not like a deferrence to authority allows human beings to coordinate and work together efficiently. Hierarchies are totally inefficient ways to work together and get things done.

/s

EDIT: A paper that is very much worth reading: https://hbr.org/1990/01/in-praise-of-hierarchy

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