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Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

niemanlab.org

101–110 of 137 posts

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#101

Twice I have been through interviews that use hours of psychology assessments to filter candidates. One of those was a large hedge fund. Through that I have learned that objectivity is a measurable and identifable personality trait that is astonishingly rare. Most humans are hardwired to seek mutual security, which means banding together as a stress coping mechanism. That incidentally means some natural revulsion of…

This is readily observable when you take a group of people who have never worked together and are generally unfamiliar with the outdoors and drop them into an outdoor military training exercise, such as college ROTC junior classmen. Thinking about it, the only way that this course of action is "not logical" is that it is not "deciding on a course of action and following it regardless of the approach of one's fellows"…

In a tactical environment the problem with clustering is that modern weapons will quickly take out everybody. There needs to be some space between people, maybe a couple meters.

The problem with a lack of initiative is that it undermines security. If you don’t know what you should be doing then at least you can secure part of the group’s perimeter by seeking cover and looking outward until told otherwise.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not always logic vs guts. Logic is great when you are dealing with theoretical problems that are well defined and you know the variables involved etc. In real life problems, often there are way too many variables, are time bound, things aren't as well defined. It's in those cases that people resort to gut..

I've found the lack of an ability to use basic logic to be extremely widespread down to simple conversational matters. It severely impedes and distracts conversations (online and off). I wish it were primarily a problem when dealing with theoreticals, as I find it's a problem just about any time you converse where there are many people. Emotionalism is rampant. I have yet to find a forum - in ~25 years of near daily…

I always feel ambiguously about this kind of arguments. I agree that there is a lack of rational discussion, but on the other hand if someone really cares about Y then they will be quite protective of perceived attacks on X, a tangentially related topic.

Ideas and subcultures are in a constant fight for mindshares, I disagree with how pervasive and hypocrite this battle is, but it is not like there is no reason for it.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found the lack of an ability to use basic logic to be extremely widespread down to simple conversational matters. It severely impedes and distracts conversations (online and off). I wish it were primarily a problem when dealing with theoreticals, as I find it's a problem just about any time you converse where there are many people. Emotionalism is rampant. I have yet to find a forum - in ~25 years of near daily…

The issue goes all the way to the top. There is objective logical evidence Trump sold out the country on that phone call to Zelinsky. Republicans can't logically argue that so they're turning to emotion and their supporters have primitive logic failure responses. It's really disappointing to see the Republicans lack of logic.

That is interesting, because there are plenty of logical proofs of the opposite.

There are, also, plenty logical proofs of how Schiff conducted a biased investigation.

It is easy to prove any point by selecting your evidences.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#104

> This approach succeeds most of the time when the issue is, say, the atomic weight of hydrogen. The article is interesting but I think misses one critical point. Most "facts" aren't as clear cut as the weight of hydrogen. Most answers to questions will differ according to conditions. As an example not all people will respond the same to a treatment regimen. Low carb doesn't work for everyone for different reasons so…

Aren't Southern history books still teaching the War of Northern Aggression? https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/03/26/c...

Anecdotal, but I'm from the south and learned it as the Civil War. However, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many schools teach it as the "War of Northern Aggression" given how it's viewed in rural areas.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#105
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a false dichotomy. I value objectivity a lot, but recognize that there are lots of issues in human interactions that you just cannot solve well with this approach. In trying to break it down to something tractable, you throw out the important bits. I suspect that sometimes the resistance you find is not due to you applying logic, but instead misapplying it. For what it's worth, I also suspect that som…

It’s not a false dichotomy. Objectivity allows you to assess data and make decisions based upon that data opposed to a gut feeling. Objectivity is very helpful when it comes to persuading and manipulating people, as it means you are making decisions based upon your observations of them opposed to your personal opinions of them.

[deleted]

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not always logic vs guts. Logic is great when you are dealing with theoretical problems that are well defined and you know the variables involved etc. In real life problems, often there are way too many variables, are time bound, things aren't as well defined. It's in those cases that people resort to gut..

I've found the lack of an ability to use basic logic to be extremely widespread down to simple conversational matters. It severely impedes and distracts conversations (online and off). I wish it were primarily a problem when dealing with theoreticals, as I find it's a problem just about any time you converse where there are many people. Emotionalism is rampant. I have yet to find a forum - in ~25 years of near daily…

There's another deeper level here.

Like with stocks, the price depends on what other people think the price is, so you can be correct and lose your shirt because everyone else thinks something that is wrong. (Which also makes them right!)

Similarly, it's likely that common illogical arguments like whataboutism persist exactly because they are effective in convincing non-logical people and may be a logical strategy if you actually want to achieve some kind of political change.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#107

Twice I have been through interviews that use hours of psychology assessments to filter candidates. One of those was a large hedge fund. Through that I have learned that objectivity is a measurable and identifable personality trait that is astonishingly rare. Most humans are hardwired to seek mutual security, which means banding together as a stress coping mechanism. That incidentally means some natural revulsion of…

for what jobs were you interviewing?

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found the lack of an ability to use basic logic to be extremely widespread down to simple conversational matters. It severely impedes and distracts conversations (online and off). I wish it were primarily a problem when dealing with theoreticals, as I find it's a problem just about any time you converse where there are many people. Emotionalism is rampant. I have yet to find a forum - in ~25 years of near daily…

There's another deeper level here. Like with stocks, the price depends on what other people think the price is, so you can be correct and lose your shirt because everyone else thinks something that is wrong. (Which also makes them right!) Similarly, it's likely that common illogical arguments like whataboutism persist exactly because they are effective in convincing non-logical people and may be a logical strategy if…

This is why options are dangerous. Other people set the price of the stock.

That said, stocks are fundamentally safer. If you own company X and they succeed/profit well longterm, you receive great dividends regardless of the stock price.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#110
post #99
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine and all except we should at least recognize when we've decided by gut and when by logic. Unfortunately this doesn't happen in most cases which means that when weighing alternatives we give equal credit to gut and logic based decisions because we don't even know which is which. Saying "I don't know" is one of the most honest and correct things a human can say about most problems. Then starting from that th…

I agree on the honesty part, but in many cases "because I think it is right" is a valid argument. It is wrong to pretend to have a logical reasoning behind your gut feeling where there is none, but there is nothing wrong in not wanting to work with a company because they give a 'bad feeling"

Yeah our gut/brain is like a machine learning tool. It will reach to a conclusion due to how experience has structured our brain to be however we always do not know the reason why. For simplistic and every day things it is very often right, but the more unusual and complex the scenario the more likely it is to misjudge. And it is also rather often that when we get that gut feeling we start to search for logical arguments only after and at which point there is danger that we will only look for arguments supporting our gut.
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