People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors • Hacker News Board

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#51

Post by wongarsu » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #37

wongarsu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People conspire all the time, so there's bound to be conspiracy theories that are true. I think it's telling that the author uses the moon landing as an example, which to me seems to be among the least likely (but somewhat popular) theories. All credible evidence points to the moon landing actually happening, making it a good candidate for this study. Simply labeling that "endorse conspiracy theories" is a bit though…

The "fake" moon landings is an interesting example; although the number of direct eye-witnesses is tiny, there are thousands of scientists and engineers at NASA that will queue-up to testify they really happened, and nobody who actually knows anything will deny it. But the affirmers are all people in white lab-coats, and many people automatically distrust anyone in a white lab-coat. No "ordinary people" went to the m…

Yes, the level of evidence kind of depends on your world-view. I would have said that the fact that both the US and the USSR both claimed it happened, with the USSR seemingly only losing from that, is already strongly in support of the moon landing being real. But some people divide the world differently, to them it's politicians and mainstream media, and scientists employed by them, who are making that claim, which makes that group look much less diverse.

I imagine you could just as easily make a study "people who look at fewer partitions of datasets reach wrong conclusions more often". Just as you can sample more fish from a lake and see if there's a pattern in their color, you can try to look at more perspectives and see if there's a pattern one way or the other.

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#52

Post by jcadam » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

rmorey wrote: post #34

It's a "Jump to Conclusions Mat". You see, it is a mat that you put on the floor, and it has different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.

That is the worst idea I've ever heard.

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#53

Post by toss1 » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

version_five wrote: post #38

motohagiography wrote: post #17

"Jumpers," as described mostly just lacked a fear of consequences of being wrong and were presented with an incentive to guess. Not to be conspiratorial, but one can't help but notice a recent preoccupation in mainstream outlets with pathologizing conspiracy theorists, dissenters, and now, "jumpers." Referencing Khaneman and Tversky's "system 1 and system 2" from their bestseller Thinking Fast and Slow without credit…

I've always felt like the belief in a large group of "conspiracy theorists" is probably one of the biggest "conspiracy theories". A friend of a relative is an apparent flat earther - my relative is always saying things like "oh you wouldn't believe what this guy thinks, he says the world is actually shaped like a UN map, what a goof". In this situation, which of the two is actually the more gullible? From the situati…

Maybe it's LARPing or "intellectual exercise" for some, but for many if not most, it's their reality. I've personally tried to reason with some - it is truly and deeply a waste of time.

They literally cannot see beyond their own senses, e.g., want to see for themselves the curvature of the earth, yet they believe that it is the case that every one of the billions of photos of the earth from space or high altitude is faked, but won't believe that people can go to space.

The psychological research that seems to best explain it is that these people prefer to believe that the world is full of and controlled by an evil secret cabal than live in the reality of a world that is deeply random and uncertain.

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#54

Post by ARandomerDude » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

This headline and article are essentially, "Foolish people are often foolish."

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#55

Post by sharklazer » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

An experiment based on drawing red or grey balls/fish/things...

You know, this really isn’t a valid experiment. If you do the probability calculations then 2-3 draws is all you need. All this is based on the assumption getting red or grey is high probability, >90%.

This is exactly how distributors do defect testing on lots incoming goods.

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#56

Post by Gunax » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #7

Conspiracy theories aren't 100% irrational. It's irrational to assume that they are all 100% wrong and don't contain any correct or at least useful information. People do make plans together and influential people do tend to hang out together... It's not illogical to assume that they hatch plans to maintain the social order in a way that works for them and that some of these plans will be at the expense of the genera…

There are degrees of conspiracy theory, and as a term it's been highly undermined and politicized, sort of like 'fake news'.

I think that it's easy to fall into a false dichotomy between 'believing that everything conventional is true' and 'conapiracy theories are real'.

Sometimes conspiracy theorists defend themselves by asking things like 'do you trust the government/corporations/church...?' as if I must either trust everything a government has ever said or (eg.) believe it's harbouring secret ET bases. Or that no doctor has ever lied or they are hiding the secret cancer cure.

And yea, maybe I am missing something that's real. The issue is that there is such a deluge of crap, that no one can possibly know every theory. You could spend months or years just researching one of (9/11, crisis actor, qanon, moon landing, telepathy, etc).

We may just be talking about different types of conspiracy theories though, as mentioned by the other responder.

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#57

Post by ozim » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:39 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #20

willvarfar wrote: post #2

The article opens with a couple of examples of people allegedly not doing research: 1. Most people make two trips or fewer to a dealership before buying a car 2. when picking a doctor, many individuals use recommendations from friends and family rather than consulting other health care professionals or “formal sources” such as employers, articles or Web sites And, of course, the last person I would look to for object…

My wife and I have made one trip for every car that we bought. 1. We wanted a used Honda Civic. We found a used Honda Civic online, at a good price relative to Blue Book. We went to the dealership and bought the Honda Civic. 2. We wanted a used Honda CR-V. We found a used Honda CR-V online, at a good price relative to Blue Book. We went to the dealership and bought the Honda CR-V. Both cars have been great. No need t…

People think they have to be clever/smart when simply not being stupid and not doing stupid things is often more than enough.

Then they will go onto gold digging exercise to prove that they are smart to be smarter than those pesky dealers.

In the end when thing they bought turns out crappy (no gold in that mine:)) they will get defensive about it and will pull all kind of mental gymnastics to confirm what they did was worth investing time.

So such person won't even feel the opportunity cost, because they will make themselves believe that effort was necessary to find that good and they 'gamed the system'.

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#58

Post by Cerium » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

depaya wrote: post #45

version_five wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always felt like the belief in a large group of "conspiracy theorists" is probably one of the biggest "conspiracy theories". A friend of a relative is an apparent flat earther - my relative is always saying things like "oh you wouldn't believe what this guy thinks, he says the world is actually shaped like a UN map, what a goof". In this situation, which of the two is actually the more gullible? From the situati…

You are being way too charitable. While there certainly are people that fall into the category you claim... there are many who are full blown Jewish space laser, government ice wall, lizard people shadow government, 5g microchip tracker crazies.

Looks like we got one of the conspiracy theorist conspiracy theorists. /s

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#59

Post by helen___keller » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:45 PM UTC

version_five wrote: post #38

motohagiography wrote: post #17

"Jumpers," as described mostly just lacked a fear of consequences of being wrong and were presented with an incentive to guess. Not to be conspiratorial, but one can't help but notice a recent preoccupation in mainstream outlets with pathologizing conspiracy theorists, dissenters, and now, "jumpers." Referencing Khaneman and Tversky's "system 1 and system 2" from their bestseller Thinking Fast and Slow without credit…

I've always felt like the belief in a large group of "conspiracy theorists" is probably one of the biggest "conspiracy theories". A friend of a relative is an apparent flat earther - my relative is always saying things like "oh you wouldn't believe what this guy thinks, he says the world is actually shaped like a UN map, what a goof". In this situation, which of the two is actually the more gullible? From the situati…

Yeah, I dunno. My mother-in-law picked up bona fide crazy beliefs when she started using Youtube about 4 years ago. She started with "Proof the world is going to end in 2018/19" videos that she would email me, then moved into some kind of weird anti-CCP guo wengui / steve bannon phase, and currently watches a daily update from "restored republic" which is basically a monotone voice explaining all sorts of crazy shit (energy and internet will soon be free, mass arrests are happening, president trump is taking control of the military, we're going to have a quantum banking system and everyone will get free money back that the vatican stole from the US through the federal reserve, ...)

This isn't a strawman intellectual exercise. If we're in the car and talking about charging it, she will excitedly bring up how electricity will be free soon and laugh when we suggest that's a load of bull. She chose to not get vaccinated because she believes the vaccine was engineered to make you more susceptible to the "next virus" that the CCP is planning to release.

I don't really understand how she can possibly believe so much drivel, but she tunes in for her update every day, and this is the only "news" she cares about.

edit: just to be clear, the "free energy" thing isn't about government subsidizing electricity, it's about a device that nikola tesla invented that creates electricity from nothing but was suppressed for generations by the rich and powerful vested interests of the fossil fuel industry.

Re: People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

#60

Post by dsizzle » Thu, Oct 21, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

micdr0p wrote: post #15

I always thought I was too quick to jump to conclusions. After reading this, I'm not so sure I am any more. I guess the true conclusion-jumpers don't think they are. David Dunning strikes again!

Haha. (I had just come here to note one of the authors is the Dunning from the Dunning-Krueger effect -- I honestly didn't know anything about him, such as whether he was still alive!)