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People who jump to conclusions show other kinds of thinking errors

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

#91

Post by jjkaczor »

rglover wrote: post #62
depaya wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The entire "Jewish space laser" thing was never actually said. She mentioned names of people who are Jewish, but that terminology/connection was made by the media. Nothing she said illuminated this connection in any way. Was her point grounded in reality? Hell no. But the exact point being made above is highlighted by your comment. Her original post: https://politizoom.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Greene-las... .

"but that terminology/connection was made by the media"

She put enough of her thoughts and 'research' into her post that it was a 'dog whistle' for like-minded-thinkers.

You do not always have to explicitly say something, to actually say something...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)

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

#92

Post by motohagiography »

toss1 wrote: post #53
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…

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…

Not disagreeing, but I think this idea of theorists believing there are hidden patterns as an impotent attempt to impose control on a random and uncertain world falls into its own categorical/binary/blackandwhite trap that also overlooks complexity.

Someone seeing periodicity or even symmetry, fractal self simlarity, or isomorphic structure in something noisy could just as easily be accused of apophenia until they produce proof. That there is structure in the noise matters to the theorist, but to the hegemon it's unimportant, if not subversive and dangerous.

I prefer to look at it as having to do with how people relate to power and truth and how they perecieve it.

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

#93

Post by jjkaczor »

tinco wrote: post #50
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…

Something like this happened on Reddit, with the /r/the_donald subreddit. At first it was jokes at expense of the man, then it transformed into jokingly supporting his presidency. Then it became some quasi-intellectual support of his presidency. Then it became actual non-ironic serious support of his presidency through memes. And then when it actually happened, it became a sort of cult worship site that was eventuall…

I think that was a great example of; 'normalization of deviance' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance

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

#94

Post by deft »

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…

It's not even subtext. The media has been screaming at everyone to trust the experts and defer thinking.

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

#95

Post by macksd »

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…

> lacked a fear of consequences of being wrong

This is interesting. It used to be that some of the people we're discussing, let's use flat-earthers as an example, were just really, really committed to their idea. It was their whole identity and persona, and they would just never be able to accept anything different. This seems to me to be the opposite of what you describe. It's like they were terrified of being wrong, so they embraced not admitting it no matter what. They would never accept that they had been wrong. (With a few exceptions - I've engaged with A LOT of flat-earthers and some of them do give me the impression they just like playing devil's advocate, etc.)

Lately though, QAnon seems to have embraced this idea. They've made statements that will be very quickly falsifiable, and will actually say "Who cares if it's not true - we just support patriotism / freedom, etc. and what part of that do you disagree with?" They'll make statements that will be very quickly falsifiable (for instance, I saw a post claiming Nancy Pelosi had been arrested for high crimes, and Trump was now making his move - but a few days later obviously that wasn't true). That's what I call a lack of fear of consequences of being wrong. But to me it seems a new phenomenon.

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

#96

Post by kibwen »

umvi wrote: post #74
SamBam wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the situations I hear described, it's pretty clear the guy just likes to tease, and enjoys the "intellectual exercise" This was the default assumption for plenty of people when they first hear about real flat earthers, but unfortunately it appears to quickly devolve into actual, very firm beliefs for many people. This whole phenomenon of "LARPing" your way into a conspiracy ( I'm going to start posting about t…

> but unfortunately it appears to quickly devolve into actual, very firm beliefs for many people. Is it possible to quantify "many people"? Like, what percentage of people that are ostensibly flat earthers are actually genuine flat earthers vs. trolls? I would guess trolls make up the majority of internet flat earthers.

Trying to ascribe the intent of an action rather than focusing on the action itself is part of the problem in this circumstance. It's impossible to know how many are sincere, or how many are trolls pretending to be sincere, or how many are sincere but are pretending to be trolls so as to plausibly deny their sincere beliefs, etc. At the end of the day, the intent doesn't matter. If one is in a public forum (especially an anonymous/pseudonymous public forum) then the only thing to judge is one's actions, not their intentions, and if their actions are deliberately stupid, then we must assume they are simply stupid, and not merely pretending to be stupid. This approach obviously has problems, but there's no other tractable solution. The internet (especially Poe's Law) has killed satire.

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

#98

Post by rglover »

jjkaczor wrote: post #91
rglover wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire "Jewish space laser" thing was never actually said. She mentioned names of people who are Jewish, but that terminology/connection was made by the media. Nothing she said illuminated this connection in any way. Was her point grounded in reality? Hell no. But the exact point being made above is highlighted by your comment. Her original post: https://politizoom.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Greene-las... .

"but that terminology/connection was made by the media" She put enough of her thoughts and 'research' into her post that it was a 'dog whistle' for like-minded-thinkers. You do not always have to explicitly say something, to actually say something... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)

No. This is a rationalization for a belief that is incorrect.

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #78
alistairSH wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claimed we'd be fine with a mediocre doctor, I was providing a counterpoint - the risk of a botched repair was permanent loss of hand function - why risk that with a mediocre doctor?

Expecting every person to couch every statement with the exceptions is bad social behavior. Most fractures are set in the ER or even urgent care, maybe a cast, you are fine. Your "gotcha" response of a relatively rare case of a hand fracture requiring surgery with a specialist is not a meaningful response.

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by gilmore606 »

wombatmobile wrote: post #19

The article lacked a single counter-example to show when jumping to a conclusion might be advantageous. And yet much of life is dominated by such cases. Great ball players jump all the time. Hunters jump or go hungry. Soldiers jump or get jumped. Financial traders jump all day long. It doesn't mean they don't study at night, but during they day, they don't spend time pondering trades that disappear as fast as a gap i…

Fortune favors the bold. People telling you to never be bold want all the fortune.
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