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

#121

Post by kibwen » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 12:23 AM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #106

kibwen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (especiall…

Flat earther trolls that I saw didn't look sincere or stupid, they looked ironic.

"Irony", or what passes for it these days, is too often a deliberate tactic to equivocate a sincere belief while retaining plausible deniability. Unless they deliberately call out their comments with something like an explicit sarcasm tag, we are forced to assume they are sincere.

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

#122

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 12:44 AM UTC

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 don't understand why "conspiracy theorists" are so discredited. Conspiracy is a crime and people are charged with it often if not every day. It's essentially a coordinated effort by any group to do something others disapprove of. Pretty much any human organization with is capable of it.

It doesn't take long to find evidence of truly outlandish conspiracies perpetrated by the US government itself. Dosing citizens with drugs in an attempt to control their minds. Exposing citizens to radiation on purpose without their knowledge or consent in order to study the effects, measurably causing increased rates of cancer in that population. Anyone can find stuff like this just randomly browsing wikipedia. Yet somehow we're supposed to disbelieve when "theorists" speak?

I've also concluded there's people out there who want to discredit these "theorists" in any way possible. Abusing science and medicine to do it? Why not? They must be mentally ill, right? All those insane ideas must be evidence that something is literally wrong with their cognition. Their brains must be scrambled or something. Schizophrenia? Throw in words like paranoia and suddenly people will agree that maybe we should involuntarily institutionalize these people. Put them on medication to calm them down. Yeah.

Paranoia is not a symptom when they really are after you. I don't understand how anyone can accuse people of paranoia in the 21st century when we know there are a hundreds of government agencies out there spying on literally everyone on the planet at all times. We know they conspire to do all sorts of completely unacceptable actions. We know they always deny the truth afterwards for as long as they can get away with.

Some people have silly beliefs like flat earth. That's just wrong and it's safe to ignore them. The problem is when people raising perfectly legitimate concerns about COVID-19 vaccines are dismissed as anti-vaxxers. The truth is their risk-benefit profiles are not fully known at this time, scientists are still studying their effects. It's absolutely possible that some vaccine has higher risks than benefits. Yet people saying anything that isn't glowing support for vaccination get moderated on social media for spreading disinformation.

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

#123

Post by OrvalWintermute » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 12:51 AM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #68

Consultant32452 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this behavior. Did you think you added something valuable to the conversation by replying with a special case?

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?

> the risk of a botched repair was permanent loss of hand function - why risk that with a mediocre doctor?

You make an excellent point, and I will point out a related anecdote.

A plastic surgeon in my wife's practice fell into a glass table severing a number of nerves and tendons in his dominant wrist & arm. Basically a potential career ending injury. Short of an amputation that is one of the worst injuries for a surgeon.

He did not go to any regular hand surgeon, or plastic surgeon that may have done a fellowship in hand. Nope. He got driven to Hopkins where they have one of the best teams in the Mid-Atlantic for complex, nerve involved hand & arm related injuries. A year or so later and he is completely recovered.

Some of the other leading honor roll hospitals [1] like Mass General, Cleveland Clinic, Mayo, etc - they have leaders in their field, and collections of gurus needed for really complex injuries where best outcomes are critical. Regular surgeons refer the super hard cases to them, because they are often times the best care possible in the US.

[1] https://health.usnews.com/health-care/best-hospitals/article...

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

#124

Post by SamBam » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #106

kibwen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (especiall…

Flat earther trolls that I saw didn't look sincere or stupid, they looked ironic.

This may simply be a function of your inability to believe that they could be sincere.

There are without question plenty of "real" flat earthers our there. People willing to spend actual money on experiments doomed to fail. People cutting ties with their families because they don't agree with them.

When we read people espousing flat earth views on YouTube or Reddit or wherever, out natural assumption is to think that they must be trolling, because nobody could be that stupid, but in fact there really is a subculture that does.

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

#125

Post by _y5hn » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #72

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…

It's hard to get into peoples' heads, but in my experience, I've known people who were into conspiracy X, but did not want to admit that they believe in conspiracy X at first, so they told their friends that they were just joking, being edgy or learning more about it, etc. After a while, they just grow tired of keeping up appearances, or maybe a famous person talks about conspiracy X, so they are no longer embarrasse…

It's a common misconception that other people think alike oneself, and that everybody think rationally. As always, it depends.

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

#126

Post by _y5hn » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

rglover wrote: post #112

jjkaczor wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lie is pretending that people who post statements on a platform like Twitter and have a wide-spread audience or follower-base do not have any intent. The lie is pretending that someones' written words are not actually enough evidence to show their intent. The lie is pretending that statements exist completely isolated from any cultural or historical context. Marjorie Taylor Green has a well documented history of…

> The lie is pretending that people who post statements on a platform like Twitter and have a wide-spread audience or follower-base do not have any intent. Assumption. > The lie is pretending that someones' written words are not actually enough evidence to show their intent. Assumption. > The lie is pretending that statements exist completely isolated from any cultural or historical context. Marjorie Taylor Green has…

Ditto. Wether someone is "insincere" or not matters less when one can judge their words and actions.

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

#127

Post by _y5hn » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 1:42 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #122

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 don't understand why "conspiracy theorists" are so discredited. Conspiracy is a crime and people are charged with it often if not every day. It's essentially a coordinated effort by any group to do something others disapprove of. Pretty much any human organization with is capable of it. It doesn't take long to find evidence of truly outlandish conspiracies perpetrated by the US government itself. Dosing citizens wi…

Because most of it is absence of critical thinking and facts. There are many real conspiracies, but they become real when backed by facts for the allegations.

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

#128

Post by OrvalWintermute » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 1:43 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #122

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 don't understand why "conspiracy theorists" are so discredited. Conspiracy is a crime and people are charged with it often if not every day. It's essentially a coordinated effort by any group to do something others disapprove of. Pretty much any human organization with is capable of it. It doesn't take long to find evidence of truly outlandish conspiracies perpetrated by the US government itself. Dosing citizens wi…

> It doesn't take long to find evidence of truly outlandish conspiracies perpetrated by the US government itself. Dosing citizens with drugs in an attempt to control their minds. Exposing citizens to radiation on purpose without their knowledge or consent in order to study the effects, measurably causing increased rates of cancer in that population. Anyone can find stuff like this just randomly browsing wikipedia. Yet somehow we're supposed to disbelieve when "theorists" speak?

I have become more skeptical of bashing of "conspiracy theorists", and rapid mislabeling from numerous experiments gone awry, due to great examples of crazy things in government like Operation Midnight Climax [1]

>The problem is when people raising perfectly legitimate concerns about COVID-19 vaccines are dismissed as anti-vaxxers. The truth is their risk-benefit profiles are not fully known at this time, scientists are still studying their effects. It's absolutely possible that some vaccine has higher risks than benefits. Yet people saying anything that isn't glowing support for vaccination get moderated on social media for spreading disinformation.

I think this had to do with Science-as-a-process vs "Scientism". When you treat science as a methodology it works great, because I truly believe science is regularly self-correcting, even if the correction period is in centuries. But, when science becomes mixed with narrative truth, painted through a partisan lense, or a dogma, then we devolve into something out of Frankenstein. Or, perhaps, better, The Fly.

[1] https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/operation-midnigh...

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

#129

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 1:50 AM UTC

_y5hn wrote: post #127

matheusmoreira wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why "conspiracy theorists" are so discredited. Conspiracy is a crime and people are charged with it often if not every day. It's essentially a coordinated effort by any group to do something others disapprove of. Pretty much any human organization with is capable of it. It doesn't take long to find evidence of truly outlandish conspiracies perpetrated by the US government itself. Dosing citizens wi…

Because most of it is absence of critical thinking and facts. There are many real conspiracies, but they become real when backed by facts for the allegations.

Yeah. I'm not saying we shouldn't exercise some healthy skepticism when dealing with new ideas. However, there seems to be such a widespread stereotype plaguing these people saying they shouldn't even be given the time of day. They even create conspiracionist characters in movies. Dude is always treated as some funny nutjob even when they're right.

The US is a country with documented examples of doctors injecting microorganisms into unsuspecting patients. There's a truly astounding list of unethical scientific experiments performed there on wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...

So I don't fault americans for assuming there's some kind of conspiracy behind vaccines and I would most certainly not be surprised if they turned out to be right. I don't fault them for not trusting doctors, especially psychiatrists. I've read some truly horrifying stories.

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

#130

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 1:55 AM UTC

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #123

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?

> the risk of a botched repair was permanent loss of hand function - why risk that with a mediocre doctor? You make an excellent point, and I will point out a related anecdote. A plastic surgeon in my wife's practice fell into a glass table severing a number of nerves and tendons in his dominant wrist & arm. Basically a potential career ending injury. Short of an amputation that is one of the worst injuries for a sur…

Do you believe that a normal literate person who reads:

>a mediocre doctor can deal with a broken bone

interprets that as

>there are zero cases of broken bones that are extremely complex requiring highly specialized doctors

I'm really curious to know if you believe that is how humans communicate.