I have a theory that people also misjudge the root causes of change, which causes them to overestimate foundational shifts in attitude. Changes in attitudes can reflect technological or economic changes, without changes in moral philosophy. For example, a society based around knowledge work is inherently going to have different attitudes to women working than one based around manual labor in heavy industry, without necessarily any deeper differences in social philosophy. Similarly, I suspect the rapid increasing in acceptance of same sex marriage, from 27% in 1997 to over 70% today, has mostly to do dissemination of scientific knowledge than deeper changes in attitudes.
Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
141–150 of 208 posts
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds to me like a variant on the idea of a "meme" (in its original sense): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme Consider that ideas (even facts!) might be like mind-viruses: you could imagine they propagate themselves in human minds, but are not actually produced by those minds. What if human minds are just the substrate?
at some point some ideas have to be created by some individual human who then transfers it to others, if we do not agree that the idea created by the individual human is created in their mind then we have to come up with another explanation of what they are created in. If we assume that a new idea, never before propagated creates itself we should have an explanation for how that works, which memetics does not have a…
> If we assume that a new idea, never before propagated creates itself we should have an explanation for how that works, which memetics does not have a current explanation for.
The same way viruses change: usually recombination, but sometimes random mutation. Yes this happens in a human mind, just like viruses change within cells. The point is to focus on ideas as self-propagating and humans as merely vessels, rather than the other way around as people usually think about them.
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
>A child is ~100x more likely to die from a drug overdose than a mass shooting, and ~10x from a car crash. Yet our perception is skewed because of what we see in the news / shared. Wait, I have the opposite reaction to the car crash comparison. Is that accurate? It blows my mind that the odds of a child in the US dying in a mass shooting is only a single order of magnitude less than the chance they die in a car crash…
Couldn’t find good stats for shootings and children but it looks like 1000 kids die each year in the US from car accidents so all it would take is 10 kids dying a year in shootings which doesn’t seem like many at all (just consider kids in street gangs etc). ‘Mass shooting’ has different definitions depending on country/agency. In the US I think it just means a shooting (not necessarily a death) involving more than 2…
That's two orders of magnitude, but your point stands. I think way fewer children die in car accidents than I imagined.
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only people I ever see asking that are right-wing pundits trying to convince left-leaning voters not to bother voting, and occasionally burned-out centrists who've fallen for it. I've never seen a serious left-wing voter/activist/politician come out with the claim that "well, the right are just as bad as we are". "We are not so different, you and I" is always the last-ditch claim of the villain, knowing that they…
I've noticed there is a tendency among folks on the left (and for all I know it's also true of folks on the right) where people who do as you say are cast out and labeled "centrists", creating a dynamic where internal criticism is silenced. I speak as someone who self-identified as on the left for many years, but no longer feels comfortable doing so because of how incurious and closed off to criticism the left has be…
> I've noticed there is a tendency among folks on the left (and for all I know it's also true of folks on the right) where people who do as you say are cast out and labeled "centrists", creating a dynamic where internal criticism is silenced.
As to whether the right also does it, Eric Greitens literally released an ad showing him "RINO hunting" with a rifle (RINO meaning "Republican In Name Only"). Leftists may infight, but at least we know how to use our words.
(As compared, for example, to the 1960s and 1970s, where bombing was a much more common tool of the left. I'll definitely take the verbal infighting.)
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#145> Belief in God has decreased only 10% over the past 60 years (3). The linked poll shows a 17% decline?
The Gallup religion poll is self-reported.[1] But some of the questions asked are objective, such as "How often do you attend church or synagogue -- every week, almost every week, about once a month, seldom or never?" Self-reported church attendance in the US is about twice what churches report actually show up. (That info used to be on adherents.org, but the site is gone.) Questions along those lines are tough to ge…
I got asked to participate in a Gallup poll once. On numerous questions, my answer wasn't part of the "permitted" answers so they had to enter something only mildly related to my real opinion (and the interviewer kept badgering me to select one of the permitted answers, which was amusing).
These polls are unreliable from the outset, bad poll design defeats their accuracy even with well-meaning respondents. So nowadays, I just decline to participate.
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only one has targeted attacks of human rights of minorities.
The only minority worth protecting beyond reproach of politics are those afflicted with poverty. I have found both parties incompetent in this regard. 800k shacks with outlets in LA for the homeless. The complete dismissal of the responsibility we have as a society to rehabilitate people in the prison system. the absolute abandonment of native americans that ultimately lead to an institution of sexual abuse. Unions r…
I would guess cities on average have better schools than rural areas.
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ancient greeks did not have this relationship to (written) knowledge. Greeks had to have a human vouch for the validity of the written document. Tying truth to written history is noble but also flawed.
It would hurt historians feelings to know that they are essentially just, what we call today, “hot takes” on history. It’s often well written and credentialed (appeal to authority), but ultimately it’s just one dude’s hot take on events. For example, many people in America have a hot-take about what life is like in China. How? We heard it from somewhere, never lived a day there. Can’t be that simple right? You say yo…
You can say the Earth is shaped like a cube, or like a sphere. Both are hot takes because it is in fact shaped like something we circularily (no pun intended) called a geoid.
Yet wouldn't you be more interested in listening to the "sphere" guy?
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that it’s been 30 years and only 4% of people are more concerned about climate change is pretty damn grim
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Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wasn't being aggressive, I was filing in the blanks for others that might be interested. Your comment encouraged me do the research myself (I didn't remember who else was lifetime from my high school classes in the late 80's) and I figured I'd share that, as well as, give another link that explains a bit more context to what I felt you left out.
Ok, thank you. The internet is funny. Neutral tones can come across as aggressive. Aggression, generally, though, can totally be all in the head of the perceiver.
Oh, it isn't just the internet that's funny, overall society/humanity is this way - we are swimming in it daily, and complain about it endlessly.
I sometimes wonder if the reason no one seems super interested in fixing things is because we've been living in it for so long, we instinctively write it off as being "just the way it is" &/or "there's nothing you can do about it".
Re: Widespread misperceptions of long-term attitude change
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a difference in the 2 major parties anymore? I seriously don't know which parry you're referring to.
GIANT differences and anyone pretending not is usually acting in bad faith. - abortion - environment (or you know that global warming is real and caused by humans) - LGBTQ rights - race & equity - immigration & treatment of asylum seekers - role of Fed & state regulators in markets, like energy markets (tx) - taxes - workers rights - federal govt powers could go on and on but that's not the point of your comment is i…
Is clairvoyance "good faith"? Is it optimal?