Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Persuasion through status rather than argument

robkhenderson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 251 posts

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#31

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

> It might seem intuitive to believe that people with less education are more manipulable. But research suggests this may not be true.

> High-status people are more preoccupied with how others view them. Which means that educated and/or affluent people may be especially prone to peripheral, as opposed to central, methods of persuasion.

There is a hidden assumtion in the above part. Did you spot it?

It is that educated people are also high status people, are also (overly) concerned about their reputation.

If this assumptions breaks, all the following about perpetuated ideology stands on a weak basis. After all, more educated people could tend to be more rational too.

To be fair, i would my left leaning ideology be based more on reason and not on my educational sociotope. May be just my bias.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#34

Post by tsimionescu »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #18
LtWorf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think musk knew very well. It's the investors that fell for it.

There's nothing physically impossible about the Hyperloop (basically a maglev in vacuum tube, nothing wrong with the tech, just not particularly economical). Maglevs have been deployed successfully in some parts of Asia, they are just dreadfully expensive and nimbys have fears about radiation but they are hardly new technology.

Note that the main point about the hyperloop was the vacuum tube, not the maglev part. And the vacuum tube doesn't actually work. It's not actually feasible to create a vacuum tube hundreds of km long. It's just about physically possible, but it's not really technologically feasible - not for a system that is supposed to be in constant operation all year long.

It's also important to remember that vacuum tube trains are an 1800s idea, which everyone started pretending is some revolutionary new transportation concept.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#35

Post by hobs »

KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #18
LtWorf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think musk knew very well. It's the investors that fell for it.

There's nothing physically impossible about the Hyperloop (basically a maglev in vacuum tube, nothing wrong with the tech, just not particularly economical). Maglevs have been deployed successfully in some parts of Asia, they are just dreadfully expensive and nimbys have fears about radiation but they are hardly new technology.

Physically impossible? Maybe, but the vacuum tube part was actually insane.

It would have been insanely difficult to maintain a useful enough vacuum over huge distances that the hyperloop was supposed to run.

A single failure in such a system could have catastrophic consequences across a huge range.

edit: beaten by @tsimionescu by a minute.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#36

Post by habinero »

carlosjobim wrote: post #24
hcks wrote: post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Communism is one of the worst ideas, with the worst track records, and have always captured the most intelligent people, even today. A casual browse through HN comments is enough evidence.

[flagged]

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#37

Post by jackcosgrove »

hcks wrote: post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

If you can remember it, the American media and foreign policy establishment was fully in support of the war in Iraq. That actually is a really good example of what the author describes because I'm sure many knew it was a bad idea but went along with it to preserve their careers.

I think we should be charitable with the author and not assume a "dumb idea" is something he disagrees with, but rather is something that was proven to be bad by the passage of time.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#38

Post by cornholio »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #15
hcks wrote: post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Madoff, WeWork, Theranos, NFTs, … Looking ahead… Probably these vector db company valuations, most companies doing AWS competitor DX plays.

All of those listed were well executed financial frauds. I don't think successful people are particularly more likely to fall for scams - they just have the necessary capital/disposable income and are targeted by more sophisticated scammers.

I think the author thinks more along the lines of Steve Jobs trying to cure his cancer with herbal tea, Elon Musk sleep depriving himself into a twittering idiot, Scientology, NLP and various "success hacking" fads etc.

The answer there might be that in reality successful people are not really very different from unsuccessful ones, and have very little control over the contingencies and luck that put them onto their respective paths. This is certainly the case with financial success.

Re: Persuasion through status rather than argument

#40

Post by dilawar »

hcks wrote: post #2

Can the author provide example of dumb ideas? Or is it "dumb ideas" == "ideas I disagree with" More generally, it seems like the recipe of this breed of substack author is to take a basic object level opinion e.g. "I don’t like pronoun people" or "AI people are dumb" and turn it a whole pseudo intellectual rant without ever getting to the point.

Some folks have called it problem of symmetry: take an idea and turn it on its head to get an argument.
Post reply on HN