I didn't believe the premise of this article the first time I heard about it. But now that I've encountered it a number of times on the internet, I'm beginning to think it might be true.
A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
131–140 of 155 posts
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, I didn't mean to beg the question by simply claiming that people can rationally evaluate statements. The things people learn are not noise. They have structure, they have hidden consistencies. Whatever you think of the rationality or otherwise of thought, surely you will agree that trying to learn inconsistent facts is going to be more trouble than learning consistent facts which support each other in a cumulativ…
I guess we look at the world very differently, because: > They are unlikely to ever agree with/be persuaded by complete inconsistent nonsense, however often it is repeated. Like, I mean nonsense that doesn't even have linguistic structure or maybe any meaning. If the US election hasn't persuaded you that complete gibberish can be persuasive when repeated endlessly, there's nothing I can say that will.
> If the US election hasn't persuaded you that complete gibberish can be persuasive when repeated endlessly, there's nothing I can say that will.
I depends. Mass media has proven that false. They almost unilaterally backed one candidate and attacked others, spewed lies and misinformation, and they failed to make a difference it seems. I would argue they made things worse. Here is a multi-billion dollar apparatus designed to persuade people and control opinions and it has failed. So it is not always true. I think there is stuff that is more nuanced in how it works, not simply "repeat this X amount of times and you're done, you'll get Y% more percentage of believers".
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#133Almost a bit ironically I am really surprised by the amount of agreement in this discussion. How is this a glitch in the human psyche oder something like that? Everything you remember is something you believe to be true and repetition makes you remember things, really no surprise or glitch here.
You tell me Mount Everest is 5742 meters high, seems a reasonable size for the largest mountain on earth. A year later you tell me Mount Everest is 6488 meters high. Seems reasonable and I have long forgotten that you claimed a different height last year. For whatever reason you keep telling me Mount Everest is 6488 meters high every Sunday afternoon, week after week.
I have no reason to doubt that what you are telling me is true and after a couple of weeks I will start to know and remember that Mount Everest is 6488 meters high. But then a couple of years later someone else tells me that Mount Everest is actually 8893 meters high. I object. To settle the issue we decide to look it up on Wikipedia and lo and behold the official height of Mount Everest is indeed 8893 meters.
This may or may not make me remember that Mount Everest is 8893 meters high but it is very likely that I will remember that 6488 meters is not the correct height and it might make me trust you less with regard to mountain related facts. Even without any repetition.
If you want me to accept a statement, the statement must be believable based on what I already know and believe to be true. And I have to have some trust that you are telling me a true statement. Repetition is only secondary, only required if you or I want that I remember the statement in the long term.
And if something is surprising or exciting or whatever, then one might remember something easily without a lot of repetition. The height of Mount Everest was never really interesting to me and learning the wrong height took some repetition. But then learning that Mount Everest is actually 8893 meters high and that I remembered the wrong height for years, that came as a surprise and may not take much if any repetition to remember.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can I ask you a question? Are you trolling or what are your aiming here? Now it's of course downvoted to oblivion, but I'd like to know why even here, amongst smart people, we go down into so cheap comments and even try to defend changes that will eventually make lifes of people like me a living hell.
It's ridiculous to compare Trump to Hitler. It's a childish emotional response from people who have spent a lot of their adult life in left leaning echo chambers. If you have a policy you want to criticize, by all means do. Don't shut your brain off and try to imply the president is the same as a man responsible for genocide. It puts you in the same camp as the people claiming Obama is a closet Muslim terrorist. >Now…
Just stop. Just. Stop.
The parent didn't mention Trump. You are the one who brought up Clinton.
And now you're whining hypocritically about childishness, when your childishness started all this.
The vast majority of Americans voted against Trump, who has been and continues to be the main dog-whistler-wink-winker for the only real echo chamber, of racist ideas like Obama wasn't born here, or was a Muslim, or supported terrorism, or created death panels, or whatever complete gutless "big lie" bullshit you seem to want to overlook.
Just give it a fucking rest.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#135I wish once people realised this, they had the courage to apply this to their own dearly held beliefs, particularly political or social ones - how many of those are just lies repeated ad nauseum that clearly aren't true? But I think most peoples reaction is just to say "Yeah! that's totally what those other people do that our side never does because we're right.".
>But I think most peoples reaction is just to say "Yeah! that's totally what those other people do that our side never does because we're right.". to guard against this, as soon as i am aware of a catchphrase or common talking point, i mentally deconstruct it and find the truth. frighteningly, the most commonly repeated verbiages are, should we say, misleading. but lean a little closer, stranger, and i'll whisper the…
> the "two sides" are unequal in their abilities for evaluative thought, self righteous zealotry, and dogmatism. an honest attempt at critical evaluation will go nowhere if your evaluating apparatus is garbage.
The good news is that you don't even have to worry about the "other side" just worry about the things that you believe. That was the point.
Also unlike hard sciences and logic the fact that there only two sides and one must be in either one, is also a thing to evaluate.
So you're right. First there is a need for a meta-evaluation, is my evaluation apparatus even working and how would I test if it is.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#136Repetition makes lies seem true, but repetition also makes truth seem true. All persuasion (and indoctrination) happens through repetition, whether in a classroom setting, a forum like this one, or in sales. This realization is also deeply depressing, because it means you're doomed to repeat yourself over and over if you want to persuade people. Let's take Noam Chomsky for instance. He gives more than a hundred talks…
Reminds me of the zillion articles that have been published over the years explaining why net neutrality is important. Sadly, this message doesn't even stick very well.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#137Marketing 101: bullshit repeated consistently enough with a large reach wins a broadcast-modality "contest of wills" where consent/attitudes/preferences can be manufactured to accomplish almost any aim, from the sinister, public good or prank.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#138What makes some people more vulnerable to accepting things uncritically? Why is it so hard to admit when they or someone they support makes a mistake? I have an ego, I don't like being wrong, and I think I'm right a lot. Ok, so far I get it. But to constantly ignore or avoid objective evidence? How do people not become ill at the thought? 1) Clinical narcissism or sociopathy? It's all an intentional means to an end.…
> Why is it so hard to admit when they or someone they support makes a mistake?
One of the critical aspects is social pressure. If they ever made fun of the thing they are supposed to be convinced of, convinced others (publicly especially) against it, they will throw every cognitive, emotional, and other tricks against every believing that.
That is why public ministering and proselytization as a necessary step in participating in many religions -- it is not just to simply bring others into the faith, but it is to inoculate those who do it against every disavowing it. I posit that social media and everyone messaging each other false-hoods is part of this public display of belief. Later on going against that is very hard, because there is solid evidence of them making fun of it just a week before. Nobody wants to be seen flip-flopping or being a hypocrite.
2) Simple lack of practice in critical thinking? They are acting in good faith but just not seeing the con.
Interestingly critical thinking of often orthogonal to other proxies for what society thinks "intelligence" is. Often it goes the opposite way -- the smarter the person thinks they are (maybe the more diplomas they have hung on their wall), the less likely they are to ever change their positions, because they will:
a) Have to confront the fact that they have chosen or supported an invalid one before. And with 3 diplomas on the wall, that is surely not something they would do
b) They have a greater capability at rationalization. When the CEO has a bad day because they had a fight at home and goes to work and shuts down a project or fires someone publicly, they will rationalize it to themselves in many other ways except "I really was upset for another reason, and made a stupid mistake, I just wasn't thinking straight". They'll use their intelligence to make something up that sounds reasonable.
Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's ridiculous to compare Trump to Hitler. It's a childish emotional response from people who have spent a lot of their adult life in left leaning echo chambers. If you have a policy you want to criticize, by all means do. Don't shut your brain off and try to imply the president is the same as a man responsible for genocide. It puts you in the same camp as the people claiming Obama is a closet Muslim terrorist. >Now…
Just stop. Just. Stop. The parent didn't mention Trump. You are the one who brought up Clinton. And now you're whining hypocritically about childishness, when your childishness started all this. The vast majority of Americans voted against Trump, who has been and continues to be the main dog-whistler-wink-winker for the only real echo chamber, of racist ideas like Obama wasn't born here, or was a Muslim, or supported…
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Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth
#140Did she really mis-spell Hitler's name?
Also, I highly suggest everyone making the Hitler comparison actually read the definitive work "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany," so we can perhaps have some more intelligent comparisons than: "You know who else used repetition? Hitler."
Every article I read seems to have become a fun little exercise in "How can I put both Trump and Hitler into this seemingly innocuous article about cognitive fusion?"
It's obnoxious and old. If you want to actually do a Trump-Hitler comparison, read a book on the topic and write an actual paper about it instead of just flinging it out willy-nilly so you can fear-monger your readership into believing that actual dystopian eugeno-fascism is just on the horizon.