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Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

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Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#161

Post by jmcqk6 »

specialist wrote: post #155

From this article, "motivational interviewing" is supported by actual research. That's a nice change. My people on the left keep doing the "fat shaming" equivalent (scolding) for politics and policy. Stubbornly wrong. Most of the advice about debating and persuasion is worse than wrong. This article calls out the "backfire" effect. I was one of them. I eventually figured out it doesn't work. I've been trying to find…

I think one way to distill down the simplest change is this: listen in order to understand and not to judge.

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#162

Post by jmcqk6 »

auggierose wrote: post #71

A personal experience is a fact. It is a fact we can be pretty sure of, and we know the context of that fact. Obviously, once we extrapolate from that experienced fact, it becomes bias. A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust. Even if I trust the source of that fact, I am often not sure if I understand the fact properly. Anyone who has ever tried to understand a math theorem might relate. It is…

> A personal experience is a fact. It is a fact we can be pretty sure of, and we know the context of that fact. Obviously, once we extrapolate from that experienced fact, it becomes bias.

> A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust.

I think this is a very common sentiment, because of the immediacy of the experience, but that doesn't make it true.

My biggest gains as a human came when I started questioning whether my natural interpretation of the world was actually very good. It turns out, my natural inclinations for understanding things is pretty bad, and now that I recognize that, I am a much more effective human being.

Having gone through that journey, I now spot it all over the place with others. People misinterpret the world all of the time, and they do it without question because it's their personal experience, and how can that be wrong? It's too bad. We waste so much potential not accounting for our own limitations.

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#163

Post by nobody9999 »

wl wrote: post #150
nobody9999 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>this was excused all the while by the group's leaders and other "peaceful" supporters Who? Specifically. This is important. AFAIK, no reasonable, law-abiding people advocated for or excused violence and destruction. In fact, such violence was roundly criticized and there were calls from all quarters for the apprehension and prosecution of anyone committing violent acts. I've heard the same refrain over and over agai…

I posted a status update the morning after a major riot happened in my neighborhood that consisted of a short summary of what happened, a statement that I was ok, and essentially "fuck the rioters." I could name names of friends who, in response, insisted on "people > property", "fuck the racist capitalist system", "rioting is language of the unheard", "looting is reparations," and "don't tell black people how to pro…

>I could name names of friends who, in response, insisted on "people > property", "fuck the racist capitalist system"

How many of those friends are elected or appointed public officials?

And what political power/social clout does Ariel Atkins[0] have? Especially given that over 100 arrests were made and as the mayor of Chicago said[0]:

"This is not legitimate First Amendment-protected speech. … This was straight-up felony, criminal conduct"

So some of your friends and an "activist" made incendiary comments.

No one with any real power or media reach condoned or encouraged violence during the BLM protests. Not one.

If a bunch of randos mouthing off is a huge problem, how much of a problem do you consider the statements encouraging violence by some folks with real power and media reach[1][2][3][4]?

[0] https://www.wbez.org/stories/winning-has-come-through-revolt...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz-zWeqtVo8&feature=youtu.be

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/01/02/gop-r...

[3] https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/die-for-something-arizo...

[4] https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/461498-why-are-we-t...

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#164

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

harimau777 wrote: post #145
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the aspect that spans between your comment and the one you replied to is this: Why should “personal experiences” be a different category than “facts?” (even taking for granted the extra step you mentioned, where it is the use of these experiences within a discussion, not the absolute existence of the experience, at play). For example, suppose I know you and you are honest and trustworthy, so if you verbally t…

I'm not sure that my goal is to get people to believe as accurately as possible so much as it is to get other people to do the right thing. That is to say, my goal is persuasion. Generally speaking, I also try to encourage people to believe as accurately as possible. However, as a practical matter convincing people to do that doesn't scale.

I think you are saying tbe same thing. “Do the right thing” means “their beliefs are accurate with regard to what is the best action to take.” Of course, it assumes you are starting out with the “right” action, which is why a much better goal is “ensure everyone believes as accurately as possible.” That way you aren’t just persuading them (and in fact you aren’t even looking at it as an issue of persuading them), rather you are taking the view of how best to ensure both parties are optimally persuaded by the facts.

A goal to persuade without a goal to induce accurate beliefs is just manipulation.

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#165

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

harimau777 wrote: post #146
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a precondition of the entire discussion is that we’re talking about what’s more effective in resolving disagreement - which would be measured by whether a disagreement process approaches the conclusion that would be reached between two rational agents sharing their information. Note that I am not saying I believe humans do act that way, rather that is the yardstick of outcome to decide if one disagreement res…

Maybe the issue is different views of what the disagreement is over? I tend to view the disagreement as being over policy not over rationalism/facts. If at the end of the discussion both people agree on the policy I see that as successful even if they still disagree on the evidence that supports that policy.

I don’t think so. In fact there is actual theory about all this.

- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem

- https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf

and in particular,

- https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/prior.pdf

If your goal is just to manipulate someone else into doing what you want, regardless of what the facts say nor what their beliefs say about the facts or about your beliefs, then sure, that is pure manipulation and not related to strategies for effective disagreement resolution.

It’s also not relevant or useful to bring up the fact that humans are not rational Bayesian actors, again because we’re talking about how best to achieve unified shared understanding of the true facts and to ensure we only derive beliefs from that (anything else can only be manipulation, not decision resolution, by definition). We may fall short of the best solution due to our flaws and limitations, but that doesn’t render the best solution any less the best, not make some other seemingly more attainable solution better or more worthwhile.

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#166

Post by wl »

nobody9999 wrote: post #163
wl wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I posted a status update the morning after a major riot happened in my neighborhood that consisted of a short summary of what happened, a statement that I was ok, and essentially "fuck the rioters." I could name names of friends who, in response, insisted on "people > property", "fuck the racist capitalist system", "rioting is language of the unheard", "looting is reparations," and "don't tell black people how to pro…

>I could name names of friends who, in response, insisted on "people > property", "fuck the racist capitalist system" How many of those friends are elected or appointed public officials? And what political power/social clout does Ariel Atkins[0] have? Especially given that over 100 arrests were made and as the mayor of Chicago said[0]: "This is not legitimate First Amendment-protected speech. … This was straight-up f…

You asked someone to explain their comment about the "group's leaders and other 'peaceful' supporters." I gave you an example of both. If you want more, they're not hard to find by searching for the slogans I recited.

I am thankful that government officials and more respectable media outlets with significant reach have tended to condemn the BLM rioting. Outright endorsements probably would have made the situation worse. And even tacit support can have disastrous consequences, as we saw at the Capitol. But they're not activists and they don't speak for the movement (although who can?).

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#167

Post by brian_cunnie »

Personal experience allowed me to bridge the gun-control divide.

I was a strong advocate of gun control, and was dating a rancher's daughter, and she said, "my dad keeps a pistol in the glove compartment because there are rattlesnakes all over the ranch, and when he sees one he kills it so that it doesn't bite his granddaughters."

As a result of that conversation I changed my view on gun control, though I still firmly believe in strict gun control in urban settings.

I find that friendships also allow me to bridge moral & political divides. When the anti-police movement (ACAB = All Cops Are Bastards) erupted in San Francisco, I became angry at my fellow liberal kindred--some of my friends are cops, and they're good cops, and I didn't like seeing them being demonized.

Friendships help bridge many divides: It's hard to be homophobic when half my friends are gay. It's hard to hate Trump supporters when at least one of my rugby teammates is a Trump supporter (I don't agree with him--I think he's misguided--but I don't hate him).

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#168

Post by nobody9999 »

wl wrote: post #166
nobody9999 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I could name names of friends who, in response, insisted on "people > property", "fuck the racist capitalist system" How many of those friends are elected or appointed public officials? And what political power/social clout does Ariel Atkins[0] have? Especially given that over 100 arrests were made and as the mayor of Chicago said[0]: "This is not legitimate First Amendment-protected speech. … This was straight-up f…

You asked someone to explain their comment about the "group's leaders and other 'peaceful' supporters." I gave you an example of both. If you want more, they're not hard to find by searching for the slogans I recited. I am thankful that government officials and more respectable media outlets with significant reach have tended to condemn the BLM rioting. Outright endorsements probably would have made the situation wor…

>But they're not activists and they don't speak for the movement (although who can?).

Exactly. Given the decentralized nature of BLM (dozens if not more local and regional groups), I don't think anyone can reasonably say that any one person or group speaks for the BLM movement as a whole.

As such, making the assumption that a few loud voices are representative of millions of people seems inaccurate at best, and an effort to discredit millions of people who desire positive change in the methods, focus and biases of US law enforcement, based on the violence and hyperbole of a tiny minority at worst.

And the same can be said of the vast majority of those who, however misguided, protested in support of the specious claims of a "stolen" election.

A vanishingly small minority of those people committed acts of violence and destruction too. And the millions who supported that point of view shouldn't be tarred with the same, broad brush as those who committed acts of violence and insurrection.

Both of those tiny groups should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The difference between those two groups is that the public/elected officials who supported the BLM protestors right to exercise their First Amendment rights overwhelmingly condemned and decried the violence committed alongside those legal, lawful protests.

While many public/elected officials decried and condemned the violence and insurrection at the Capitol, a non-trivial number of public/elected officials who supported the Big Lie[0][1] of a rigged election encouraged violent action, and some may[2] have even knowingly conspired with violent factions to facilitate their insurrection.

That's a big difference. And we should acknowledge that. Not because it's a partisan thing, but because we're supposed to be a nation of laws -- and when those who are elected/appointed to make and enforce those laws actively work against our constitutional order, they must be dealt with directly and strongly -- or we risk the basis of our societal order.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

[1] https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/the-capitol-mob-was-on...

[2] It's important to note that no elected officials have been charged with aiding the insurrectionists, there are indications that a few may have done so. Investigations should continue and anyone who provably (and that's a critical point) aided and assisted the violent scum who tried to subvert our constitutional government must be vigorously prosecuted -- but only if there is sufficient evidence. We are, after all, a nation of laws.

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#169

Post by auggierose »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #162
auggierose wrote: post #71

A personal experience is a fact. It is a fact we can be pretty sure of, and we know the context of that fact. Obviously, once we extrapolate from that experienced fact, it becomes bias. A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust. Even if I trust the source of that fact, I am often not sure if I understand the fact properly. Anyone who has ever tried to understand a math theorem might relate. It is…

> A personal experience is a fact. It is a fact we can be pretty sure of, and we know the context of that fact. Obviously, once we extrapolate from that experienced fact, it becomes bias. > A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust. I think this is a very common sentiment, because of the immediacy of the experience, but that doesn't make it true. My biggest gains as a human came when I started qu…

I don't disagree with you. You just don't understand what I wrote.

Re: Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts

#170

Post by hashkb »

space_rock wrote: post #118
hashkb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eyewitness testimony is a personal experience that's been well proven to be poorly correlated with others' personal experience of the same event. You may be redefining "fact".

Please tell me where you get your input if not from personal experience? Logical fallacy to say because interpretation of sensory inputs is not perfect therefore we are bind and know nothing about the world

You're attacking a straw man.

My point is that there's a method by which we start from observations and, through a process that (critically) involves other people, we reach an objective understanding of a subject. The observations aren't facts, but the conclusions can be.

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