Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by cccc4all » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 12:27 AM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #8

Key point: "The problem is that facts—at least today—are themselves subject to doubt, especially when they conflict with our political beliefs (21). In the past decades, America has seen a decentralization of news and information (22) that has allowed people to gather their “own facts” (i.e., alternative facts; ref. 23). Most recently, claims of “fake news” allow people to distrust any information that fails to align…

Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...

What Mass Media calls facts are more often wrong than right, even without any political bias. When political bias are factored in, so called "facts" are complete opposite of what they are.

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

#92

Post by api » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 12:33 AM UTC

tacitusarc wrote: post #9

It's interesting to me that this delineates between facts and personal experience as if personal experience doesn't occupy the same space as facts. Perhaps a more useful way to think about people's relation to truth is one of proximity. For a given individual, their personal experience is entirely factual, and because it is also most proximate to them, it is weighted the most highly. Intuitively, I think we understan…

It usually doesn’t. Most facts today are outside most people’s personal experiences. Many like scientific facts are outside their economic reach to experience or verify. This is one of the major roots of the “post-truth” thing. Since facts can’t be verified we rely on trust, which is collapsing.

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

#93

Post by jrochkind1 » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 12:36 AM UTC

jbullock35 wrote: post #88

dang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand it correctly, the claim is not that personal experience narration is a superior form of objective information to facts, it's that sharing personal experience is more likely to create a feeling of relational connection, which in turn is more likely to lead to a shift in position. Tossing facts in an argument where people don't feel any personal connection is a bit like throwing stones at each other. Ma…

> If I understand it correctly, the claim is [...] that sharing personal experience is more likely to create a feeling of relational connection, which in turn is more likely to lead to a shift in position. The last part is wrong. The authors are explicit on this point: they are not studying persuasion, i.e., changes in people's issue positions. (They never measure change in people's issue positions.) Instead, they ar…

Huh, this is an important point that I missed from skimming the abstract too.

Are they saying that if I share my personal experience with you, you will feel more respected by me than if I share facts?

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

#94

Post by skissane » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 12:38 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #80

M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occasionally it swings in the opposite direction. I've met immigrants who are staunchly anti-immigration.

This is an example of broken language. Immigrants are never simply anti-immigrant, for example there might be nuance to their view as to whether it is okay to cut in line, especially if they waited the ‘legal’ way.

The vast majority of people who are "anti-immigration", and who are not immigrants themselves (or recent descendants thereof), are not "simply anti-immigrant" either. Most "immigration restrictionists" want to reduce the levels of immigration significantly compared to current levels, but very few of them want to drive it all the way down to literally zero with no exceptions whatsoever ever allowed. Also, many "immigration restrictionists" want to reduce immigration by certain groups (whom they view as "culturally alien" or "problematic"), but are quite happy for continued (or even increased) immigration by groups they like. So if it is true that "immigrants are never simply anti-immigrant", well that's true of non-immigrants too.

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

#95

Post by dang » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 12:59 AM UTC

jbullock35 wrote: post #88

dang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand it correctly, the claim is not that personal experience narration is a superior form of objective information to facts, it's that sharing personal experience is more likely to create a feeling of relational connection, which in turn is more likely to lead to a shift in position. Tossing facts in an argument where people don't feel any personal connection is a bit like throwing stones at each other. Ma…

> If I understand it correctly, the claim is [...] that sharing personal experience is more likely to create a feeling of relational connection, which in turn is more likely to lead to a shift in position. The last part is wrong. The authors are explicit on this point: they are not studying persuasion, i.e., changes in people's issue positions. (They never measure change in people's issue positions.) Instead, they ar…

Thanks for the correction!

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

#96

Post by throwaway0a5e » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:01 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #76

dantheman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the media lied throughout that time too; let us not forget the craziness of satanic ritual abuse, or the lies that led to the vietnam war, etc... The media and the government routinely mislead the public, look at in 2019 the intentional confusion of blackmarket thc vapes and tobacco vaping. Or more recently, the use of human trafficking. To claim there was sometime in the past where the news was good and…

There's a notable difference between: 1) a media outlet that repeats government lies about why we are fighting a war (or how it is going) 2) a media outlet that ignorantly repeats mistruths that are present in the (sub)culture 3) a media outlet that makes up its own lies We used to mostly have a mixture of 1 & 2, but we now have to contend with (3) as well.

The difference only exists if you think government lies are better than subculture lies or private party lies. Lies are lies. There's plenty of 50-100yo examples of news organizations twisting the truth to benefit their stakeholders.

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

#97

Post by jbullock35 » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:04 AM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #93

jbullock35 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I understand it correctly, the claim is [...] that sharing personal experience is more likely to create a feeling of relational connection, which in turn is more likely to lead to a shift in position. The last part is wrong. The authors are explicit on this point: they are not studying persuasion, i.e., changes in people's issue positions. (They never measure change in people's issue positions.) Instead, they ar…

Huh, this is an important point that I missed from skimming the abstract too. Are they saying that if I share my personal experience with you, you will feel more respected by me than if I share facts?

No, it's the other way around: if you share your personal experience with me, I'll respect you more than I would if you instead shared facts. At least, that's the authors' claim.

But what it means to "share facts" in these studies is not what you might anticipate. In Study 5, for example, participants speak with someone who disagrees with them about gun control. In the article, we're told that these interlocutors "offered either personal experiences or shared factual knowledge to support that stance." But the Supporting Information (which is separate from the article) shows what the interlocutors really said:

> Well, I do think you’re wrong about gun policy. I am [for/against] gun control, and I feel pretty strongly about that. I don’t know how you can call yourself an American if you don’t think that guns [hurt people and communities/keep our communities safe]. I believe this because I have read many books and governmental reports on gun policy, so my factual knowledge has really made me feel strongly about this. [1]

The interlocutor claims to be basing his views on "factual knowledge," but no actual facts are offered. To me, this seems a bad way to study the effects of fact-giving in discussions. If you want to do that, you should...study discussions in which facts are given.

Study 4 is similar in this respect. Then again, in the authors' defense, there's more to the article than these two studies.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2021/01/25/200838911...

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

#98

Post by hntrader » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:15 AM UTC

tacitusarc wrote: post #9

It's interesting to me that this delineates between facts and personal experience as if personal experience doesn't occupy the same space as facts. Perhaps a more useful way to think about people's relation to truth is one of proximity. For a given individual, their personal experience is entirely factual, and because it is also most proximate to them, it is weighted the most highly. Intuitively, I think we understan…

In a literal sense, personal experiences (when accurately described) are a proper subset of facts.

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

#99

Post by AmericanChopper » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

tacitusarc wrote: post #9

It's interesting to me that this delineates between facts and personal experience as if personal experience doesn't occupy the same space as facts. Perhaps a more useful way to think about people's relation to truth is one of proximity. For a given individual, their personal experience is entirely factual, and because it is also most proximate to them, it is weighted the most highly. Intuitively, I think we understan…

Every “fact” contains an element of subjective interpretation. It is literally not possible to present a fact in a way that is unbiased by subjective reasoning. Or if it is possible, we certainly have discovered a way to do it.

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

#100

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:29 AM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #96

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a notable difference between: 1) a media outlet that repeats government lies about why we are fighting a war (or how it is going) 2) a media outlet that ignorantly repeats mistruths that are present in the (sub)culture 3) a media outlet that makes up its own lies We used to mostly have a mixture of 1 & 2, but we now have to contend with (3) as well.

The difference only exists if you think government lies are better than subculture lies or private party lies. Lies are lies. There's plenty of 50-100yo examples of news organizations twisting the truth to benefit their stakeholders.

Extremely fair point. The entire Hearst empire was not exactly known for not playing fast and loose with the truth when it benefitted them, and there were, as you say, plenty of others.