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The Just-World Fallacy
- losethos 16y agoEverything is brain chemestry--dopimines are the same for everyone. Rich and poor have highs and lows. Saints suffer. Highs and lows balance. $1000 to a rich man is not very much. Therefore, absolute money is meaningless. Are you richer than Jesus? Are you cursed with oil. Short life means nothing--average happyness does. It's just. Often bad choices gradually lead to bad results. Not minding teachers. You are doing the opposite of praising God, fucken morons. "How could a loving God not allow discover of anesthetics centuries sooner." ba ha, you'll find out! Mom says heaven is a never ending family reunion. Hopelessly king midas thinking. Everyone who thinks this wolrd could be better suffers from king midas syndrome thankfully God uses His superior wisdom. God said war was servicemen competing. Imagine history with no drama. This world is the best of all possible. God says... I_had_a_crazy_dream how_could_you bastard voodoo one_small_step pick_me_pick_me persistence commanded listen_buddy just_lovely vengeful I_have_an_idea rip_off blessing homo trippy atheist oil Im_tired_of_this lighten_up how_goes_it merry_christmas take_the_day_off yeah home comedy phasors_on_stun chump_change opera Thats_my_favorite Mom astronomical thats_for_me_to_know jealousy You_can_count_on_that look_on_the_brightside look_out unix food depressing in_theory drama Its_nice_being_God lets_roll Its_nice_being_God endure what_a_nightmare God revolution
- jmcnevin 16y agoThree links to the same blog on the HN front page. Does this stink to anyone else?
- jheriko 16y agoMaybe, but it was an interesting read nonetheless.
- cynicalkane 16y agoIt would be better if it weren't for the dumb pseudo-logic and false facts that are constantly present in each of the blog's entries... I posted about it before (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1411398 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1411398), but I can't spend all day arguing with blog entries on the Internet.
- roel_v 16y agoThe mechanism is presumably that one article get on the front page, someone reads it, visits rest of the site, thinks "hey this is nice too", and submits it. Happens quite often that pages from the same site end up on the front page in bursts.
- kirse 16y agoThis "fallacy" is existential in nature and entirely subjective to the world-view that one holds. In just one example, how one defines "losing at the game of life" is completely subjective, so this article really isn't grounded in true logic, and calling it a fallacy is a bit of a misclassification. File this under -> Gladwellian Pop Psychology.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoIt's an awful article -- with lots of upvotes. Third one from the same website on the front page just today.
- kirse 16y agoOh I agree wholeheartedly! I usually don't comment much anymore, but this one was egregious enough to make me login and post a warning. The unfortunate thing is I've seen an increasing amount of this garbage on HN that purports to be "scientific" or "logical" but is clearly just pop pysch or just the ruminations of someone who sounds intelligent. Of course everyone dismisses that as "Oh, it was at least interesting and thought provoking"... to which I say that there's no point in wasting time eating garbage in the kitchen when there's a dinner table full of steak in the next room...
- kadavy 16y agoFile this under -> Gladwellian Pop Psychology. I recall learning about the exact same thing 10 years ago in Psych 280. This is a Psychological phenomenon that is actually studied academically. So, "Pop Psychology" probably isn't accurate. Okay if you think it's BS, though :)
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoThere's a fine line here. The world will never be just. But that's not germane -- doesn't matter what the world is to you anyway. It's not like you have to power to change or complain about it. It's like complaining about the spectrum of certain stars because you can't get a good tan from them. The key question is how do you act in the world. I think many people confuse acting as if the world is a just place with actually believing that the world is a just place. When young, you may start out thinking the world is a meritocracy. Then, perhaps in school, you finally figure out that life's a bitch and then you die. Perhaps some smartass with a website or a teacher or some other authority figure takes you aside and tells you that life is shit. What comes next is very interesting. Some folks internalize the unfairness of the world and chew on it. They hold grievances, complain about those who succeed, and feel oppressed and victimized. Other folks act as if the world is a fair place because they have decided that acting in such a way is the kind of person they want to be. They are happy, optimistic, and always looking for the good in life. Perhaps these people always view people in pain or suffering as in some way deserving it. Perhaps the other people always view people in pain and suffering as never deserving it. Perhaps both groups secretly think of life as a meritocracy. This would be an interesting hypothesis to test. But in either case, the world sucking is no reason for you to change your attitude one way or the other. In fact, once you figure out that you own your emotional responses to events, you move past whether the world sucks or not, because it's really not that important. And then you find articles like this pointless or worse.
- okmjuhb 16y agoThe just world fallacy isn't bad because of how it changes your motivation or happiness or anything like that. It's bad because of how it causes you to act towards those around you. People don't respond to homelessness when they've convinced themselves that homeless people deserve it. "the world sucking is no reason for you to change your attitude one way or the other" is of course absurd. If the world sucks, there's a reason to change it.
- anamax 16y ago> People don't respond to homelessness when they've convinced themselves that homeless people deserve it. Stereotype much? "Deserve" is a loaded term. Homelessness is often a consequence of choices made by the homeless person. For example, SF has both homeless and shelters that go unused. In other words, there are folks who prefer to be homeless to living in those shelters. Is it really unreasonable/wrong/immoral for folks to respond with "okay - I've done enough" wrt those homeless? If it is U/W/I, what do you want said folks to do? Build nicer shelters? Force those homeless into the shelters? Be precise - what will it take for you to be happy with the response to those homeless?
- kevinskii 16y agoThe article says nothing which actually supports the case that the "just-world fallacy" is fallacious. Hence it should be down-voted.
- Qz 16y agoYour comment says nothing which actually supports the case that the article said nothing which actually supports the case that the "just-world fallacy" is fallacious. Hence, I down-voted it.
- losethos 16y agoTo follow-up on my comment below, just because God said war was servicemen competing, that doesn't mean it's good. There's a season for everything under heaven -- a time for war, a time for peace. Some go crazy thinking they should start wars! There's an unjust assessment of justice. Rich bankers are bad, but rich professional athletes are okay. People with smarts don't deserve their success, but handsome people deserve their success in romance. It's obvious "all men created equal" is not a very literal statement. As for school seg/deseg, I donno. Events follow God's plan and deseg was in the plan... to this point. You wouldn't call your wife fat. Are you calling the world horribly unjust. After Egypt, it was so bad, they wanted to go back. God's like, "this is fun! What's wrong with you." They said "We want meat. We gotta have meat." God said "fine, you'll have so much it'll come out of your nostrils." They said "no way, too many of us." God said "What?" furious! "Is this too great for my hand?" He gave them meat... and then smacked-em! God's got emotions and is powerful. I tend to think "We want elite schools" might be recieved like "we want meat." Why you want that, cannot I school you? Fine, schools so elite they come-out of your ears.
- pigbucket 16y agoIf we lived in a just world, it would be.
- techiferous 16y agoMost humans think about the world in a framework of justice. I believe this innovation started with Zoroastrianism and then spread to post-exilic Judaism which, of course, led to Christianity and Islam. One of the defining characteristics of Zoroastrianism was its emphasis not just on accountability, but on individual accountability. More info: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Zoroastrianism http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Zoroastrianism Vedic religions have different historical roots (although both Vedic religions and Zoroastrianism share a common Aryan heritage). Vedic religions, therefore, have less of a sense of justice and I wonder if there is less of the Just-World Fallacy there. If you think that the concept of karma is the Vedic religions' take on justice, then you may be misunderstanding karma. Vedic religions don't have a strong concept of the individual self, so "you reap what you sow" doesn't quite capture the concept because there is no definite "you".
- astine 16y agoThis is not a fallacy. Fallacies are mistakes in logic. This 'Just World Fallacy' is a cognative bias, if anything.
- Qz 16y agoIt is a mistake in logic, specifically the part where people see someone in an unfortunate situation and think "They must have done something to deserve that". The fallacy isn't the idea that the world is just (it may or may not be), it's making the assumption that the just-world idea is actually true.
- araneae 16y agoThe fact that these cognitive biases exist does not preclude the possibility that people's actions also influence what occurs in their lives. The question is really how much of your circumstances are due to randomness, versus your behaviors. And regardless of how much of it is due to chance, I'm not surprised that these cognitive biases exist, because basically only the parts of our lives that we control are relevant to our cognitive processes. That is to say, if you want to avoid getting raped, the parts that are not under our control are irrelevant to our minds, for the very fact we can't control them. It makes sense to be hypersensitive to any factors that might be under our control.
- notmyname 16y agoThe articles comment about social justice and a desire to change the world reminds me of a TED talk I watched a while back which is about the differences in "conservative" and "liberal" outlooks and the ways in which individuals in each group measure morality. http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.ht...
- TotlolRon 16y agoYou always have Samson's choice. Westeners just fail to see it.
- brc 16y agoI disagree with the term 'fallacy'. Perhaps 'mental map' might be better, or perhaps learned bias. It's true that many of us use this type of thinking to navigate our way through life. Stereotype thinking and heuristic using allows a person to go through massive information without stopping to process each part. There's no doubt people see homelessness as something brought onto a person by themselves. There's no doubt that this is not true in all cases. However, having a mental map like this allows one to get through life without getting bogged down in negative thoughts. You need a mental map which says something like 'bad shit happens to good people' and just get on with your life. Trying to parse all the worlds injustices is like staring at the stars and working out how insignificant you are, fun for stoned undergrad students but utterly useless in moving your life forwards.
- eipipuz 16y agoFallacy: a false or mistaken idea. an often plausible argument using false or invalid inference. http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/fallacy http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/fallacy Sure, it's a mental map, but why do you disagree with that being a fallacy?
- brc 16y agoI'll struggle to word this correctly, but here goes. It's not a fallacy because the person makes these judgements based on their experience on the best way to deal with these situations. It's not a false or mistaken idea, rather a rational way to deal with the lopsided injustices and contradictions of the world we live in.
- kadavy 16y agoAny other HNers who are Causal Determinists? I don't think that makes me think the world is "just." It just "is."
- Qz 16y agoI don't know about causal determinism or whatnot, but the idea of just or not just is a human judgment applied to the state of the world. Its a subjective observation which is secondary to reality.
- roel_v 16y agoI happen to agree with you, (and you may all of this,) but don't think that this position is widespread. There are droves of people who will challenge the idea of an objective, morality-free reality. For example many religious people are determined that what is just and what is not just is fixed. This being said I don't even know the Catholic church's (in which I was nominally raised) dogma on this, let alone that most practitioner would be expected to know about the 'official' ideas on these issues. It would be interesting to haven an AMA with a theologist on here methinks :)
- whatwhatwhat 16y agoOff topic, but, why do all of losethos comments go dead? It was nice reading his perspective. Almost like I could see into his brain. Weird.
- psyklic 16y agoWhat matters is whether you place yourself in a culture that seems fair (or whatever attribute you enjoy). I surround myself with people who I admire and want to learn from. Sure, if your friends are always down on their luck and miserable, then you may get caught up in their dilemmas too. If your friends are happy, ambitious, successful, then some of that drive might rub off on you too. Peer pressure isn't always a bad thing!
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- exit 16y agowe have to bear in mind that we exist only for the sake of existing. if setting young children on fire and taunting them as they die in agony ensured self-perpetuation, that is exactly what evolution would have led to.
- qw 16y agoWhen reading this article, I was reminded of the social wellfare debate. I see a lot of similar arguments where it is assumed that if someone falls behind it's their own fault...