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The problems with this 'psychological explanation' 1. It is just as unscientific as saying that Facebook MUST be listening, without finding any evidence in the

The problems with this 'psychological explanation' 1. It is just as unscientific as saying that Facebook MUST be listening, without finding any evidence in the workings of phones, app source code, etc. Almost by definition, there is no experimental evidence for the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. 2. It posits that everyone who has experienced this is unsophisticated and ignorant about cognitive distortion. Clearly, some people who believe that Facebook is listening to them talk also believe that there were no planes on September 11th, etc. However, many many people today have a good understanding of psychology, are well aware of (basic) cognitive biases, have thought about these experiences. People also have experiences of unlikely events but which have well understood or easy-to-estimate probabilities, which didn't occur much historically. Lots of people can distinguish quite well between their own illusory biases and events which are coincidental, but not 'in the mind'. Some of these people seem to also believe their speech has found its way into advertisers' profiles.

IanCal 9y ago
> 2. It posits that everyone who has experienced this is unsophisticated and ignorant about cognitive distortion. Not really, it just suggests people aren't perfect statisticians and perfect at recording information. Which we aren't. > People also have experiences of unlikely events but which have well understood or easy-to-estimate probabilities The probability of seeing a relevant advert is not something we can easily estimate. > Lots of people can distinguish quite well between their own illusory biases and events which are coincidental, I would be shocked if this was even a reasonable percentage of people. I am certainly not a perfect innate statistician with perfect recall, and I think most other people are not either. Humans are just bad at this stuff. > which didn't occur much historically. I'd be shocked at anyone with a very solid recall of all the adverts they see. Without strong evidence, this seems like a perfectly reasonable base view. It'd be a complex, expensive, power and data hungry way of targeting adverts, extremely controversial and possibly illegal. There's no evidence they're actually doing it, no whistleblowers, and many of their adverts are just terribly targeted. People here are bringing up examples like a young couple being advertised a pregnancy test. Hardly requires invasive monitoring of a billion people to achieve.
- underwoodley 9y ago
  What is the strong evidence in support of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?

IanCal 9y ago

> 2. It posits that everyone who has experienced this is unsophisticated and ignorant about cognitive distortion. Not really, it just suggests people aren't perfect statisticians and perfect at recording information. Which we aren't. > People also have experiences of unlikely events but which have well understood or easy-to-estimate probabilities The probability of seeing a relevant advert is not something we can easily estimate. > Lots of people can distinguish quite well between their own illusory biases and events which are coincidental, I would be shocked if this was even a reasonable percentage of people. I am certainly not a perfect innate statistician with perfect recall, and I think most other people are not either. Humans are just bad at this stuff. > which didn't occur much historically. I'd be shocked at anyone with a very solid recall of all the adverts they see. Without strong evidence, this seems like a perfectly reasonable base view. It'd be a complex, expensive, power and data hungry way of targeting adverts, extremely controversial and possibly illegal. There's no evidence they're actually doing it, no whistleblowers, and many of their adverts are just terribly targeted. People here are bringing up examples like a young couple being advertised a pregnancy test. Hardly requires invasive monitoring of a billion people to achieve.

underwoodley 9y ago
What is the strong evidence in support of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?