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Exactly. If you read the literature on dissent it's frightening. Even humans can't work out who is being honest and what the verifiable truth is. Read "In Defe

Exactly. If you read the literature on dissent it's frightening. Even humans can't work out who is being honest and what the verifiable truth is. Read "In Defense of Troublemakers" for an overview of where research on dissent is at. It's pretty scary, because there just isn't anything you can do to turn the political machinery in everyone's heads off and it's default behavior is to shutdown opinions it doesn't agree with seeking consensus not truth. It's doubly scary if you read books on our cognitive shortcomings. We are not capable of computing the truth values of most truth claims. It's so expensive to know anything that most of our mental models are ultra-low resolution. We are a guess-and-check species who rationalize and politicize everything. To top it all off we barely ever think we are wrong. It's not a mystery why the world is so chaotic and crazy. It's not a mystery why authoritarianism has run rampant throughout history. I wish we were far more educated on the subject of how we get things, so terribly wrong.

beat 8y ago
I spent much of 2018 on a quest to try to set my internal sense of judgment and partisanship aside, and just focus on understanding why people come to believes that appear to be completely irrational, and why otherwise intelligent and well-meaning people can be so at odds in their beliefs. I'm coming strongly to similar conclusions - people are poor thinkers and totally unaware of this fact. They're not self-critical, but they are very critical of anyone who disagrees with them. I summed it up in a quickie comment recently that has stuck with me. "Nobody thinks they're a racist. When they say racist things, they don't think they're being racist. They think they're being reasonable."
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  Yup. The one thing I always try to keep in mind is that all the same observations apply to me too.

beat 8y ago

I spent much of 2018 on a quest to try to set my internal sense of judgment and partisanship aside, and just focus on understanding why people come to believes that appear to be completely irrational, and why otherwise intelligent and well-meaning people can be so at odds in their beliefs. I'm coming strongly to similar conclusions - people are poor thinkers and totally unaware of this fact. They're not self-critical, but they are very critical of anyone who disagrees with them. I summed it up in a quickie comment recently that has stuck with me. "Nobody thinks they're a racist. When they say racist things, they don't think they're being racist. They think they're being reasonable."

james_s_tayler 8y ago
Yup. The one thing I always try to keep in mind is that all the same observations apply to me too.