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Major Flaws of Human Thinking

203 points by dandanua 6y ago

sepnax 6y ago
Politics in sheeps disguise.
- dfilppi 6y ago
  Yes, that's why 'conservativism' is a 'flaw'. One major flaw in human thinking is believing other people cant see through your obvious bias.
  - siliconmountain 6y ago
    Anchoring bias is a better name for this flaw. Either way, the handful of examples provided here are.. random? This post has poor depth and breadth, akin to a listicle
  - jbotz 6y ago
    Conservativism (sic) is a flaw (in human thinking) because what it means is "resistance to change"... and as Heraclitus said, "change is the only constant in life."
  - adkadskhj 6y ago
    Curiously, what set of reading would you say that would make a liberal person become a conservative? If you're belief is that it's logical, it must be an argument we can discuss, backup with data - etc. So to that end, the reason i'm liberal is that i believe there is a balance between social safety nets and capitalist incentives. In my view, we are currently the conservative dream. Very few protections for workers, less and less than years past - with increasing benefits for corporations that see little to no benefits trickled down to the workers. Walmart and Comcast are what i see as the natural result of conservative practice. I simply want what will result in the least suffering. Yet i see suffering in mass in the very pro-0.01% behavior. Walmart does great in this environment - it's employees, less so. Worse yet if you lose your Walmart job, as the safety nets are being dismantled left and right by conservatives. So, what reading would you recommend i do to show me that fiscal conservative behavior here and that further more reducing lower/middle class protections is beneficial to them? I certainly do not claim to know all, or any, answers. All i know is the state of the poor is very unsettling to me in America. What reading would you suggest?
    - kortilla 6y ago
      > Very few protections for workers, less and less than years past (Assuming you’re talking about the US) Which worker protections have been rolled back? What do you think workers aren’t protected from now that they were protected against when there were no overtime, minimum wage, or really any safety laws?
    - laddng 6y ago
      Sowell's "Controversial Essays" was helpful for me to understand the conservative mindset a little more. He comes from the Chicago School and Milton Friedman.
      - adkadskhj 6y ago
        Appreciate it, will give it a read - thanks!
    - mynameishere 6y ago
      One problem is that you are just repeating straw men ('trickle down') and stating things that are flatly wrong ('Very few protections for workers, less and less than years past'). No, generally the regulations 'protecting' workers have gone up and up and up. The nutty expansion of UC in recent months is one example. As for 'social safety nets', for people who learn to navigate the system, there is basically work-free living available. Between Section 8, SNAP, SSDI, Medicaid, etc, the 'social safety net' is beyond anything imagined a few decades ago. In addition, your attack on Walmart is lazy and typical. When Walmart moves into a neighborhood the first group to get hit are whatever retailers already exist in the area--because all the best workers immediately line up to work at Walmart instead. Better pay, better benefits, etc. Just a typical case. So, what should you read? Anything but /r/politics would probably help some.
- dandanua 6y ago
  I didn't mean politics, this is a dirty field to do science/logic. Conservatism bias is a real thing, but this doesn't mean that we should throw off our past. Just reconsider its weight in our decisions.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  Well, considering politics during your thinking is quite important, as often you can't get a correct answer (e.g. to why a thing is certain way or why a potentially promising course of action is actually unlikely to succeed) without taking politics into account. In most cases where you'd want to convince others about something, the political connotations of various arguments matter just as much (or even more) as how sound these arguments are logically. Obviously, there are certain avenues of thinking where we'd want to perform a pure rational, impartial analysis while explicitly disregarding any politics. However, that's a minority of the cases, and even then when trying to communicate that analysis, politics becomes relevant once again. Even the desire to carefully describe a particular analysis as apolitical is driven by political motivations i.e. to make that analysis more convincing to others with different political alignment. As Aristotle said, "Man is by nature a social animal" - it makes all sense that our default mode of thinking and the associated decisionmaking shortcuts are heavily driven by social and political aspects, because in many circumstances the social impact and political perception of some statement is more important than whether it's technically true.
11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
It's good to periodically see these articles get traction. There are so many logical fallacies that we need to remain diligent in guarding against them. Lately, in response to the relatively intense polarization of beliefs, I've been contemplating open-mindedness, and whether discussions starting with establishing an open-minded context could get people talking again. To me, open-mindedness means that you're receptive to new ideas and experiences and generally do not reject them outright. When presented with implausible or seemingly impossible information, an open-minded person will listen to the basis of ideas, concepts and information and weigh that basis before making a determination about whether or not the idea is true and worth assimilating. Or they may try a new experience with less pre-judgment of whether they'll appreciate it. In my view, there is a critical nuance in open-mindedness: It applies whether or not the idea is consistent with what I already believe to be true. As an open-minded person, I feel that I need to regularly reevaluate my beliefs as new information comes to light, even if that new information directly contradicts a basis for a firmly held belief. I'm curious to know examples that you've had where you've learned new information that contradicted what you already firmly believed, and through open-mindedness, changed your belief accordingly.
- umvi 6y ago
  It can also help to occasionally play "devil's advocate" and argue for "the other side". This forces you to seriously consider the weaknesses of your own side and strengths of the other side. I've definitely developed more nuanced opinions as a result of playing devil's advocate
  - _qulr 6y ago
    There's a huge difference between playing devil's advocate in your own mind and doing it publicly. The former may be useful. The latter is usually just annoying.
  - nekopa 6y ago
    I prefer the idea behind the steelman technique (as opposed to a strawman argument): state the position of the person you disagree with so well they say "I wish I had put it that way!" then proceed to refute the central argument.
free2OSS 6y ago
I wonder if philosophy can solve the first 4? The later through Science/logic where it's possible.
amadeuspagel 6y ago
We evolved to think the way we do over millions of years. We should not just dismiss a pattern of thought as a flaw because we don't understand its usefulness. It might be a flaw - the world today is different in many ways from the world our thinking evolved for - but at the very least we have the burden to explain why this pattern evolved, and why it's harmful now.
- _qulr 6y ago
  "4. Human-centric thinking" Every organism alive now evolved over millions of years. What's so special about human thinking? Why not cat thinking, dog thinking, cow thinking, insect thinking? Evolution isn't about truth. It's about survival and reproduction. Which often involves lying and deception. Sometimes even deceiving oneself. [Edit: To clarify, I quoted the linked article not to criticize it but to criticize the point I was replying to, which I took to be a human-centric fallacy about evolution.]
  - greggturkington 6y ago
    Because cats don't think in collective myths and build cities. Humans don't think with insect-like sub-brains throughout their body. The title of the article has "human" in it so it makes sense to have a human-centric discussion about it.
    - _qulr 6y ago
      You missed my point. I wasn't claiming that cows are as smart as humans. I was claiming that evolution has produced millions of species, only 1 of which is humans. So you can't just handwave "evolution" to validate human thinking. Humans are likely smarter than all of the other animals, but that's a pretty low bar. The competition for "smartest Earth species" is fairly weak.
      - greggturkington 6y ago
        No I didn't. "Every organism alive now evolved over millions of years" but they are still very distinct. > you can't just handwave "evolution" If you believe the brain is part of the body, and that the body evolved, you believe _some_ part of evolutionary psychology. It's not handwaving. That part of the article suggests that societal unrest creates say, fascist leaders, and not the other way around.
projectileboy 6y ago
There are a variety of places you could look further on this topic, but I’ll throw in a recommendation for the book Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin.
pontus 6y ago
Ironically the biggest cognitive flaw is believing that these apply to other people but not to yourself. I saw a comment from someone at the center for applied rationality a while ago that said that one of the top reasons why people want to take their workshop was to be able to pinpoint issues in other people's thinking.
- travisjungroth 6y ago
  Of course that would be a top reason. 1. Find flaws in my thinking. 2. Find flaws in other people’s thinking.
  - pontus 6y ago
    I meant that each person had to disclose the single reason they wanted to take the course. Out of all responses, one of most common #1 reasons was to expose issues in other people's thinking. In other words, some people may have ranked them as you did, but many people ranked them in the opposite order.
- h2odragon 6y ago
  Finding flaws in my own thinking is good enough, having done so its still difficult to address those flaws. If someone else's thinking is whacked, it's even harder to diagnose or have a positive effect on. Of course the question of "is our thinking flawed" is not terribly relevant, much of the time: our actions are influenced as much by things like body needs we're often oblivious about.
- cambalache 6y ago
  Exactly, I always get a good laugh visiting from time to time "lesswrong" and "slate star codex". Reading the commenters you quickly notice they commit all the same fallacies (from group-thinking, to defering to authority for no reason) that they criticize in "normal" humans. Needless to say the same applies to HN, and to every one of us.
Aunche 6y ago
I think this article ironically overgeneralizes certain issues. For example, conformism is good when it comes to vaccination or social distancing. People are more comfortable with a stranger injecting a liquid into their bodies when they know everyone else let it happen as well. More conforming countries are handling the pandemic better. The difficult question is what heuristics can be applied to when it's fine to take a mental shortcut.
- 74B5 6y ago
  >People are more comfortable with a stranger injecting a liquid into their bodies when they know everyone else let it happen as well. >5. False associations, confusion of causation and correlation I dont think they accept vaccinations because others do it.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    The vast majority of people don't have the background to understand the mechanism of action of vaccines. 100 years ago the effects of vaccines were easily observable, but now these diseases are rare enough such that a regular person can't rely on observation alone to make a decision to get vaccinated. They need to trust that the doctors know what they're doing.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > conformism is good when it comes to vaccination or social distancing Not necessarily. Back in early March of this year, "conformism" with respect to social distancing and wearing masks would have meant not doing it, because practically nobody else was doing it and all of the public health authorities were still saying it wasn't necessary for the general population. Based on how the pandemic spread during that time period, that conformism was not a good idea. (And my wife and I did not conform; we started social distancing and wearing masks and gloves when making unavoidable trips to crowded places like the grocery store, at the end of February. Neither of us have had any health issues.)
curation 6y ago
There are not major flaws in human thinking there is human thinking, framed. There are thousands of years of human thinking on human thinking that one could refer to, and do. Ignoring the question of what is a human subject, reality and thought maps it as another polemic cultural battle of the Global West. It's super fun. Start maybe at Plato, Kant, Hegel, Foucault, Badiou, Ljubljana school, Mbembe, Moten/Harney/Undercommons, Agamben, Butler, Spivak, Hall, and on and on. So many people dedicating their lives to this question always seems like a good place to start, if one is seriously asking the question and not just reproducing status quo. Which, if that is the purpose of this forum, I apologize.
DataDaoDe 6y ago
Speaking for myself, the biggest problems in my thinking are as follows: 1. Thinking you know anything with an even remotely high degree of certainty. 2. Confirmation Bias - thinking you are right and searching for evidence to prove you are right, reaffirming your own beliefs in the process and actively ignoring or providing excuses for counter examples and contradictory evidence. 3. Difficulty/Inability of looking only at the facts without interpreting them as you would like them to be or not to be. 3. Inability/Difficulty of admitting you are wrong/made a mistake and also remember it and learn from it. 4. Inability/Difficulty of acknowledging you are an irrational, flawed monkey stumbling around trying to make sense of about a billion things you don't understand and never will understand. Trying to still make progress given all the above.
- postingpals 6y ago
  The easiest solution to number 1 is humbling yourself by making mistakes. Sure making mistakes itself will teach you stuff, but it's the humbling process that is really important. I've learned from years of argumentation and failure that I need to be more careful when finding the truth because people will otherwise make a fool out of you.
- squibbles 6y ago
  "...an irrational, flawed monkey..." Remember -- "If it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey." Embrace the inner ape. Instead of looking at our limitations, look at how well we have done. We have microwave ovens, digital watches, and even ice cream. Reflecting on what it takes to go from swinging in the trees to where we are today, I think we have done pretty well for ourselves, all things considered.
  - MinusGix 6y ago
    Those two statements are not in conflict. Yes, we have done very well for ourselves, but that doesn't mean we aren't irrational and flawed. Just because we have done well doesn't mean we should ignore areas of improvement.
    - 6y ago
mchr3k 6y ago
If you want a much deeper investigation of this topic https://www.lesswrong.com/about https://www.lesswrong.com/about has been doing work in this area for over a decade as part of the self-named "rationalist" community.
- cambalache 6y ago
  And yet they commit the same fallacies, from the weird adoration of Yudkowski ( a deluded, intellectual flyweight) to group thinking, them vs us mentality and any lack of self awareness.
cmehdy 6y ago
I tried to read past the headlines-grabbing title and the first point, but since it's three distinct points already AND wishful thinking can also be seen as a form of resilience sometimes and not just a terrible thing AND the focus on conservatism seems more emotional than pragmatic, I've checked out before the end. Perhaps a less self-aggrandizing and hand-wavy way to address the subject would be to actually look at proper research such as CBT in psychology pointing out cognitive distortions[1], which are incredibly helpful to recognize and identify in the self in order to correct both the big issues (some aspects of depression, anxiety) and small ones (everyday life for most people). [1] https://www.psychologytools.com/articles/unhelpful-thinking-styles-cognitive-distortions-in-cbt/ https://www.psychologytools.com/articles/unhelpful-thinking-...
- ErikAugust 6y ago
  I agree it’s good that cognitive biases and better frameworks for thinking get traction here (or anywhere else). However this blog post doesn’t look to be backed by any research, or anything else for that matter. Instead of doing a quick web search to see what’s out there, this person wrote up some of their opinions on the topic and posted it to Hacker News.
  - dandanua 6y ago
    I did a quick web search, but this list is indeed my subjective opinion, not a scientific research. Though I've formed it through my lifetime experience and learned it the hard way — by making mistakes.
    - mistermann 6y ago
      I very much liked the article, we (Human Beings, Planet Earth, 2020) need many more like this. Rather than be disappointed by the negative comments you might read in this thread, I recommend that you consider them from the perspective of the article itself. There are only 40 comments here so far, and there is already more than enough rich irony for a followup article, particularly considering that most people on HN are on the higher end of the intelligence spectrum. This way, the article then kind of has a cool ARG (Alternate Reality Game) aspect to it - write about a topic, seed it into an ecosystem of the very thing you are talking about, and then write about how the ecosystem responds to it. And then to make it even more fun, let everyone in on the joke! So then not only are you playing an ARG, but everyone is playing it together - we (humanity itself, and each of us as individuals [1]) are the very joke that we're laughing at! https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/breaking-the-fourth-wall https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/breaking-the-fourth-wall I have a theory that some interesting consequences could come out of this sort of thing, but it requires a fair amount of work to set up properly. [1] For example, the "people" who downvote this post - it is "you" whom I am speaking about! Does your mind (as opposed to "you") find this idea/situation pleasing?
dubeyaayush07 6y ago
I think all of these flaws stem from cognitive dissonance and our desire to avoid uncomfortable thoughts. The route of fooling yourself is always the easier one.
Geminidog 6y ago
The biggest flaw in human thinking that's even bigger than all the ones in the article is admitting you're wrong on a consistent basis. We are incapable of doing this especially when we've already invested years and years of our lives onto object oriented programming. Humans always like to construct logical scaffolds around a biased agenda and they are unable to deconstruct that scaffold when presented with contradictory evidence. And no one is consciously aware of that this is happening. Contradictory evidence can be right in front of their eyes but if the programmer already has 10 years of Object Oriented Programming under his belt he's not going to flip on a dime and admit that he's been doing it wrong for 10 years, it just doesn't happen. Instead the person needs to unconsciously recreate a logical perspective of the universe that fits his personal agenda. Another thing to consider is that this and the flaws mentioned in the article exist within our minds because they aided in our survival. These "flaws" were biologically advantageous and that's why we think this way. Maybe lying to yourself is technically wrong, but in the end you may be better for it, especially when you've already invested so much time reading and practicing Object Oriented Programming. Does anyone have any examples of their own illogical and illusive scaffolds about world views that they've built to support their biased agenda? If so please reply! I set this post up so that it will be very easy for you to find your own examples.
- alexpetralia 6y ago
  Personally I try to artificially inject self-doubt into most of my beliefs and claims. Obviously I am as egotistical and self-righteous as anyone else. But the more I train myself to recite "I think" or "Maybe" or "That's a good point", the more (I think!) I can stymie this imperialistic ego.
  - Geminidog 6y ago
    The problem is two fold. Your imperialistic ego is an evolutionary advantageous quality. You are paying some kind of price for "stymieing" it as your ancestors who did not have this "ego" died through natural selection. The second problem is that everyone is unaware of their own ego. How can you stymie something when you're unaware of it? When you think that the other party is being unreasonable and that you are being calm and logical the other party sees the reverse. This lack of self awareness is the real problem here. Your brain will reroute all your misguided attempts to confound it's bias and you unknowingly will only recite "I think" or "maybe" for just inconsequential things. If you have been doing something wrong or holding an incorrect belief system for a good portion of your life, your biased brain will kick into gear and shield your awareness from the harsh reality of being wrong your entire life. Religion is a good example of this, but the thing that causes a person to stay religious is an infectious thing that not only influences religion, but all of human behavior and all aspects of life. Personally I think fighting your own biases is a losing battle thus my philosophy is to just not fight it.
o_p 6y ago
I dont agree with the premise that these "flaws" are wrong and must be "removed", if you were to remove them you would probably get a perfectly rational being, like a computer and computers are really stupid. Being alive is better than being correct, rationality is correct only if all the premises are correct with perfect information. So to manage this world of uncertainity our brain must use heuristics, heuristics that are really good, so good that we somehow survive. Nature would say "Its a feature, not a bug"
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  These are flaws depending on your goals. Compared to dumb animals, these are fantastic. They keep man alive, help him thrive. But for advanced civilization management and the modern world? They don't work quite as well.
squibbles 6y ago
I disagree that conservatism is a major flaw of human thinking, or even a flaw at all. I would argue that conservatism is one of the core principals of science. Although the quantity and quality of data sufficient to change one's views could be (and frequently is) debated, a healthy amount of stability and skepticism is required for science to be efficacious. A similar argument could be made for conservatism's relationship with social structures. Rapidly changing social structures leads to unpredictable futures, which can lead to economic insecurity at the individual level.
air7 6y ago
I don't consider these biases "Major Flaws" or flaws at all. IMO these observations are heuristics that actually work amazingly well for most every day situation and one shouldn't be quick to discard them in lieu of some deeper, system-2esque idea. This is similar to how optical illusions don't show flaws in our vision but rather highlight how well we can infer non-trivial information correctly in "normal" situations. For example, in the linked example of "Conformity", a person taking a test with several other people doesn't immediately leave the room when observing smoke and hearing a smoke alarm. This is IMO, a completely legitimate response: If several other people are calmly carrying on their business it's much more likely to assume they know something you don't rather than them all being just sitting lemmings oblivious to their own demise (or that they are all goons in on a televised hoax at your expense). Just imagine how intolerable life would be if every single person would want to investigate every single request or stated fact for themselves, just to discover the request is usually logical and the fact true (consider for example, a "Dead End" sign with every single driver checking if it's actually true). Obviously the edge cases of these heuristics (the "illusions") should be examined, and care taken when appropriate, but it's important to remember that these human tendency are basically what allows complex societies (with many individuals with partial knowledge) to function.
- laretluval 6y ago
  Not only that, but in many cases conformity to group ideas will lead to better outcomes than individual thinking. The world is complicated, and you as an individual probably don't really have the time or brain resources to figure it all out from scratch. But group norms have evolved over time, incorporating the experiences and knowledge of many people. See [1] for many examples. Of course, in the modern world group norms may not have caught up with our rapidly changing environment, so there are likely to be more cases where individual thinking can improve things. There should clearly be a balance between following the group and thinking for yourself; neither is good on its own. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating-ebook/dp/B00WY4OXAS https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domestic...
  - dlo 6y ago
DubiousPusher 6y ago
This is an interesting thread as I'm seeing a false dichotomy form. Either these phenomena are flaws and should be abandoned or they are often helpful and therefore should be adhered to. But I think there is a middle ground or maybe it is not in the middle but off to the side somewhere. We can be aware of these biases and try to be conscious of when we are relying in part or entirely on them and still choose to abide by them especially in the absence of better information. Understanding that one is behaving out of conformity or conservatism or another bias doesn't consign one to intermable mental litigation. You can be aware of this fact and still know you do not and may never have sufficient information to challenge and overturn the bias. However, when we suspect we are acting solely out of one of these biases and we see a compelling reason to challenge it, that awareness becomes the tool that allows us to change. A compelling examples is the acceptance of homosexuality in Europe and the U.S. The conformist beliefs that were leading to the supression of individuals were doing harm. As more people "came out" the conformist foundation of the supression arguments weakened. For most I think it has become clear that the risk of overruling conformity was insufficient in the face of the material harm homosexual individuals were enduring.
- unabst 6y ago
  "Flaw" is the trigger word. If we rename the list "Common human trends in thinking" then responses would be less dramatic, but also less interesting. Awareness is definitely the key. If you recognize you're self-projecting, then now you can account for it. If you're aware of what the group thinks, you can be aware of when you're aligned with it. And so on. Critical thinking is the ability to expand awareness and unimmerse yourself to the point where you can analyze an idea selflessly. Then you can dive in again to reconnect with how everything feels.
yboris 6y ago
My favorite: FAE - Fundamental Attribution Error "the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations for their behavior" e.g: when you're late, some external force is the cause; when co-worker is late, he's just "a person who is the type to be late". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
- ordu 6y ago
  A very bayesian mistake. If you know nothing about a person, then observation of a fact that he is late is an evidence that he is a kind of a person to be late. If you think about it, it is highly more likely to see this kind of person to be late, than to see a person who "never late" to be late. If you knew your coworker better, if you've formed your own theory about how he is likely to be late, than if he is late you'll probably assume that he faced some external force which became a cause of his lateness.
tomcam 6y ago
This is 100% unbiased and objective. It is painfully obvious that all those knuckle-dragging conservatives and religious people, who are categorized in the very first part as narrow-minded by this screed, have no business as part of the public discourse. Clearly the work of a deep thinker.
another_sock 6y ago
This is basically high-school level "philosophical" musing and has about as much application in real life, which is none.
contravariant 6y ago
Surely at least one of the flaws in human thinking is thinking that one can simply remove the flaws by enumerating and preventing them.
- datameta 6y ago
  Certainly it's more preferable to learn of these flaws or to be reminded of them in order to recognize them more readily, than to not concern oneself with this matter at all. Of course I think the optimal path is that which has one actively practice the recognition of these flaws in order to make spotting them a quicker and easier task with time. The ultimate outcome is that it becomes an effortless background process.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
He's disabled the right-click -> copy option. A flaw in thinking, IMO. The "Absolute Enable Right Click and Copy" extension, restores the functionality.
- mdpm 6y ago
  (just shift+right click in good browsers)
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    Doh! I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time someone pointed this out to me.
- dandanua 6y ago
  It's strange. Can you tell your browser/system, please? Thanks.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
    Firefox 84.0b6 & Win10 19041 - both x64
    - dandanua 6y ago
      It could be some conflict with your addons. I couldn't reproduce.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
> conservatism — an insufficient ability to change our common views and beliefs with the new data, new evidence I've been able to counter this somewhat by adopting a default assumption that my understanding is incomplete. That's an easier self-sell than being wrong.
_iyig 6y ago
>Another flaw of our thinking is conservatism — an insufficient ability to change our common views and beliefs with the new data, new evidence. This is understandable — changing basis views leads to a reconsideration of all related knowledge. An enormous amount of rebuilding is required. Our biological brains just can’t do that in a short time, also it’s much harder with age. Because of this, we give much more weight to old knowledge rather than new evidence, thus making a conservatism bias. Painting conservatism as purely a human flaw is poor thinking in itself. The positive side of conservative thinking was neatly summarized by G.K. Chesterton: "Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place." There may be things you don't know, or which have never been known, which the conservative solution to a problem addresses either by accident or design. For examples, see traditional methods of food preparation. Indigenous peoples in South America have passed down numerous traditional recipes for the cassava plant. Every recipe involves a process to remove cyanogenic glycosides [0], which are present in all parts of the cassava plant and lethal if ingested. These recipes were developed without any modern understanding of chemistry or toxicology. Deviation from the old recipes without this knowledge, e.g. to apply a new time-saving cooking technique, could have disastrous consequences. Old knowledge often runs deep. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/22/cassava-deadly-food-venezuela https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/22/cassava...
sp0k 6y ago
I agree with most of the patterns from the article. I've came across them in "Thinking, Fast and Slow." Daniel Kahneman states most of the flaws from the article come from "system 1" that's responsible for taking quick decisions without "deep thinking" I'd strongly recommend the read. It helped me act less reactively.
juloo 6y ago
"people like to", "some people are", "People are", "Humans are". Is this number 1. ?

203 points by dandanua 6y ago

sepnax 6y ago

Politics in sheeps disguise.

dfilppi 6y ago
Yes, that's why 'conservativism' is a 'flaw'. One major flaw in human thinking is believing other people cant see through your obvious bias.
- siliconmountain 6y ago
  Anchoring bias is a better name for this flaw. Either way, the handful of examples provided here are.. random? This post has poor depth and breadth, akin to a listicle
- jbotz 6y ago
  Conservativism (sic) is a flaw (in human thinking) because what it means is "resistance to change"... and as Heraclitus said, "change is the only constant in life."
- adkadskhj 6y ago
  Curiously, what set of reading would you say that would make a liberal person become a conservative? If you're belief is that it's logical, it must be an argument we can discuss, backup with data - etc. So to that end, the reason i'm liberal is that i believe there is a balance between social safety nets and capitalist incentives. In my view, we are currently the conservative dream. Very few protections for workers, less and less than years past - with increasing benefits for corporations that see little to no benefits trickled down to the workers. Walmart and Comcast are what i see as the natural result of conservative practice. I simply want what will result in the least suffering. Yet i see suffering in mass in the very pro-0.01% behavior. Walmart does great in this environment - it's employees, less so. Worse yet if you lose your Walmart job, as the safety nets are being dismantled left and right by conservatives. So, what reading would you recommend i do to show me that fiscal conservative behavior here and that further more reducing lower/middle class protections is beneficial to them? I certainly do not claim to know all, or any, answers. All i know is the state of the poor is very unsettling to me in America. What reading would you suggest?
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > Very few protections for workers, less and less than years past (Assuming you’re talking about the US) Which worker protections have been rolled back? What do you think workers aren’t protected from now that they were protected against when there were no overtime, minimum wage, or really any safety laws?
  - laddng 6y ago
    Sowell's "Controversial Essays" was helpful for me to understand the conservative mindset a little more. He comes from the Chicago School and Milton Friedman.
    - adkadskhj 6y ago
      Appreciate it, will give it a read - thanks!
  - mynameishere 6y ago
    One problem is that you are just repeating straw men ('trickle down') and stating things that are flatly wrong ('Very few protections for workers, less and less than years past'). No, generally the regulations 'protecting' workers have gone up and up and up. The nutty expansion of UC in recent months is one example. As for 'social safety nets', for people who learn to navigate the system, there is basically work-free living available. Between Section 8, SNAP, SSDI, Medicaid, etc, the 'social safety net' is beyond anything imagined a few decades ago. In addition, your attack on Walmart is lazy and typical. When Walmart moves into a neighborhood the first group to get hit are whatever retailers already exist in the area--because all the best workers immediately line up to work at Walmart instead. Better pay, better benefits, etc. Just a typical case. So, what should you read? Anything but /r/politics would probably help some.
dandanua 6y ago
I didn't mean politics, this is a dirty field to do science/logic. Conservatism bias is a real thing, but this doesn't mean that we should throw off our past. Just reconsider its weight in our decisions.
PeterisP 6y ago
Well, considering politics during your thinking is quite important, as often you can't get a correct answer (e.g. to why a thing is certain way or why a potentially promising course of action is actually unlikely to succeed) without taking politics into account. In most cases where you'd want to convince others about something, the political connotations of various arguments matter just as much (or even more) as how sound these arguments are logically. Obviously, there are certain avenues of thinking where we'd want to perform a pure rational, impartial analysis while explicitly disregarding any politics. However, that's a minority of the cases, and even then when trying to communicate that analysis, politics becomes relevant once again. Even the desire to carefully describe a particular analysis as apolitical is driven by political motivations i.e. to make that analysis more convincing to others with different political alignment. As Aristotle said, "Man is by nature a social animal" - it makes all sense that our default mode of thinking and the associated decisionmaking shortcuts are heavily driven by social and political aspects, because in many circumstances the social impact and political perception of some statement is more important than whether it's technically true.

11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

It's good to periodically see these articles get traction. There are so many logical fallacies that we need to remain diligent in guarding against them. Lately, in response to the relatively intense polarization of beliefs, I've been contemplating open-mindedness, and whether discussions starting with establishing an open-minded context could get people talking again. To me, open-mindedness means that you're receptive to new ideas and experiences and generally do not reject them outright. When presented with implausible or seemingly impossible information, an open-minded person will listen to the basis of ideas, concepts and information and weigh that basis before making a determination about whether or not the idea is true and worth assimilating. Or they may try a new experience with less pre-judgment of whether they'll appreciate it. In my view, there is a critical nuance in open-mindedness: It applies whether or not the idea is consistent with what I already believe to be true. As an open-minded person, I feel that I need to regularly reevaluate my beliefs as new information comes to light, even if that new information directly contradicts a basis for a firmly held belief. I'm curious to know examples that you've had where you've learned new information that contradicted what you already firmly believed, and through open-mindedness, changed your belief accordingly.

umvi 6y ago
It can also help to occasionally play "devil's advocate" and argue for "the other side". This forces you to seriously consider the weaknesses of your own side and strengths of the other side. I've definitely developed more nuanced opinions as a result of playing devil's advocate
- _qulr 6y ago
  There's a huge difference between playing devil's advocate in your own mind and doing it publicly. The former may be useful. The latter is usually just annoying.
- nekopa 6y ago
  I prefer the idea behind the steelman technique (as opposed to a strawman argument): state the position of the person you disagree with so well they say "I wish I had put it that way!" then proceed to refute the central argument.

free2OSS 6y ago

I wonder if philosophy can solve the first 4? The later through Science/logic where it's possible.

amadeuspagel 6y ago

We evolved to think the way we do over millions of years. We should not just dismiss a pattern of thought as a flaw because we don't understand its usefulness. It might be a flaw - the world today is different in many ways from the world our thinking evolved for - but at the very least we have the burden to explain why this pattern evolved, and why it's harmful now.

_qulr 6y ago
"4. Human-centric thinking" Every organism alive now evolved over millions of years. What's so special about human thinking? Why not cat thinking, dog thinking, cow thinking, insect thinking? Evolution isn't about truth. It's about survival and reproduction. Which often involves lying and deception. Sometimes even deceiving oneself. [Edit: To clarify, I quoted the linked article not to criticize it but to criticize the point I was replying to, which I took to be a human-centric fallacy about evolution.]
- greggturkington 6y ago
  Because cats don't think in collective myths and build cities. Humans don't think with insect-like sub-brains throughout their body. The title of the article has "human" in it so it makes sense to have a human-centric discussion about it.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    You missed my point. I wasn't claiming that cows are as smart as humans. I was claiming that evolution has produced millions of species, only 1 of which is humans. So you can't just handwave "evolution" to validate human thinking. Humans are likely smarter than all of the other animals, but that's a pretty low bar. The competition for "smartest Earth species" is fairly weak.
    - greggturkington 6y ago
      No I didn't. "Every organism alive now evolved over millions of years" but they are still very distinct. > you can't just handwave "evolution" If you believe the brain is part of the body, and that the body evolved, you believe _some_ part of evolutionary psychology. It's not handwaving. That part of the article suggests that societal unrest creates say, fascist leaders, and not the other way around.

projectileboy 6y ago

There are a variety of places you could look further on this topic, but I’ll throw in a recommendation for the book Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin.

pontus 6y ago

Ironically the biggest cognitive flaw is believing that these apply to other people but not to yourself. I saw a comment from someone at the center for applied rationality a while ago that said that one of the top reasons why people want to take their workshop was to be able to pinpoint issues in other people's thinking.

travisjungroth 6y ago
Of course that would be a top reason. 1. Find flaws in my thinking. 2. Find flaws in other people’s thinking.
- pontus 6y ago
  I meant that each person had to disclose the single reason they wanted to take the course. Out of all responses, one of most common #1 reasons was to expose issues in other people's thinking. In other words, some people may have ranked them as you did, but many people ranked them in the opposite order.
h2odragon 6y ago
Finding flaws in my own thinking is good enough, having done so its still difficult to address those flaws. If someone else's thinking is whacked, it's even harder to diagnose or have a positive effect on. Of course the question of "is our thinking flawed" is not terribly relevant, much of the time: our actions are influenced as much by things like body needs we're often oblivious about.
cambalache 6y ago
Exactly, I always get a good laugh visiting from time to time "lesswrong" and "slate star codex". Reading the commenters you quickly notice they commit all the same fallacies (from group-thinking, to defering to authority for no reason) that they criticize in "normal" humans. Needless to say the same applies to HN, and to every one of us.

Aunche 6y ago

I think this article ironically overgeneralizes certain issues. For example, conformism is good when it comes to vaccination or social distancing. People are more comfortable with a stranger injecting a liquid into their bodies when they know everyone else let it happen as well. More conforming countries are handling the pandemic better. The difficult question is what heuristics can be applied to when it's fine to take a mental shortcut.

74B5 6y ago
>People are more comfortable with a stranger injecting a liquid into their bodies when they know everyone else let it happen as well. >5. False associations, confusion of causation and correlation I dont think they accept vaccinations because others do it.
- Aunche 6y ago
  The vast majority of people don't have the background to understand the mechanism of action of vaccines. 100 years ago the effects of vaccines were easily observable, but now these diseases are rare enough such that a regular person can't rely on observation alone to make a decision to get vaccinated. They need to trust that the doctors know what they're doing.
pdonis 6y ago
> conformism is good when it comes to vaccination or social distancing Not necessarily. Back in early March of this year, "conformism" with respect to social distancing and wearing masks would have meant not doing it, because practically nobody else was doing it and all of the public health authorities were still saying it wasn't necessary for the general population. Based on how the pandemic spread during that time period, that conformism was not a good idea. (And my wife and I did not conform; we started social distancing and wearing masks and gloves when making unavoidable trips to crowded places like the grocery store, at the end of February. Neither of us have had any health issues.)

curation 6y ago

There are not major flaws in human thinking there is human thinking, framed. There are thousands of years of human thinking on human thinking that one could refer to, and do. Ignoring the question of what is a human subject, reality and thought maps it as another polemic cultural battle of the Global West. It's super fun. Start maybe at Plato, Kant, Hegel, Foucault, Badiou, Ljubljana school, Mbembe, Moten/Harney/Undercommons, Agamben, Butler, Spivak, Hall, and on and on. So many people dedicating their lives to this question always seems like a good place to start, if one is seriously asking the question and not just reproducing status quo. Which, if that is the purpose of this forum, I apologize.

DataDaoDe 6y ago

Speaking for myself, the biggest problems in my thinking are as follows: 1. Thinking you know anything with an even remotely high degree of certainty. 2. Confirmation Bias - thinking you are right and searching for evidence to prove you are right, reaffirming your own beliefs in the process and actively ignoring or providing excuses for counter examples and contradictory evidence. 3. Difficulty/Inability of looking only at the facts without interpreting them as you would like them to be or not to be. 3. Inability/Difficulty of admitting you are wrong/made a mistake and also remember it and learn from it. 4. Inability/Difficulty of acknowledging you are an irrational, flawed monkey stumbling around trying to make sense of about a billion things you don't understand and never will understand. Trying to still make progress given all the above.

postingpals 6y ago
The easiest solution to number 1 is humbling yourself by making mistakes. Sure making mistakes itself will teach you stuff, but it's the humbling process that is really important. I've learned from years of argumentation and failure that I need to be more careful when finding the truth because people will otherwise make a fool out of you.
squibbles 6y ago
"...an irrational, flawed monkey..." Remember -- "If it doesn't have a tail it's not a monkey." Embrace the inner ape. Instead of looking at our limitations, look at how well we have done. We have microwave ovens, digital watches, and even ice cream. Reflecting on what it takes to go from swinging in the trees to where we are today, I think we have done pretty well for ourselves, all things considered.
- MinusGix 6y ago
  Those two statements are not in conflict. Yes, we have done very well for ourselves, but that doesn't mean we aren't irrational and flawed. Just because we have done well doesn't mean we should ignore areas of improvement.
  - 6y ago

mchr3k 6y ago

If you want a much deeper investigation of this topic https://www.lesswrong.com/about https://www.lesswrong.com/about has been doing work in this area for over a decade as part of the self-named "rationalist" community.

cambalache 6y ago
And yet they commit the same fallacies, from the weird adoration of Yudkowski ( a deluded, intellectual flyweight) to group thinking, them vs us mentality and any lack of self awareness.

cmehdy 6y ago

I tried to read past the headlines-grabbing title and the first point, but since it's three distinct points already AND wishful thinking can also be seen as a form of resilience sometimes and not just a terrible thing AND the focus on conservatism seems more emotional than pragmatic, I've checked out before the end. Perhaps a less self-aggrandizing and hand-wavy way to address the subject would be to actually look at proper research such as CBT in psychology pointing out cognitive distortions[1], which are incredibly helpful to recognize and identify in the self in order to correct both the big issues (some aspects of depression, anxiety) and small ones (everyday life for most people). [1] https://www.psychologytools.com/articles/unhelpful-thinking-styles-cognitive-distortions-in-cbt/ https://www.psychologytools.com/articles/unhelpful-thinking-...

ErikAugust 6y ago
I agree it’s good that cognitive biases and better frameworks for thinking get traction here (or anywhere else). However this blog post doesn’t look to be backed by any research, or anything else for that matter. Instead of doing a quick web search to see what’s out there, this person wrote up some of their opinions on the topic and posted it to Hacker News.
- dandanua 6y ago
  I did a quick web search, but this list is indeed my subjective opinion, not a scientific research. Though I've formed it through my lifetime experience and learned it the hard way — by making mistakes.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    I very much liked the article, we (Human Beings, Planet Earth, 2020) need many more like this. Rather than be disappointed by the negative comments you might read in this thread, I recommend that you consider them from the perspective of the article itself. There are only 40 comments here so far, and there is already more than enough rich irony for a followup article, particularly considering that most people on HN are on the higher end of the intelligence spectrum. This way, the article then kind of has a cool ARG (Alternate Reality Game) aspect to it - write about a topic, seed it into an ecosystem of the very thing you are talking about, and then write about how the ecosystem responds to it. And then to make it even more fun, let everyone in on the joke! So then not only are you playing an ARG, but everyone is playing it together - we (humanity itself, and each of us as individuals [1]) are the very joke that we're laughing at! https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/breaking-the-fourth-wall https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/breaking-the-fourth-wall I have a theory that some interesting consequences could come out of this sort of thing, but it requires a fair amount of work to set up properly. [1] For example, the "people" who downvote this post - it is "you" whom I am speaking about! Does your mind (as opposed to "you") find this idea/situation pleasing?

dubeyaayush07 6y ago

I think all of these flaws stem from cognitive dissonance and our desire to avoid uncomfortable thoughts. The route of fooling yourself is always the easier one.

Geminidog 6y ago

The biggest flaw in human thinking that's even bigger than all the ones in the article is admitting you're wrong on a consistent basis. We are incapable of doing this especially when we've already invested years and years of our lives onto object oriented programming. Humans always like to construct logical scaffolds around a biased agenda and they are unable to deconstruct that scaffold when presented with contradictory evidence. And no one is consciously aware of that this is happening. Contradictory evidence can be right in front of their eyes but if the programmer already has 10 years of Object Oriented Programming under his belt he's not going to flip on a dime and admit that he's been doing it wrong for 10 years, it just doesn't happen. Instead the person needs to unconsciously recreate a logical perspective of the universe that fits his personal agenda. Another thing to consider is that this and the flaws mentioned in the article exist within our minds because they aided in our survival. These "flaws" were biologically advantageous and that's why we think this way. Maybe lying to yourself is technically wrong, but in the end you may be better for it, especially when you've already invested so much time reading and practicing Object Oriented Programming. Does anyone have any examples of their own illogical and illusive scaffolds about world views that they've built to support their biased agenda? If so please reply! I set this post up so that it will be very easy for you to find your own examples.

alexpetralia 6y ago
Personally I try to artificially inject self-doubt into most of my beliefs and claims. Obviously I am as egotistical and self-righteous as anyone else. But the more I train myself to recite "I think" or "Maybe" or "That's a good point", the more (I think!) I can stymie this imperialistic ego.
- Geminidog 6y ago
  The problem is two fold. Your imperialistic ego is an evolutionary advantageous quality. You are paying some kind of price for "stymieing" it as your ancestors who did not have this "ego" died through natural selection. The second problem is that everyone is unaware of their own ego. How can you stymie something when you're unaware of it? When you think that the other party is being unreasonable and that you are being calm and logical the other party sees the reverse. This lack of self awareness is the real problem here. Your brain will reroute all your misguided attempts to confound it's bias and you unknowingly will only recite "I think" or "maybe" for just inconsequential things. If you have been doing something wrong or holding an incorrect belief system for a good portion of your life, your biased brain will kick into gear and shield your awareness from the harsh reality of being wrong your entire life. Religion is a good example of this, but the thing that causes a person to stay religious is an infectious thing that not only influences religion, but all of human behavior and all aspects of life. Personally I think fighting your own biases is a losing battle thus my philosophy is to just not fight it.

o_p 6y ago

I dont agree with the premise that these "flaws" are wrong and must be "removed", if you were to remove them you would probably get a perfectly rational being, like a computer and computers are really stupid. Being alive is better than being correct, rationality is correct only if all the premises are correct with perfect information. So to manage this world of uncertainity our brain must use heuristics, heuristics that are really good, so good that we somehow survive. Nature would say "Its a feature, not a bug"

ntsplnkv2 6y ago
These are flaws depending on your goals. Compared to dumb animals, these are fantastic. They keep man alive, help him thrive. But for advanced civilization management and the modern world? They don't work quite as well.

squibbles 6y ago

I disagree that conservatism is a major flaw of human thinking, or even a flaw at all. I would argue that conservatism is one of the core principals of science. Although the quantity and quality of data sufficient to change one's views could be (and frequently is) debated, a healthy amount of stability and skepticism is required for science to be efficacious. A similar argument could be made for conservatism's relationship with social structures. Rapidly changing social structures leads to unpredictable futures, which can lead to economic insecurity at the individual level.

air7 6y ago

I don't consider these biases "Major Flaws" or flaws at all. IMO these observations are heuristics that actually work amazingly well for most every day situation and one shouldn't be quick to discard them in lieu of some deeper, system-2esque idea. This is similar to how optical illusions don't show flaws in our vision but rather highlight how well we can infer non-trivial information correctly in "normal" situations. For example, in the linked example of "Conformity", a person taking a test with several other people doesn't immediately leave the room when observing smoke and hearing a smoke alarm. This is IMO, a completely legitimate response: If several other people are calmly carrying on their business it's much more likely to assume they know something you don't rather than them all being just sitting lemmings oblivious to their own demise (or that they are all goons in on a televised hoax at your expense). Just imagine how intolerable life would be if every single person would want to investigate every single request or stated fact for themselves, just to discover the request is usually logical and the fact true (consider for example, a "Dead End" sign with every single driver checking if it's actually true). Obviously the edge cases of these heuristics (the "illusions") should be examined, and care taken when appropriate, but it's important to remember that these human tendency are basically what allows complex societies (with many individuals with partial knowledge) to function.

laretluval 6y ago
Not only that, but in many cases conformity to group ideas will lead to better outcomes than individual thinking. The world is complicated, and you as an individual probably don't really have the time or brain resources to figure it all out from scratch. But group norms have evolved over time, incorporating the experiences and knowledge of many people. See [1] for many examples. Of course, in the modern world group norms may not have caught up with our rapidly changing environment, so there are likely to be more cases where individual thinking can improve things. There should clearly be a balance between following the group and thinking for yourself; neither is good on its own. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating-ebook/dp/B00WY4OXAS https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domestic...
- dlo 6y ago

DubiousPusher 6y ago

This is an interesting thread as I'm seeing a false dichotomy form. Either these phenomena are flaws and should be abandoned or they are often helpful and therefore should be adhered to. But I think there is a middle ground or maybe it is not in the middle but off to the side somewhere. We can be aware of these biases and try to be conscious of when we are relying in part or entirely on them and still choose to abide by them especially in the absence of better information. Understanding that one is behaving out of conformity or conservatism or another bias doesn't consign one to intermable mental litigation. You can be aware of this fact and still know you do not and may never have sufficient information to challenge and overturn the bias. However, when we suspect we are acting solely out of one of these biases and we see a compelling reason to challenge it, that awareness becomes the tool that allows us to change. A compelling examples is the acceptance of homosexuality in Europe and the U.S. The conformist beliefs that were leading to the supression of individuals were doing harm. As more people "came out" the conformist foundation of the supression arguments weakened. For most I think it has become clear that the risk of overruling conformity was insufficient in the face of the material harm homosexual individuals were enduring.

unabst 6y ago
"Flaw" is the trigger word. If we rename the list "Common human trends in thinking" then responses would be less dramatic, but also less interesting. Awareness is definitely the key. If you recognize you're self-projecting, then now you can account for it. If you're aware of what the group thinks, you can be aware of when you're aligned with it. And so on. Critical thinking is the ability to expand awareness and unimmerse yourself to the point where you can analyze an idea selflessly. Then you can dive in again to reconnect with how everything feels.

yboris 6y ago

My favorite: FAE - Fundamental Attribution Error "the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations for their behavior" e.g: when you're late, some external force is the cause; when co-worker is late, he's just "a person who is the type to be late". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

ordu 6y ago
A very bayesian mistake. If you know nothing about a person, then observation of a fact that he is late is an evidence that he is a kind of a person to be late. If you think about it, it is highly more likely to see this kind of person to be late, than to see a person who "never late" to be late. If you knew your coworker better, if you've formed your own theory about how he is likely to be late, than if he is late you'll probably assume that he faced some external force which became a cause of his lateness.

tomcam 6y ago

This is 100% unbiased and objective. It is painfully obvious that all those knuckle-dragging conservatives and religious people, who are categorized in the very first part as narrow-minded by this screed, have no business as part of the public discourse. Clearly the work of a deep thinker.

another_sock 6y ago

This is basically high-school level "philosophical" musing and has about as much application in real life, which is none.

contravariant 6y ago

Surely at least one of the flaws in human thinking is thinking that one can simply remove the flaws by enumerating and preventing them.

datameta 6y ago
Certainly it's more preferable to learn of these flaws or to be reminded of them in order to recognize them more readily, than to not concern oneself with this matter at all. Of course I think the optimal path is that which has one actively practice the recognition of these flaws in order to make spotting them a quicker and easier task with time. The ultimate outcome is that it becomes an effortless background process.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

He's disabled the right-click -> copy option. A flaw in thinking, IMO. The "Absolute Enable Right Click and Copy" extension, restores the functionality.

mdpm 6y ago
(just shift+right click in good browsers)
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  Doh! I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time someone pointed this out to me.
dandanua 6y ago
It's strange. Can you tell your browser/system, please? Thanks.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  Firefox 84.0b6 & Win10 19041 - both x64
  - dandanua 6y ago
    It could be some conflict with your addons. I couldn't reproduce.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

> conservatism — an insufficient ability to change our common views and beliefs with the new data, new evidence I've been able to counter this somewhat by adopting a default assumption that my understanding is incomplete. That's an easier self-sell than being wrong.

_iyig 6y ago

>Another flaw of our thinking is conservatism — an insufficient ability to change our common views and beliefs with the new data, new evidence. This is understandable — changing basis views leads to a reconsideration of all related knowledge. An enormous amount of rebuilding is required. Our biological brains just can’t do that in a short time, also it’s much harder with age. Because of this, we give much more weight to old knowledge rather than new evidence, thus making a conservatism bias. Painting conservatism as purely a human flaw is poor thinking in itself. The positive side of conservative thinking was neatly summarized by G.K. Chesterton: "Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place." There may be things you don't know, or which have never been known, which the conservative solution to a problem addresses either by accident or design. For examples, see traditional methods of food preparation. Indigenous peoples in South America have passed down numerous traditional recipes for the cassava plant. Every recipe involves a process to remove cyanogenic glycosides [0], which are present in all parts of the cassava plant and lethal if ingested. These recipes were developed without any modern understanding of chemistry or toxicology. Deviation from the old recipes without this knowledge, e.g. to apply a new time-saving cooking technique, could have disastrous consequences. Old knowledge often runs deep. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/22/cassava-deadly-food-venezuela https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2017/jun/22/cassava...

sp0k 6y ago

I agree with most of the patterns from the article. I've came across them in "Thinking, Fast and Slow." Daniel Kahneman states most of the flaws from the article come from "system 1" that's responsible for taking quick decisions without "deep thinking" I'd strongly recommend the read. It helped me act less reactively.

juloo 6y ago

"people like to", "some people are", "People are", "Humans are". Is this number 1. ?