5 ms·

I think the aspect that spans between your comment and the one you replied to is this: Why should “personal experiences” be a different category than “facts?”

by mlthoughts2018 6y ago

I think the aspect that spans between your comment and the one you replied to is this: Why should “personal experiences” be a different category than “facts?” (even taking for granted the extra step you mentioned, where it is the use of these experiences within a discussion, not the absolute existence of the experience, at play). For example, suppose I know you and you are honest and trustworthy, so if you verbally testify to an experience, I’ll believe it. Why would there be a difference in you coming to me and saying, “I attended a BLM rally and just observed such a clear and obvious peaceful sense of non-violent protesting” vs you coming to me and saying “According to research institute XYZ, statistically almost none of the BLM protests involved violence.” Both of those things are facts in 100% the same sense, in every way. But because you personally claim to experience one of them, I am likely to give it more weight. Even though there are plenty of reasonable hypotheses why humans would rely on this heuristic, it is still a big problem and a big source of manipulation, from liars, deceivers, conspiracy theories, debunked cranks, folk wisdom, etc. If our goal is to believe as accurately as possible then we should not feel accepting or accommodating of a heuristic quirk in which we regard one set of facts that have the door wide open to manipulation (anecdotes of others) as generally more compelling than facts sourced through research, compiling data, journalism and so forth. If we let up the pressure to thwart this heuristic, the most likely outcome is that people use confirmation bias and folk wisdom to construct false realities - and indeed in the US we have been seeing that play out in a huge violent saga. That didn’t happen because people don’t like being confronted with hard facts, it happened because we have allowed much too weak of a sense of social obligation to align beliefs with accurate predictions, as opposed to merely letting people feel they are entitled to believe whatever they want.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
> Why would there be a difference in you coming to me and saying, [ ... ] because if I really don't want to agree with you, I can accept your story but regard it as an anecdote that does not contradict what I see/read from my media bubble. I can't do that with the study from research institute XYZ, so I'll just dismiss it out of hand. This requires more cognitive effort (for example, I have to explicitly or implicitly assert that XYZ people are all liars, or idiots, or both). It's much easier for me to accept your story because even if I don't believe it to be true or representative, my rejection doesn't require much effort, and doesn't require me being overtly negative towards you.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  What I’m saying is that the heuristic you describe is perfectly understandable, but it’s a bad outcome for society. My comment is not about the “why” behind the existence of this heuristic. There are many obvious reasons that leap off the page in terms of evolutionary adaptation, confirmation bias, availability heuristic, halo bias and so forth. Instead what I am saying is that if I approach a new conversation tomorrow and I say to myself something like this, > “Boy, my friend Bob sure is not going to like to hear about the very overt evidence of Trump siding with white supremacists. He won’t like that so I’d better not appeal to facts where Trump’s quotes were compiled and analyzed by researchers. Instead I should tell him about my experience walking near a Trump rally and directly observing racist language going unrebuked by campaign staff. Then at least he’ll connect with the part that is my experience instead of immediately taking a motivated cognition biased position gainsaying the more official data.” then that would be a very bad thing - much worse than directly confronting Bob with the actual facts and making it clear it’s not OK for Bob to inhabit a false reality where one type of fact (anecdotes) is accepted but another (data, research, journalism) is rejected. That cannot be left unchecked. Mitt Romney actually said it quite well in the Senate inauguration proceedings after the Capitol riot, “If you respect people who are disappointed by the outcome of the election and believe it was stolen, the best thing you can do is tell them the truth.” Of course the election is just an example, but the point is more general. If someone is resistant to real facts, and you actually respect them and want to reach a positive conclusion, the best thing is absolutely always to confront them with the truth. If you instead deliberately mollify it and water it down to an anecdote they are more likely to accept while not adjusting their beliefs, you are only disrespecting them and hurting yourself, the other party, and discourse in general.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    > That cannot be left unchecked. While I agree with your goal, this approach relies on the idea that "not leaving it unchecked" results in some sort of change in the right direction. Unfortunately, the evidence I've seen doesn't really support that "confronting them with the truth" actually accomplishes this. It would be lovely if this turns out not to be the case.
citrablue 6y ago
It sounds like you believe people can behave more in line with the Rational Human used to model older economic theories. I'm not so sure confirmation, affinity, or proximity biases can be held down. What we need is a system that is either immune to these biases, or is designed to thwart them. My opinion: individual's actions and beliefs do not put a dent in the tsunami of bias that swamps our brains. We need systemic thinking (e.g. science has a decent structure with double blind studies).
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I think a precondition of the entire discussion is that we’re talking about what’s more effective in resolving disagreement - which would be measured by whether a disagreement process approaches the conclusion that would be reached between two rational agents sharing their information. Note that I am not saying I believe humans do act that way, rather that is the yardstick of outcome to decide if one disagreement resolution technique is better than another.
  - harimau777 6y ago
    Maybe the issue is different views of what the disagreement is over? I tend to view the disagreement as being over policy not over rationalism/facts. If at the end of the discussion both people agree on the policy I see that as successful even if they still disagree on the evidence that supports that policy.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      I don’t think so. In fact there is actual theory about all this. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem - https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf and in particular, - https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/prior.pdf https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/prior.pdf If your goal is just to manipulate someone else into doing what you want, regardless of what the facts say nor what their beliefs say about the facts or about your beliefs, then sure, that is pure manipulation and not related to strategies for effective disagreement resolution. It’s also not relevant or useful to bring up the fact that humans are not rational Bayesian actors, again because we’re talking about how best to achieve unified shared understanding of the true facts and to ensure we only derive beliefs from that (anything else can only be manipulation, not decision resolution, by definition). We may fall short of the best solution due to our flaws and limitations, but that doesn’t render the best solution any less the best, not make some other seemingly more attainable solution better or more worthwhile.
Damorian 6y ago
>false realities Or just other people's realities. You mention BLM riots, which affected me a great deal; tens of millions in damages to my city, destruction of local landmarks, one of the teachers in my local school district was arrested for assaulting a state politician for recording them burning a police car, and to top it off, they smashed the pharmacy where I get my wife's medicine, so she had to go without for a few days. This isn't some biased false reality/folk wisdom. This was my experience so when people tell me they were "peaceful protests" or the news says "statistically, they were 99.99999999% peaceful" but I look at what I saw with my own eyes, and also what was on TV in other cities... I can't be convinced that they weren't violent, destructive, and plainly, evil, no matter how much other people tell me what to think.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I am sorry you feel this way, and I hope you will find a way past the biases that are preventing you from accepting the facts.
  - Damorian 6y ago
    And I'll say the same to anyone who supports BLM, that's my point.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      That’s not much of a point. It’s really just you being on the demonstrably wrong side of actual facts, but acting like your extreme and indefensible take deserves equal validity or ontological status as a “right” belief, but it completely and unequivocally doesn’t. You wouldn’t be saying this stuff to BLM supporters, only an echo chamber filled with your non-fact-based alternate world. There’s a complete difference of kind between what you’re saying and actual reality, one that can’t be overcome or mitigated at all just by your own gainsaying. Your stance just is, factually, invalid, and you calling the opposite stance invalid as if it’s just two sides of some coin is likewise just invalid all the way down.
harimau777 6y ago
I'm not sure that my goal is to get people to believe as accurately as possible so much as it is to get other people to do the right thing. That is to say, my goal is persuasion. Generally speaking, I also try to encourage people to believe as accurately as possible. However, as a practical matter convincing people to do that doesn't scale.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I think you are saying tbe same thing. “Do the right thing” means “their beliefs are accurate with regard to what is the best action to take.” Of course, it assumes you are starting out with the “right” action, which is why a much better goal is “ensure everyone believes as accurately as possible.” That way you aren’t just persuading them (and in fact you aren’t even looking at it as an issue of persuading them), rather you are taking the view of how best to ensure both parties are optimally persuaded by the facts. A goal to persuade without a goal to induce accurate beliefs is just manipulation.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

> Why would there be a difference in you coming to me and saying, [ ... ] because if I really don't want to agree with you, I can accept your story but regard it as an anecdote that does not contradict what I see/read from my media bubble. I can't do that with the study from research institute XYZ, so I'll just dismiss it out of hand. This requires more cognitive effort (for example, I have to explicitly or implicitly assert that XYZ people are all liars, or idiots, or both). It's much easier for me to accept your story because even if I don't believe it to be true or representative, my rejection doesn't require much effort, and doesn't require me being overtly negative towards you.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
What I’m saying is that the heuristic you describe is perfectly understandable, but it’s a bad outcome for society. My comment is not about the “why” behind the existence of this heuristic. There are many obvious reasons that leap off the page in terms of evolutionary adaptation, confirmation bias, availability heuristic, halo bias and so forth. Instead what I am saying is that if I approach a new conversation tomorrow and I say to myself something like this, > “Boy, my friend Bob sure is not going to like to hear about the very overt evidence of Trump siding with white supremacists. He won’t like that so I’d better not appeal to facts where Trump’s quotes were compiled and analyzed by researchers. Instead I should tell him about my experience walking near a Trump rally and directly observing racist language going unrebuked by campaign staff. Then at least he’ll connect with the part that is my experience instead of immediately taking a motivated cognition biased position gainsaying the more official data.” then that would be a very bad thing - much worse than directly confronting Bob with the actual facts and making it clear it’s not OK for Bob to inhabit a false reality where one type of fact (anecdotes) is accepted but another (data, research, journalism) is rejected. That cannot be left unchecked. Mitt Romney actually said it quite well in the Senate inauguration proceedings after the Capitol riot, “If you respect people who are disappointed by the outcome of the election and believe it was stolen, the best thing you can do is tell them the truth.” Of course the election is just an example, but the point is more general. If someone is resistant to real facts, and you actually respect them and want to reach a positive conclusion, the best thing is absolutely always to confront them with the truth. If you instead deliberately mollify it and water it down to an anecdote they are more likely to accept while not adjusting their beliefs, you are only disrespecting them and hurting yourself, the other party, and discourse in general.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  > That cannot be left unchecked. While I agree with your goal, this approach relies on the idea that "not leaving it unchecked" results in some sort of change in the right direction. Unfortunately, the evidence I've seen doesn't really support that "confronting them with the truth" actually accomplishes this. It would be lovely if this turns out not to be the case.

citrablue 6y ago

It sounds like you believe people can behave more in line with the Rational Human used to model older economic theories. I'm not so sure confirmation, affinity, or proximity biases can be held down. What we need is a system that is either immune to these biases, or is designed to thwart them. My opinion: individual's actions and beliefs do not put a dent in the tsunami of bias that swamps our brains. We need systemic thinking (e.g. science has a decent structure with double blind studies).

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
I think a precondition of the entire discussion is that we’re talking about what’s more effective in resolving disagreement - which would be measured by whether a disagreement process approaches the conclusion that would be reached between two rational agents sharing their information. Note that I am not saying I believe humans do act that way, rather that is the yardstick of outcome to decide if one disagreement resolution technique is better than another.
- harimau777 6y ago
  Maybe the issue is different views of what the disagreement is over? I tend to view the disagreement as being over policy not over rationalism/facts. If at the end of the discussion both people agree on the policy I see that as successful even if they still disagree on the evidence that supports that policy.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    I don’t think so. In fact there is actual theory about all this. - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem - https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf and in particular, - https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/prior.pdf https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/prior.pdf If your goal is just to manipulate someone else into doing what you want, regardless of what the facts say nor what their beliefs say about the facts or about your beliefs, then sure, that is pure manipulation and not related to strategies for effective disagreement resolution. It’s also not relevant or useful to bring up the fact that humans are not rational Bayesian actors, again because we’re talking about how best to achieve unified shared understanding of the true facts and to ensure we only derive beliefs from that (anything else can only be manipulation, not decision resolution, by definition). We may fall short of the best solution due to our flaws and limitations, but that doesn’t render the best solution any less the best, not make some other seemingly more attainable solution better or more worthwhile.

Damorian 6y ago

>false realities Or just other people's realities. You mention BLM riots, which affected me a great deal; tens of millions in damages to my city, destruction of local landmarks, one of the teachers in my local school district was arrested for assaulting a state politician for recording them burning a police car, and to top it off, they smashed the pharmacy where I get my wife's medicine, so she had to go without for a few days. This isn't some biased false reality/folk wisdom. This was my experience so when people tell me they were "peaceful protests" or the news says "statistically, they were 99.99999999% peaceful" but I look at what I saw with my own eyes, and also what was on TV in other cities... I can't be convinced that they weren't violent, destructive, and plainly, evil, no matter how much other people tell me what to think.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
I am sorry you feel this way, and I hope you will find a way past the biases that are preventing you from accepting the facts.
- Damorian 6y ago
  And I'll say the same to anyone who supports BLM, that's my point.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    That’s not much of a point. It’s really just you being on the demonstrably wrong side of actual facts, but acting like your extreme and indefensible take deserves equal validity or ontological status as a “right” belief, but it completely and unequivocally doesn’t. You wouldn’t be saying this stuff to BLM supporters, only an echo chamber filled with your non-fact-based alternate world. There’s a complete difference of kind between what you’re saying and actual reality, one that can’t be overcome or mitigated at all just by your own gainsaying. Your stance just is, factually, invalid, and you calling the opposite stance invalid as if it’s just two sides of some coin is likewise just invalid all the way down.

harimau777 6y ago

I'm not sure that my goal is to get people to believe as accurately as possible so much as it is to get other people to do the right thing. That is to say, my goal is persuasion. Generally speaking, I also try to encourage people to believe as accurately as possible. However, as a practical matter convincing people to do that doesn't scale.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
I think you are saying tbe same thing. “Do the right thing” means “their beliefs are accurate with regard to what is the best action to take.” Of course, it assumes you are starting out with the “right” action, which is why a much better goal is “ensure everyone believes as accurately as possible.” That way you aren’t just persuading them (and in fact you aren’t even looking at it as an issue of persuading them), rather you are taking the view of how best to ensure both parties are optimally persuaded by the facts. A goal to persuade without a goal to induce accurate beliefs is just manipulation.