5 ms·
If you tell me how something works and it fits within my mental model of the world then I will trust you. I will add this information to my mental model of the
by mulmen 5y ago
If you tell me how something works and it fits within my mental model of the world then I will trust you. I will add this information to my mental model of the world.
If you tell me something works but can't explain how I will consider if the claim is worth evaluating then attempt to understand it myself before accepting it.
If you tell me to trust you with no explanation I will immediately distrust you.
- mhb 5y agoThat's reasonable and also what I would like. But what is the mental model of someone wearing their mask alone in the woods or in their car? So, yes, we should explain why an N95 is better than a handkerchief, but it seems like there are plenty of people who don't care about the details and just need to be told that one is more effective.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kadoban 5y agoThe mental model of many wearing masks "alone" is that it's more annoying to take the mask on and off all the time than it is to just leave it on. Also, touching the mask constantly leads to concerns about contaminating your hands and then spreading that.
- astrange 5y agoWhen Semmelweiss invented handwashing, all the other doctors ignored him because they didn't like his model, even though he had empirical evidence. Similarly, people like to argue against things like the minimum wage because it doesn't fit some economic model, but they don't realize those models are made up post-hoc to fit older real world data that turned out to be biased and incomplete. Oh, and the West had to deal with scurvy for hundreds of years after discovering the cure (lemon juice) because we'd invented the food poisoning and germ theories of diseases and so we refused to believe you could cure one with food. So don't worry too much about modeling things.