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Reasoning takes effort and people are lazy. So why not listen to my favorite <insert individual of note in society>. /s IMO, it sounds like a lack of critical

Reasoning takes effort and people are lazy. So why not listen to my favorite <insert individual of note in society>. /s IMO, it sounds like a lack of critical thinking skills. Instead of pondering validity, as one does to "think critically," as you stated, some people adopt a line of thought from their authority (be it a pastor at church, Tucker Carlson/Rachel Maddow/etc on TV, POTUS, news outlets, etc).

exporectomy 5y ago
A fun one is flat Earthism. People trying to deny it are so full of confidence because their entire lives everyone has been telling them it's round, but they never actually confirmed that themselves and don't know how. They make up "obvious" evidence like "Just stand on a hill and look at the horizon to prove it's round!". When people are too confident they're right, they tend to assume critical thinking is no longer required.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Nobody has the time to actually test everything they believe to be true, even if they knew what an appropriate test would be.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    Sure. Not saying we should for normal life. But if you're going to argue with someone about a fact, then you should. Not necessarily personally of course, you could learn about other people's tests and how trustworthy they are and all that.
kiba 5y ago
People aren't guided by critical thinking. They're guided by their trust network. They believe whatever the smart person they trust the most. I guarantee that you and I do that too. On occasion, we can and do critical thinking, and that's when we make progress.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  One of the most important posts I read on here was on weirdness budgets. Most people want to speak with people with opinions +/- 5% of their own. If you go beyond that limit, people will ignore you and seek feedback from those within their circle. If you are self-directed and discover your own truth, your going to have to overcome a lot of social stigma to get your points across. And in a comment on a message board where someone might not interact with you again, its guaranteed to fail.
  - brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
    > And in a comment on a message board where someone might not interact with you again, its guaranteed to fail. So true! Though like advertising, the more you see it the more it sticks?
    - ItsMonkk 5y ago
      I think this is actually a large reason that the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon exists. In this framing of Baader-Meinhof, it is something that appears constantly, but as it is to weird you ignore it. Then as you discover more things related to it, eventually it's close enough to your Overton window for you to be able to be ready for it. Then once you learn it you see it everywhere. It's interesting that you tie this with advertising, one of the things I learned watching The Social Dilemma was that the way that platforms like YouTube work is that they will attempt to funnel you into the most profitable content types. For instance if you are watching Gaming content on YouTube, it will recommend PewDiePie, a Gaming YouTuber well known to every once in a while say racist things. Then if you watch enough PewDiePie, you'll start seeing more racist channels. At some point you'll get Jordan Peterson(whom himself is mostly harmless...). If you watch one Peterson video your recommendations will flip from whatever you were doing previously to 80% his content, and if you continue down the rabbit hole it will get as bad as you can imagine. YouTube does this because the people susceptible to watch these videos are also susceptible to buy things from advertisements, so they are their most profitable customers. YouTube has unknowingly created a funnel that can move the Overton Window to turn people into extremists all so that they can make money from selling healing crystals to them.

exporectomy 5y ago

A fun one is flat Earthism. People trying to deny it are so full of confidence because their entire lives everyone has been telling them it's round, but they never actually confirmed that themselves and don't know how. They make up "obvious" evidence like "Just stand on a hill and look at the horizon to prove it's round!". When people are too confident they're right, they tend to assume critical thinking is no longer required.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
Nobody has the time to actually test everything they believe to be true, even if they knew what an appropriate test would be.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Sure. Not saying we should for normal life. But if you're going to argue with someone about a fact, then you should. Not necessarily personally of course, you could learn about other people's tests and how trustworthy they are and all that.

kiba 5y ago

People aren't guided by critical thinking. They're guided by their trust network. They believe whatever the smart person they trust the most. I guarantee that you and I do that too. On occasion, we can and do critical thinking, and that's when we make progress.

ItsMonkk 5y ago
One of the most important posts I read on here was on weirdness budgets. Most people want to speak with people with opinions +/- 5% of their own. If you go beyond that limit, people will ignore you and seek feedback from those within their circle. If you are self-directed and discover your own truth, your going to have to overcome a lot of social stigma to get your points across. And in a comment on a message board where someone might not interact with you again, its guaranteed to fail.
- brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
  > And in a comment on a message board where someone might not interact with you again, its guaranteed to fail. So true! Though like advertising, the more you see it the more it sticks?
  - ItsMonkk 5y ago
    I think this is actually a large reason that the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon exists. In this framing of Baader-Meinhof, it is something that appears constantly, but as it is to weird you ignore it. Then as you discover more things related to it, eventually it's close enough to your Overton window for you to be able to be ready for it. Then once you learn it you see it everywhere. It's interesting that you tie this with advertising, one of the things I learned watching The Social Dilemma was that the way that platforms like YouTube work is that they will attempt to funnel you into the most profitable content types. For instance if you are watching Gaming content on YouTube, it will recommend PewDiePie, a Gaming YouTuber well known to every once in a while say racist things. Then if you watch enough PewDiePie, you'll start seeing more racist channels. At some point you'll get Jordan Peterson(whom himself is mostly harmless...). If you watch one Peterson video your recommendations will flip from whatever you were doing previously to 80% his content, and if you continue down the rabbit hole it will get as bad as you can imagine. YouTube does this because the people susceptible to watch these videos are also susceptible to buy things from advertisements, so they are their most profitable customers. YouTube has unknowingly created a funnel that can move the Overton Window to turn people into extremists all so that they can make money from selling healing crystals to them.