5 ms·

I’m reading Carl Sagan’s Daemon Haunted World and would recommend it. It talks a bit about why humans throughout history gravitate towards conspiracy theories.

I’m reading Carl Sagan’s Daemon Haunted World and would recommend it. It talks a bit about why humans throughout history gravitate towards conspiracy theories. One reason is mentioned in this article: “Information that is interesting and attention-grabbing is easier to mentally process than information that is boring” Today it’s QAnon. In the 1990’s it was UFOs. Before that it was witches. And daemons before that. As religion fades, we put “faith” in more secular stories like QAnon or extraterrestrials. I’m still reading the book but Sagan’s thesis so far is that doing a better job of teaching critical thinking and science is the ultimate remedy.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I've tried to argue with someone who thinks she's more open-minded and she uses critical thinking more because she didn't believe what MSM said and she just knew (probably from all the random blogs she read) that MSM is being controlled by the Rotschilds. But probably there's a lot of confirmation bias there https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ . She also believed Bill Gates was doing something with the devil. When she said "Do your own research, but use DuckDuckGo not Google" I had to laugh. I told her "But you do know DDG uses results from Bing, which is from... Microsoft?" (not that BillG has anything to do with MS nowadays) but of course her mind just ironed away this cognitive dissonance. I think I'm pretty sane, but how do I know I'm believing the truth? I can read 2 papers about Covid and dismiss one as baloney (like the ones written by that pro-HCQ French doctor) and take the other one as "probably legit", but how do we lay-people even tell the difference other than "It starts out with the premise I prefer". I guess there's comfort in statistics, e.g. the number of people vaccinated so far and the very few reports of side-effects, and the high correlation between high-vaccine areas and low incidence rates and vice versa. Or the statistics that if Biden's win was fraud there would've been quite a lot of fraud needed, and the chances of keeping all of that quiet and well-coordinated was very small...
- tppiotrowski 5y ago
  "Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder." -Carl Sagan How would you design a test to determine if MSM is being controlled by the Rotschilds? It's hard to prove the vaccine is safe but you can count how many unvaccinated covid deaths vs vaccinated covid deaths to show that being vaccinated reduces chance of death.
physicles 5y ago
I read that about a decade ago and it helped me develop some of my opinions in these areas too. One specific question I pondered around the time (I think Sagan may have raised it, but can’t remember for sure) was this: if we think about all the weird stuff that happens, the vast majority has a rational explanation that we can find, but for some extra weird events (let’s say 3%), what happened seems to require the supernatural, or aliens. How should we react to that 3%? Do we update our metaphysics? Or do we shrug and say “I don’t know, but absent better evidence I’m going to assume it wasn’t aliens”? How you answer that question determines your worldview. This is where “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” really hits home. It’s the main reason I’m able to avoid wasting brain power on fringe theories. If the evidence mounts, I’ll update my beliefs.
- tppiotrowski 5y ago
  It's a good rewording of Occam's razor: the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is best. You could believe that a cabal capable of eliminating any trace of itself in a world where Wikileaks and whistleblowing is becoming a more frequent occurrence. Or, you could invoke the simpler explanation that if there is no concrete/verifiable/reproducable evidence of it, it just doesn't exist. I'm just going to assume it doesn't exist === I'm going to assume it wasn't aliens.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

I've tried to argue with someone who thinks she's more open-minded and she uses critical thinking more because she didn't believe what MSM said and she just knew (probably from all the random blogs she read) that MSM is being controlled by the Rotschilds. But probably there's a lot of confirmation bias there https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/23/confirmation-bias/ . She also believed Bill Gates was doing something with the devil. When she said "Do your own research, but use DuckDuckGo not Google" I had to laugh. I told her "But you do know DDG uses results from Bing, which is from... Microsoft?" (not that BillG has anything to do with MS nowadays) but of course her mind just ironed away this cognitive dissonance. I think I'm pretty sane, but how do I know I'm believing the truth? I can read 2 papers about Covid and dismiss one as baloney (like the ones written by that pro-HCQ French doctor) and take the other one as "probably legit", but how do we lay-people even tell the difference other than "It starts out with the premise I prefer". I guess there's comfort in statistics, e.g. the number of people vaccinated so far and the very few reports of side-effects, and the high correlation between high-vaccine areas and low incidence rates and vice versa. Or the statistics that if Biden's win was fraud there would've been quite a lot of fraud needed, and the chances of keeping all of that quiet and well-coordinated was very small...

tppiotrowski 5y ago
"Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder." -Carl Sagan How would you design a test to determine if MSM is being controlled by the Rotschilds? It's hard to prove the vaccine is safe but you can count how many unvaccinated covid deaths vs vaccinated covid deaths to show that being vaccinated reduces chance of death.

physicles 5y ago

I read that about a decade ago and it helped me develop some of my opinions in these areas too. One specific question I pondered around the time (I think Sagan may have raised it, but can’t remember for sure) was this: if we think about all the weird stuff that happens, the vast majority has a rational explanation that we can find, but for some extra weird events (let’s say 3%), what happened seems to require the supernatural, or aliens. How should we react to that 3%? Do we update our metaphysics? Or do we shrug and say “I don’t know, but absent better evidence I’m going to assume it wasn’t aliens”? How you answer that question determines your worldview. This is where “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” really hits home. It’s the main reason I’m able to avoid wasting brain power on fringe theories. If the evidence mounts, I’ll update my beliefs.

tppiotrowski 5y ago
It's a good rewording of Occam's razor: the explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is best. You could believe that a cabal capable of eliminating any trace of itself in a world where Wikileaks and whistleblowing is becoming a more frequent occurrence. Or, you could invoke the simpler explanation that if there is no concrete/verifiable/reproducable evidence of it, it just doesn't exist. I'm just going to assume it doesn't exist === I'm going to assume it wasn't aliens.