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I think Andi's question is a valid one. The entire article resonates with me, but I worry that it's because I am part of that tribe and it's "others" who can't

I think Andi's question is a valid one. The entire article resonates with me, but I worry that it's because I am part of that tribe and it's "others" who can't change their opinion. To dispel the notion that this is tribal "knowledge", we'd still want sufficiently large studies that (dis)prove that people change their opinions in face of facts, and that they are more likely to do so based on similarity of the views and friendship level (my side observation in real life is that people change their opinions but sometimes won't admit to it too :)). People have observed it throughout the history, true, but that does not make it a prevalent behaviour (is it just the behaviour we notice? similar to Murphy's law, which I call the law of observation/attention: you are more likely to notice/remember when just the worst thing happens). While it sounds hard to construct such studies, it's not impossible (compared to eg. controlling for level of love we give to children while they grow up from infancy and then establishing correlation or causation). It's easy to come up with opinion-changing studies (eg. this article references a bunch which do not support a simple view like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180622-the-surprising-reason-people-change-their-minds https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180622-the-surprising-r...), so it'd be good if there was scientific evidence that this happens (which means, statistically significant correlation). But even if it happens in, say, 55% of the studied situations, that's hugely different from, say, 95% of the situations.

mdp2021 5y ago
> studies We already know that some people are irrational, tribal, quasi-impermeable, "reasoning" to faculties that are not that of reason. It is evident under the language they use. You will find that literacy is 77% in Snowdonia and 55% in Drizzland (but 99.9% in that building): it is present and variable, and objectivity is similar. If the poster wanted studies meaning "is the author of the article really sure": by experience and just pre-facto stochastics, some people are like that. But no, not all people are like that. And for those making (here) statements about "the inescapability of human condition and matters of degrees": the difference between the doctor and the brick is radical, even when the doctor cannot find Niue on the map and cannot cook. Studies: of course they would be interesting, but not that different from the studies that count regional literacy, (so-called) "human development", and other similar factors. They are indicative, and normally Finland and South Sudan are contrasted, but they are also of relative worth, because (apart from the frequent difficulties in measuring the real value - e.g. do not expect a random high IQ individual to be rational, reasonable, controlled etc.) aggregation is myopic and you will not in fact be sure in the evaluation of your individual Finn or South Sudanese, using just prejudice.
- necovek 5y ago
  > ...evaluation of your individual... Indeed, but it's the best we can do with many fields of study. This is why it's important to qualify all of our statements to the best of our ability. "Finns from urban areas aged 12-65 are like this 78%+-6% of the time", for example. That's usually the best any study can give us, but they drive the prejudice, and it's on us to not cave in on that. In a normal conversation, I think it's fine to even say "Finns are like this" as long as you understand all the nuances at play, and don't really believe it (otherwise, communication becomes too bothersome). But we should not disregard the result of the study because of the qualifiers: we should accept and embrace the "qualifiers".

mdp2021 5y ago

> studies We already know that some people are irrational, tribal, quasi-impermeable, "reasoning" to faculties that are not that of reason. It is evident under the language they use. You will find that literacy is 77% in Snowdonia and 55% in Drizzland (but 99.9% in that building): it is present and variable, and objectivity is similar. If the poster wanted studies meaning "is the author of the article really sure": by experience and just pre-facto stochastics, some people are like that. But no, not all people are like that. And for those making (here) statements about "the inescapability of human condition and matters of degrees": the difference between the doctor and the brick is radical, even when the doctor cannot find Niue on the map and cannot cook. Studies: of course they would be interesting, but not that different from the studies that count regional literacy, (so-called) "human development", and other similar factors. They are indicative, and normally Finland and South Sudan are contrasted, but they are also of relative worth, because (apart from the frequent difficulties in measuring the real value - e.g. do not expect a random high IQ individual to be rational, reasonable, controlled etc.) aggregation is myopic and you will not in fact be sure in the evaluation of your individual Finn or South Sudanese, using just prejudice.

necovek 5y ago
> ...evaluation of your individual... Indeed, but it's the best we can do with many fields of study. This is why it's important to qualify all of our statements to the best of our ability. "Finns from urban areas aged 12-65 are like this 78%+-6% of the time", for example. That's usually the best any study can give us, but they drive the prejudice, and it's on us to not cave in on that. In a normal conversation, I think it's fine to even say "Finns are like this" as long as you understand all the nuances at play, and don't really believe it (otherwise, communication becomes too bothersome). But we should not disregard the result of the study because of the qualifiers: we should accept and embrace the "qualifiers".