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I can say that tolerance requires a capability for abstraction that is not intuitive to everyone. When we take things personally or respond emotionally, it is b

I can say that tolerance requires a capability for abstraction that is not intuitive to everyone. When we take things personally or respond emotionally, it is because we have reached the limit of our ability to reason about them abstractly. An example would be someone attached to a solution to a problem at work. They reach for emotional tools when they run out of ability to reason about it as categories or as objects. Some people don't bother with abstract reason at all and just act with whatever tools on whatever makes them central. The most seductive aspect of a lot of current political discourse is that it elevates and centers people with limited cognitive ability and offers them redemption and exaltation in exchange for channeling their smaller urges like envy and malice. It's an ancient hustle, imo. Politically and physically, it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts. Enjoy the ride. The whole thing is quite a spectacle.

mway 4y ago
> [...] it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts. Quite so, at least empirically speaking (in my own observations, anyway). I guess a natural follow up would be, is there any feasible external (to such a group) or general (trans-group) impetus to either (a) increase abstract reasoning or (b) avoid "baser" framing, assuming that's not intrinsically pointless? Obviously with e.g. politics, this is the goal of many folks (to incite emotionally rather than engage rationally, or to mask emotion as rationality), but I wonder how feasible it is to increase rational discussion (through abstraction, or other means) about rational topics for the sake of productive discourse.
- prirun 4y ago
  It seems that encouraging this would have to start at a very young age, in elementary school. Parents may not have the capability (cognitive ability) or time to instill this kind of thinking in their kids. However, school is usually a place where authority, hierarchy, and group-think is reinforced rather than questioned. I can't see schools encouraging kids to do thought experiments like "Let's say your parents don't like it that a boy wants to have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend. Instead of you just believing whatever your parents say, let's talk about why they believe that, how they might be getting it wrong, and why it's okay if you don't agree with them." Actually, some schools are trying that, with the predictable backlash from parents and others in the local community.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > how they might be getting it wrong, and why it's okay if you don't agree with them That's a pretty manipulative way you phrased it here. I'd agree with your example, if you phrased it as "if they could be getting it wrong, and why it's okay if you don't agree with them in that case". I.e. for a honest thought experiment, let's not sneak in the preferred answer in the phrasing, even if we both agree on what the preferred answer is. > Actually, some schools are trying that, with the predictable backlash from parents and others in the local community. That's the unfortunate effect of... I'm not sure exactly what. I initially wanted to say "democracy plus media", but perhaps a better way is just... "transparency". The context of this subthread contains, quoting from the top-level post: > it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts In case of schools, as you correctly note, when a school attempts - or even discusses - something like it, they'll get a backlash from whichever side feels threatened in a particular case. There's no room for trying and observing anymore, because it's a standard aspect of our society to run disagreements through broadcast media at one level above the actual parties involved. E.g. in school case, it'll run the gossip mill and if that doesn't help, someone will alert the local journalist. For larger issues, it'll hit national news. Etc.
- Nasrudith 4y ago
  For one if they recognize that they are getting repeatedly ripped off, even the dimmest bulb may draw a conclusion eventually that as great as a feeling the idea of getting rich off of the traffic of the Brooklyn Bridge may be, that guy selling it is scamming you. Fanatics are remarkably reality resistant but sustaining it within a group is more difficult and expensive in abstract ways, such as worse ability to recruit.
syzarian 4y ago
There’s a theory that human reasoning evolved in such a way that humans collectively don’t search for the truth or the correct decision but rather for the most convincing reason. Whether or not this true it does appear to be how groups of humans act.
- svnt 4y ago
  Define truth, though.
  - syzarian 4y ago
    In every language with a finite number of words there must be words that are not definable in terms of simpler words/concepts. Perhaps you’ve stumbled upon such a word with “truth”. I think it is obvious what I meant to most people.
    - lovemenot 4y ago
      I suspect your parent intended to imply that in practice "truth" is largely socially-generated. So your objective definition would be moot. Not that I'd necessarily agree, its just an interpretation.
    - Godel_unicode 4y ago
      A linguistic extension of godels second incompleteness theorem? Interesting.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    The truth is the set of things which are true.
doliveira 4y ago
We're emotional beings first and foremost. That we're able to reason is just an accident of the big brains evolution gave us.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  Do you have any evidence for that? I’d be interested in reading serious papers that explain how reason is an accident as opposed to the point. Also that we are “emotional first and foremost”. I have found that people are generally emotional in situations where reason has failed them, implying that we are reasoning beings first.
ren_engineer 4y ago
>I can say that tolerance requires a capability for abstraction that is not intuitive to everyone there's some pretty interesting research related to this done with criminals. At lower levels of IQ they aren't capable of hypotheticals like "how do you think the person felt when you robbed them" or "how do you think the mother of the person you killed felt about that". Which raises the question of how much they can even be held accountable for their actions to some degree Empathy requires a certain level of intelligence, children don't have the cognitive ability for it until they are a few years old and there are many "normal" adults walking around with IQ in a similar range as those children. High IQ psychopaths are interesting because they seem to be able to overrule most criminal behavior despite also not feeling empathy, they probably just run some sort of cost-benefit analysis that simulates empathy
- generalizations 4y ago
  > Which raises the question of how much they can even be held accountable for their actions to some degree I think they can still be held accountable. They were told not to do a thing, and they did it.
  - lmm 4y ago
    Telling the unintelligent they must blindly follow orders doesn't seem like a great strategy for society either.
    - Godel_unicode 4y ago
      Nobody is saying they have to do it blindly, given access to the internet they can learn as much as they want about the theory of why something is illegal. I don’t fully understand how clots are formed despite having read a number of papers about it, but I know I’m supposed to apply pressure to a cut.
rgrieselhuber 4y ago
This is the basis of the (apocryphal?) idea developed in the SAS of having a cup of tea. It's the same idea as "delay your reaction to a negative stimuli as long as possible." Political disagreements have been structured in our society along dialectics of power and, as such, are designed to attack and malign the very identity of the parties who disagree. This triggers the social isolation / anxiety response and can amount to amygdala hijacking, and then people lose their cool. It helps a lot to keep in mind that these responses have been exquisitely engineered via social media, cable news, etc. and that the person in front of you (or even online) is likely not your true enemy and you probably have more shared interests than you might think.
- l33t233372 4y ago
  When you say SAS, are you referring to the UK’s special air service?
  - rgrieselhuber 4y ago
    Yup
  - smcin 4y ago
    Apparently one of SAS author Andy McNab's top tips. Functionally equivalent to Douglas Adams' "Don't Panic!" "If you stop, you calm down and sort yourself out. In the jungle in the SAS, if you were lost, you stopped, made a brew [cup of tea], worked out where you were and worked out where you needed to go. It’s desperate panic that gets people into really big trouble." https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3320382/The-item-pack-brewing-tea-save-life-lost-blend-visiting-dangerous-countries-SAS-hero-Andy-McNab-s-travel-tips.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-33203...
- marmetio 4y ago
  Can you explain dialects of power? There seem to be a lot of unrelated topics that use the same terminology.
  - 4y ago
tescocles 4y ago
I don't know if this is quite what you mean, but I've had more than one discussion (and seen many more online on twitter, reddit) that goes something like: >Alice: say, for the sake of argument, that A is true >Bob: But A isn't true? >Alice: Whether A is true or not is a different question. For the purposes of our conversation (that we're talking about the consequences of A being true), it is. >Bob: But... A isn't true. >Alice: I give up! >Bob: I win! For Bob, it seems to be completely impossible to talk "stipulatively". It's equal parts frustrating and baffling to me that some people just can't understand the concept of talking about logical conclusions from some starting point independently from the veracity of that starting point, and I'd agree it's one of the big issues with (online) discourse today.
- cogman10 4y ago
  I've had your exact discussion both online and in person, You aren't alone. Sometimes online, I suspect it's insincere. They know why you are doing the hypothetical, it hurts their position, so instead of engaging with it they become absolutists. Other times, though (especially easy to see in person) it is VERY real. They simply are not capable of dealing with hypotheticals. Where that came up the most for me was when tutoring math in college. The abstract nature of math past algebra was just something some people could not grok. They wanted the hard and fast facts. "Ask me to do 7 * 5 and I'll have that answer in an instant, don't ask me riddles about x * 5 = 35".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nine_k 4y ago
  Alice need to adapt to Bob's perception if she wants him to listen. "If we lived in a completely imaginary world where A were true" could address Bob's sensibilities a bit better. First make yourself heard, then make your point. Otherwise your point falls on deaf ears. This takes some ability to listen and tailor your arguments to fit your audience.
  - rukuu001 4y ago
    "Let's imagine an alternate universe, where A is true. What else would be true in that case?"
pickovven 4y ago
The research in this link isn't about whether or not people's behavior becomes emotional when encountering disagreement. But it's certainly interesting that takeaway is the top comment here.
shrimp_emoji 4y ago
The signs of neurodegeneration like Alzheimer's include irritability and impulsivity, which intuitively supports this. It's like a failure of higher cognitive functions, so the basal emotions take over. Alternatively, it could just be a failure to regulate emotions.
lo_zamoyski 4y ago
> When we take things personally or respond emotionally, it is because we have reached the limit of our ability to reason about them abstractly. > Politically and physically, it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts. But this is not purely a matter of raw, inherent intellectual potential. Academics are notorious for having a history of rationalizing power or depravity of all kinds. The tyrannies of communism, for example, were the product of intellectuals who exploited the vices of the "proletariat" as a cudgel against their opponents. Ultimately, these intellectuals were fools because they either actually believed the absurdity of communism or they exploited a communism they didn't actually believe to gain power for themselves and through especially wicked deeds, and all evil is, after all, foolish and opposed to reason. I object to the notion that the more intellectual potential you have, the less evil you are just because you have a greater potential for intelligence. You can choose to be unwise for emotional and vicious reasons, thus thwarting the exercise of reason when it leads you some place you cannot handle.

mway 4y ago

> [...] it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts. Quite so, at least empirically speaking (in my own observations, anyway). I guess a natural follow up would be, is there any feasible external (to such a group) or general (trans-group) impetus to either (a) increase abstract reasoning or (b) avoid "baser" framing, assuming that's not intrinsically pointless? Obviously with e.g. politics, this is the goal of many folks (to incite emotionally rather than engage rationally, or to mask emotion as rationality), but I wonder how feasible it is to increase rational discussion (through abstraction, or other means) about rational topics for the sake of productive discourse.

prirun 4y ago
It seems that encouraging this would have to start at a very young age, in elementary school. Parents may not have the capability (cognitive ability) or time to instill this kind of thinking in their kids. However, school is usually a place where authority, hierarchy, and group-think is reinforced rather than questioned. I can't see schools encouraging kids to do thought experiments like "Let's say your parents don't like it that a boy wants to have a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend. Instead of you just believing whatever your parents say, let's talk about why they believe that, how they might be getting it wrong, and why it's okay if you don't agree with them." Actually, some schools are trying that, with the predictable backlash from parents and others in the local community.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > how they might be getting it wrong, and why it's okay if you don't agree with them That's a pretty manipulative way you phrased it here. I'd agree with your example, if you phrased it as "if they could be getting it wrong, and why it's okay if you don't agree with them in that case". I.e. for a honest thought experiment, let's not sneak in the preferred answer in the phrasing, even if we both agree on what the preferred answer is. > Actually, some schools are trying that, with the predictable backlash from parents and others in the local community. That's the unfortunate effect of... I'm not sure exactly what. I initially wanted to say "democracy plus media", but perhaps a better way is just... "transparency". The context of this subthread contains, quoting from the top-level post: > it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts In case of schools, as you correctly note, when a school attempts - or even discusses - something like it, they'll get a backlash from whichever side feels threatened in a particular case. There's no room for trying and observing anymore, because it's a standard aspect of our society to run disagreements through broadcast media at one level above the actual parties involved. E.g. in school case, it'll run the gossip mill and if that doesn't help, someone will alert the local journalist. For larger issues, it'll hit national news. Etc.
Nasrudith 4y ago
For one if they recognize that they are getting repeatedly ripped off, even the dimmest bulb may draw a conclusion eventually that as great as a feeling the idea of getting rich off of the traffic of the Brooklyn Bridge may be, that guy selling it is scamming you. Fanatics are remarkably reality resistant but sustaining it within a group is more difficult and expensive in abstract ways, such as worse ability to recruit.

syzarian 4y ago

There’s a theory that human reasoning evolved in such a way that humans collectively don’t search for the truth or the correct decision but rather for the most convincing reason. Whether or not this true it does appear to be how groups of humans act.

svnt 4y ago
Define truth, though.
- syzarian 4y ago
  In every language with a finite number of words there must be words that are not definable in terms of simpler words/concepts. Perhaps you’ve stumbled upon such a word with “truth”. I think it is obvious what I meant to most people.
  - lovemenot 4y ago
    I suspect your parent intended to imply that in practice "truth" is largely socially-generated. So your objective definition would be moot. Not that I'd necessarily agree, its just an interpretation.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    A linguistic extension of godels second incompleteness theorem? Interesting.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  The truth is the set of things which are true.

doliveira 4y ago

We're emotional beings first and foremost. That we're able to reason is just an accident of the big brains evolution gave us.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Godel_unicode 4y ago
Do you have any evidence for that? I’d be interested in reading serious papers that explain how reason is an accident as opposed to the point. Also that we are “emotional first and foremost”. I have found that people are generally emotional in situations where reason has failed them, implying that we are reasoning beings first.

ren_engineer 4y ago

>I can say that tolerance requires a capability for abstraction that is not intuitive to everyone there's some pretty interesting research related to this done with criminals. At lower levels of IQ they aren't capable of hypotheticals like "how do you think the person felt when you robbed them" or "how do you think the mother of the person you killed felt about that". Which raises the question of how much they can even be held accountable for their actions to some degree Empathy requires a certain level of intelligence, children don't have the cognitive ability for it until they are a few years old and there are many "normal" adults walking around with IQ in a similar range as those children. High IQ psychopaths are interesting because they seem to be able to overrule most criminal behavior despite also not feeling empathy, they probably just run some sort of cost-benefit analysis that simulates empathy

generalizations 4y ago
> Which raises the question of how much they can even be held accountable for their actions to some degree I think they can still be held accountable. They were told not to do a thing, and they did it.
- lmm 4y ago
  Telling the unintelligent they must blindly follow orders doesn't seem like a great strategy for society either.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    Nobody is saying they have to do it blindly, given access to the internet they can learn as much as they want about the theory of why something is illegal. I don’t fully understand how clots are formed despite having read a number of papers about it, but I know I’m supposed to apply pressure to a cut.

rgrieselhuber 4y ago

This is the basis of the (apocryphal?) idea developed in the SAS of having a cup of tea. It's the same idea as "delay your reaction to a negative stimuli as long as possible." Political disagreements have been structured in our society along dialectics of power and, as such, are designed to attack and malign the very identity of the parties who disagree. This triggers the social isolation / anxiety response and can amount to amygdala hijacking, and then people lose their cool. It helps a lot to keep in mind that these responses have been exquisitely engineered via social media, cable news, etc. and that the person in front of you (or even online) is likely not your true enemy and you probably have more shared interests than you might think.

l33t233372 4y ago
When you say SAS, are you referring to the UK’s special air service?
- rgrieselhuber 4y ago
  Yup
- smcin 4y ago
  Apparently one of SAS author Andy McNab's top tips. Functionally equivalent to Douglas Adams' "Don't Panic!" "If you stop, you calm down and sort yourself out. In the jungle in the SAS, if you were lost, you stopped, made a brew [cup of tea], worked out where you were and worked out where you needed to go. It’s desperate panic that gets people into really big trouble." https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3320382/The-item-pack-brewing-tea-save-life-lost-blend-visiting-dangerous-countries-SAS-hero-Andy-McNab-s-travel-tips.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-33203...
marmetio 4y ago
Can you explain dialects of power? There seem to be a lot of unrelated topics that use the same terminology.
- 4y ago

tescocles 4y ago

I don't know if this is quite what you mean, but I've had more than one discussion (and seen many more online on twitter, reddit) that goes something like: >Alice: say, for the sake of argument, that A is true >Bob: But A isn't true? >Alice: Whether A is true or not is a different question. For the purposes of our conversation (that we're talking about the consequences of A being true), it is. >Bob: But... A isn't true. >Alice: I give up! >Bob: I win! For Bob, it seems to be completely impossible to talk "stipulatively". It's equal parts frustrating and baffling to me that some people just can't understand the concept of talking about logical conclusions from some starting point independently from the veracity of that starting point, and I'd agree it's one of the big issues with (online) discourse today.

cogman10 4y ago
I've had your exact discussion both online and in person, You aren't alone. Sometimes online, I suspect it's insincere. They know why you are doing the hypothetical, it hurts their position, so instead of engaging with it they become absolutists. Other times, though (especially easy to see in person) it is VERY real. They simply are not capable of dealing with hypotheticals. Where that came up the most for me was when tutoring math in college. The abstract nature of math past algebra was just something some people could not grok. They wanted the hard and fast facts. "Ask me to do 7 * 5 and I'll have that answer in an instant, don't ask me riddles about x * 5 = 35".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nine_k 4y ago
Alice need to adapt to Bob's perception if she wants him to listen. "If we lived in a completely imaginary world where A were true" could address Bob's sensibilities a bit better. First make yourself heard, then make your point. Otherwise your point falls on deaf ears. This takes some ability to listen and tailor your arguments to fit your audience.
- rukuu001 4y ago
  "Let's imagine an alternate universe, where A is true. What else would be true in that case?"

pickovven 4y ago

The research in this link isn't about whether or not people's behavior becomes emotional when encountering disagreement. But it's certainly interesting that takeaway is the top comment here.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

The signs of neurodegeneration like Alzheimer's include irritability and impulsivity, which intuitively supports this. It's like a failure of higher cognitive functions, so the basal emotions take over. Alternatively, it could just be a failure to regulate emotions.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

> When we take things personally or respond emotionally, it is because we have reached the limit of our ability to reason about them abstractly. > Politically and physically, it doesn't matter how intelligent you or your group are if you are outnumbered by a herd that responds to the appeals and actuation of its lower instincts. But this is not purely a matter of raw, inherent intellectual potential. Academics are notorious for having a history of rationalizing power or depravity of all kinds. The tyrannies of communism, for example, were the product of intellectuals who exploited the vices of the "proletariat" as a cudgel against their opponents. Ultimately, these intellectuals were fools because they either actually believed the absurdity of communism or they exploited a communism they didn't actually believe to gain power for themselves and through especially wicked deeds, and all evil is, after all, foolish and opposed to reason. I object to the notion that the more intellectual potential you have, the less evil you are just because you have a greater potential for intelligence. You can choose to be unwise for emotional and vicious reasons, thus thwarting the exercise of reason when it leads you some place you cannot handle.