3 ms·

Some pretty clever friends of mine are firmly on the "fake news" fence with regards to climate change (and some other similar issues). I've given up on changin

Some pretty clever friends of mine are firmly on the "fake news" fence with regards to climate change (and some other similar issues). I've given up on changing their minds. No matter how deep I analyze their data and point out the flaws, they won't budge an inch. Probably even total global destruction would not make them reconsider. It's become tribal at this point.

atoav 3y ago
Clever might be the right word here. As we programmers know being clever sometimes leads to really stupid solutions. As someone who read quite some of the reports and also occasionally into underlying studies I have to say that this is unarguable happening. The amount of research that went into this topic is so deep and so wide that arguing against it is basically the equivalent of closing your eyes, putting your fingers into your ears and going "Lalalala". Being unable to do comprehensive reading and understanding basic physical processes is not a good starting points in 2023.
- tomjen3 3y ago
  It has been happening inarguably for some time now, we need to accept that we won’t convince the last group and switch over to figuring out what we can do about it. Because I am not seeing much about that, certainly not from the activists.
  - pk-protect-ai 3y ago
    Meanwhile in Europe the term "Eco-terrorism" changed the meaning, from the entity which poisons or destroys the ecology to the youngsters which are gluing themselves to the art and streets in protests of politicians doing nothing. In UK they have even made a TV series about it ... Here is the answer to Fermi paradox "Where is everyone?", - they have not passed the great filter as we probably will not pass it either ...
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  I feel I'm in an unusual position because I have a BSME degree. Which means I'm familiar enough with basics that I can do a very rough analysis. And when I do that what I see I makes me really nervous. And yet I know I simply can't do anything more than that because it's way to complex. Any time that happens I fall back in what technical people in the field say. And those people are terrified. The flip side is anyone not a technical practitioner I discount what they say out of hand because I know they have no ability to discern anything.
netsharc 3y ago
Lots of research[1] has been done about why changing people's minds is hard, e.g: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-risky-is-it-really/201007/why-changing-somebody-s-mind-or-yours-is-hard-do https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-risky-is-it-real... Or a more complicated one where studies where done: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont... [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+arguing+won%27t+change+people%27s+minds https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+arguing+won%27t+change+people%...
furyofantares 3y ago
I feel like there's a really unfortunate effect where we see someone else's tribal beliefs when they say stuff that's unhinged from our collective available understanding, like blanket calling all climate change information "fake news", and it results in us strengthening our own beliefs because we know this person with the opposite belief has totally garbage methodology on the topic. But it's not actually evidence for our beliefs, and we don't notice how it strengthens our own tribal beliefs, and so we don't notice that it's also unhinged to causally talk about "global total destruction" in this context, and only validated by tribal effects. And then our "fake news" friends notice our garbage methodology and take it as evidence for the correctness of their beliefs.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
> I've given up on changing their minds. No matter how deep I analyze their data and point out the flaws, they won't budge an inch. I think it's easy to oversimplify their views. There's a pretty good scale of belief that some would call "denial" that isn't quite that. 1. Is it because they distrust the people talking about it? Have those people been wrong previously? 2. Is it because they distrust the proposed solutions to it? Do they feel there is an ulterior agenda behind those solutions? Or do they simply feel the proposed solutions are too expensive and unreasonable [1]? 3. Is it because they distrust the idea that humans cause climate change, not just nature? 4. Do they feel that it is an important issue; but believe it is a much lower priority issue than solving food, housing, education, safety, and other issues [2]? And so forth. I think that very often; it is distrust of the people talking about it more than the idea. Remember that the World Economic Forum talks about climate change, but also bragged about how "You will own nothing, and be happy" which was the biggest self-own of the millennium. There aren't many people I run into who say "there is no climate change, period," but there are plenty who think that it's exaggerated, meant to benefit a political cause, meant to change social behavior to benefit somebody's agenda, etc. I can't say that is 100% unwarranted. Claiming "the world is going to end unless we do my solution X" is kind of like using vinegar to attract flies. [1] And while I'm on the "unreasonable," it's vague but extremely hard to change and quantify. We could theoretically end child molestation if we had cameras in every room of every house; but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. We could theoretically end illiteracy if we locked every child in a room with a book 24/7 until they learned to read, but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. They could easily just feel that the climate change "solutions," regardless of the science, even if they are effective, just aren't at their level of reasonable. The reasons for that could be as different and varied as grains of sand on a seashore. [2] California doesn't do themselves any favors when they scream about climate change while having severe homelessness, housing affordability, high taxation, and other issues that affect people personally on a day-to-day level. In my personal opinion, people would be much more sympathetic to solving climate change if they had their other ducks in a row. You can't convince people to think about the future if the present is a mess. You can't convince somebody to save 20% of their income for retirement when they've got $20K in credit card debt.
bradgessler 3y ago
In an effort to find coming ground, I’ve found it’s better to argue the idea that humans should do everything we can to control climate. Most people I know who reject the evidence of climate change seem to be into consuming and building lots of stuff, so this angle seems to appeal to that mindset. It makes me think—maybe it’s a complete waste of time to try to “convince the other side” or “change their minds”. What if instead we agree on an outcome, like complete and total control over the earths climate? Would that help getting folks to run in the same direction? If you think about it; the logical conclusion of humanity in our solar system is building a Dyson sphere around the sun and controlling climate for a huge population.

atoav 3y ago

Clever might be the right word here. As we programmers know being clever sometimes leads to really stupid solutions. As someone who read quite some of the reports and also occasionally into underlying studies I have to say that this is unarguable happening. The amount of research that went into this topic is so deep and so wide that arguing against it is basically the equivalent of closing your eyes, putting your fingers into your ears and going "Lalalala". Being unable to do comprehensive reading and understanding basic physical processes is not a good starting points in 2023.

tomjen3 3y ago
It has been happening inarguably for some time now, we need to accept that we won’t convince the last group and switch over to figuring out what we can do about it. Because I am not seeing much about that, certainly not from the activists.
- pk-protect-ai 3y ago
  Meanwhile in Europe the term "Eco-terrorism" changed the meaning, from the entity which poisons or destroys the ecology to the youngsters which are gluing themselves to the art and streets in protests of politicians doing nothing. In UK they have even made a TV series about it ... Here is the answer to Fermi paradox "Where is everyone?", - they have not passed the great filter as we probably will not pass it either ...
Gibbon1 3y ago
I feel I'm in an unusual position because I have a BSME degree. Which means I'm familiar enough with basics that I can do a very rough analysis. And when I do that what I see I makes me really nervous. And yet I know I simply can't do anything more than that because it's way to complex. Any time that happens I fall back in what technical people in the field say. And those people are terrified. The flip side is anyone not a technical practitioner I discount what they say out of hand because I know they have no ability to discern anything.

netsharc 3y ago

Lots of research[1] has been done about why changing people's minds is hard, e.g: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-risky-is-it-really/201007/why-changing-somebody-s-mind-or-yours-is-hard-do https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-risky-is-it-real... Or a more complicated one where studies where done: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont... [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+arguing+won%27t+change+people%27s+minds https://duckduckgo.com/?q=why+arguing+won%27t+change+people%...

furyofantares 3y ago

I feel like there's a really unfortunate effect where we see someone else's tribal beliefs when they say stuff that's unhinged from our collective available understanding, like blanket calling all climate change information "fake news", and it results in us strengthening our own beliefs because we know this person with the opposite belief has totally garbage methodology on the topic. But it's not actually evidence for our beliefs, and we don't notice how it strengthens our own tribal beliefs, and so we don't notice that it's also unhinged to causally talk about "global total destruction" in this context, and only validated by tribal effects. And then our "fake news" friends notice our garbage methodology and take it as evidence for the correctness of their beliefs.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

> I've given up on changing their minds. No matter how deep I analyze their data and point out the flaws, they won't budge an inch. I think it's easy to oversimplify their views. There's a pretty good scale of belief that some would call "denial" that isn't quite that. 1. Is it because they distrust the people talking about it? Have those people been wrong previously? 2. Is it because they distrust the proposed solutions to it? Do they feel there is an ulterior agenda behind those solutions? Or do they simply feel the proposed solutions are too expensive and unreasonable [1]? 3. Is it because they distrust the idea that humans cause climate change, not just nature? 4. Do they feel that it is an important issue; but believe it is a much lower priority issue than solving food, housing, education, safety, and other issues [2]? And so forth. I think that very often; it is distrust of the people talking about it more than the idea. Remember that the World Economic Forum talks about climate change, but also bragged about how "You will own nothing, and be happy" which was the biggest self-own of the millennium. There aren't many people I run into who say "there is no climate change, period," but there are plenty who think that it's exaggerated, meant to benefit a political cause, meant to change social behavior to benefit somebody's agenda, etc. I can't say that is 100% unwarranted. Claiming "the world is going to end unless we do my solution X" is kind of like using vinegar to attract flies. [1] And while I'm on the "unreasonable," it's vague but extremely hard to change and quantify. We could theoretically end child molestation if we had cameras in every room of every house; but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. We could theoretically end illiteracy if we locked every child in a room with a book 24/7 until they learned to read, but that's not reasonable even if you could scientifically prove it to be effective. They could easily just feel that the climate change "solutions," regardless of the science, even if they are effective, just aren't at their level of reasonable. The reasons for that could be as different and varied as grains of sand on a seashore. [2] California doesn't do themselves any favors when they scream about climate change while having severe homelessness, housing affordability, high taxation, and other issues that affect people personally on a day-to-day level. In my personal opinion, people would be much more sympathetic to solving climate change if they had their other ducks in a row. You can't convince people to think about the future if the present is a mess. You can't convince somebody to save 20% of their income for retirement when they've got $20K in credit card debt.

bradgessler 3y ago

In an effort to find coming ground, I’ve found it’s better to argue the idea that humans should do everything we can to control climate. Most people I know who reject the evidence of climate change seem to be into consuming and building lots of stuff, so this angle seems to appeal to that mindset. It makes me think—maybe it’s a complete waste of time to try to “convince the other side” or “change their minds”. What if instead we agree on an outcome, like complete and total control over the earths climate? Would that help getting folks to run in the same direction? If you think about it; the logical conclusion of humanity in our solar system is building a Dyson sphere around the sun and controlling climate for a huge population.