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There are two fundamental belief systems about truth. One is based on reason, where people look for contradictions (like you're doing right now) in order to be

There are two fundamental belief systems about truth. One is based on reason, where people look for contradictions (like you're doing right now) in order to better understand truth. The other is based on authority or faith, where people look to authority figures, such as parents, priests, pundits, or politicians, in order to understand "truth". These are incompatible. You can't point out contradictions to an authority oriented person and expect them to care. While you are using your words, they have already made off with the money. Your reason got you nowhere, while their power got them $50k+ loans. They could do what they did with action while you are soothing yourself with words. One thing authority oriented people understand is that actions matter most and that the highest truth is found within action on the physical world.

xracy 1y ago
This is honestly insightful to me in a way that I struggle to relate to one of my family members because I try and make appeals to logic and the truth, and they make a ton of appeals to people they think I would find to be authority figures. I have never seen this stated in such a clean way that got me to that understanding. I guess it doesn't help me solve it, but baby steps.
e40 1y ago
I think there is a third dimension to this: identity. What Trump has done is make his followers feel they are the brand. They are MAGA. That means it doesn't matter what system of truth you adhere to, because you will always go with your identity, which is MAGA. Yes, this is exactly how cults work.
- hayst4ck 1y ago
  Pedantically, it would be a second dimension, but I don't think that it is orthogonal, I think it's an aberration of the result of "truth as authority." As the authority figure deviates further and further from reality, it makes them increasingly hostile to those who reason, but it also creates a cost to acknowledging reality. The cultists would have to acknowledge they were suckered or otherwise deficient. All those contradictions that were ignored protect their alternative reality because they represent pain that must be overcome. Without being willing to face the pain of being wrong and all those you have harmed through being wrong, you must stay in your alternative reality.
s1artibartfast 1y ago
I think what you said is accurate, but I would describe the 2nd bucket different. It isn't just looking to what authorities say, which is often just noise. It is more about observing reality and patters. One group looks to the abstract to try and make inferences. The other group looks to behavior to try and discern patterns. To me, the first group seems overwhelmingly naive. It assumes that groups of people all act according to a unified principle across time and space. The second group understands that behavior is circumstantial, based on the changing people and incentives involved. Government is not an ideologically uniform monolith.
- hayst4ck 1y ago
  > It is more about observing reality and patters. I don't agree with this, since people who hold this belief generally ignore second order effects and are immune to hypocrisy/contradiction based arguments. Without respect of contradictions, there is no basis for truth only for feelings and actions, which I think I would call "genetic truth." Clearly this group is evolutionary conserved, and there must be some truth to that ideology for that to be true. The first group has to deal with the Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance, which is the rigorous description of what you just said. It requires constant maintenance and adjustment against selfishness and decay, it requires enforcement of universalized principles (assimilation of specific ideas). The second group must deal with having beliefs that directly contradict reality and freedom and reality asserting itself. Both groups have different fundamental strategies for the prisoner's dilemma and different failure modes for their strategy. The first group says there is one theoretically correct strategy, to always trust/cooperate because from a mathematical perspective, under conditions of abundance and an assumption of universality, that is provably the correct strategy. The second says that if you can win by defecting, you should. The first group fails when they fail to defect in response to people defecting against them. The paradox of intolerance can be restated in prisoner's dilemma terms: if you think cooperation is always right, then how do you justify defection? The second group fails by failing to get out of zero sum thinking. They can never be greater than the sum of their parts, they also generally create a ruggedly darwinistic society you wouldn't want to be a part of.

xracy 1y ago

This is honestly insightful to me in a way that I struggle to relate to one of my family members because I try and make appeals to logic and the truth, and they make a ton of appeals to people they think I would find to be authority figures. I have never seen this stated in such a clean way that got me to that understanding. I guess it doesn't help me solve it, but baby steps.

e40 1y ago

I think there is a third dimension to this: identity. What Trump has done is make his followers feel they are the brand. They are MAGA. That means it doesn't matter what system of truth you adhere to, because you will always go with your identity, which is MAGA. Yes, this is exactly how cults work.

hayst4ck 1y ago
Pedantically, it would be a second dimension, but I don't think that it is orthogonal, I think it's an aberration of the result of "truth as authority." As the authority figure deviates further and further from reality, it makes them increasingly hostile to those who reason, but it also creates a cost to acknowledging reality. The cultists would have to acknowledge they were suckered or otherwise deficient. All those contradictions that were ignored protect their alternative reality because they represent pain that must be overcome. Without being willing to face the pain of being wrong and all those you have harmed through being wrong, you must stay in your alternative reality.

s1artibartfast 1y ago

I think what you said is accurate, but I would describe the 2nd bucket different. It isn't just looking to what authorities say, which is often just noise. It is more about observing reality and patters. One group looks to the abstract to try and make inferences. The other group looks to behavior to try and discern patterns. To me, the first group seems overwhelmingly naive. It assumes that groups of people all act according to a unified principle across time and space. The second group understands that behavior is circumstantial, based on the changing people and incentives involved. Government is not an ideologically uniform monolith.

hayst4ck 1y ago
> It is more about observing reality and patters. I don't agree with this, since people who hold this belief generally ignore second order effects and are immune to hypocrisy/contradiction based arguments. Without respect of contradictions, there is no basis for truth only for feelings and actions, which I think I would call "genetic truth." Clearly this group is evolutionary conserved, and there must be some truth to that ideology for that to be true. The first group has to deal with the Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance, which is the rigorous description of what you just said. It requires constant maintenance and adjustment against selfishness and decay, it requires enforcement of universalized principles (assimilation of specific ideas). The second group must deal with having beliefs that directly contradict reality and freedom and reality asserting itself. Both groups have different fundamental strategies for the prisoner's dilemma and different failure modes for their strategy. The first group says there is one theoretically correct strategy, to always trust/cooperate because from a mathematical perspective, under conditions of abundance and an assumption of universality, that is provably the correct strategy. The second says that if you can win by defecting, you should. The first group fails when they fail to defect in response to people defecting against them. The paradox of intolerance can be restated in prisoner's dilemma terms: if you think cooperation is always right, then how do you justify defection? The second group fails by failing to get out of zero sum thinking. They can never be greater than the sum of their parts, they also generally create a ruggedly darwinistic society you wouldn't want to be a part of.