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"I’m superstitious, so one night I told myself, All right, if I win a game of hearts with less than 15 points, I’ll do it. I’d never scored that low in my life,
by herbig 13y ago
"I’m superstitious, so one night I told myself, All right, if I win a game of hearts with less than 15 points, I’ll do it. I’d never scored that low in my life, so when I landed at 11 points, I thought it was a sign and decided to buy a ticket."
There's your problem right there. People like this are prone to other irrational thinking. I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also deeply religious.
- OhHeyItsE 13y agowas going to say exactly this.
- Domenic_S 13y agoOne comment in and, bam, random religion bashing. Stay classy, HN.
- herbig 13y agoHow is religion as superstition religious bashing? I'm talking about correlations, not morality or religious truth. The stay classy thing is overused.
- objclxt 13y agoYou didn't say religious people were prone to superstition, you said they were prone to 'other irrational thinking'. I think there is a slight difference. You're also generalizing all religions, when in fact there are some religions which actively warn against superstition and miracles (Buddhism, for example). So I can see why someone might think your comment was ill-informed (and I say that as an atheist).
- Crito 13y agoTechnically he implicitly said that superstition is a form of irrational thinking (few could argue otherwise with a straight face). He further implied that being deeply religious can be another form of irrational thinking. What he did not actually say (though we can certainly infer) is that all religious thinking (or all deeply religious thinking) is necessarily irrational thinking. If we merely grant that much deeply religious thinking is irrational, then I see nothing inherently wrong with suggesting that people who engage in one form of irrational reasoning might be susceptible to other forms. Instead of commenting on religion, I will wager that people who claim to be superstitious tend to buy into horoscopes and homeopathy more often then the general population. That's not an offensive statement, is it? Yet what really is the difference between astrology and other things that we describe as religions?
- SimHacker 13y agoSo do you actually think that climate change denial and the rejection of evolution is not correlated with religious believe, or membership in the Republican party?
- saraid216 13y ago> I'm talking about correlations You realize that's what superstitions are made of, right? Fancy science words don't make you rational.
- herbig 13y agoIt is the express lack of correlation that makes up a superstition, so the opposite of what you're saying is true. I wasn't aware that "correlation" is a fancy science word, I guess it depends on your personal background.
- tashi 13y agoI would say that most superstitions are formed by noticing that two things in one's past experience were related in some way and assuming that the relationship will continue in the future. That's correlation. Of course, some people only notice data that fit their preconceived perspective, and some people have received superstitions based entirely on the words of others. I'm sure there are other exceptions too. But in my mind, the conceptual framework for understanding irrational thought is that we have these brains that are amazing pattern matching machines and we don't know how to turn them off. Once we've noticed a pattern, most of us assume it's a real correlation, and no matter how many exceptions to the pattern we see, we don't know how to stop believing.
- saraid216 13y ago> It is the express lack of correlation that makes up a superstition, so the opposite of what you're saying is true. Superstitions are generally formed when two things are correlated, but the causative variable fails to be correctly isolated, resulting in the mistaken impression that one event causes another despite being either independent or actually dependent on a third variable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_and_dependence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus...
- pikachu_is_cool 13y ago> I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also deeply religious.
- jonsleet 13y agoYes, perhaps. But it could have been incongruent if instead he had said "I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also deeply skeptical."
- smsm42 13y agoBut I could say "I would bet that the vast majority of people who fall for this stuff are also jumping to conclusions which please them without actually checking the facts or giving a good thought on the matter". Which is exactly what the author of that comment above did.
- d23 13y agoAs much as I hate the pedantry and nitpicky nature of the comments on this site, religion bashing is something I've never seen, and I don't think the connection is unwarranted (i.e. that people with magical thinking tend to think and act irrationally)
- rosser 13y agoreligion bashing is something I've never seen Then you've either not been paying close enough attention, or not reading the same discussion threads I have.
- livingparadox 13y agoI nearly choked on my water when I read his method for vetting it. Also, I take a slight offense at that last part...
- pekk 13y agoIf the first entails the second, that doesn't mean the second entails the first
- livingparadox 13y agoThis is true. However, the fact that he mentioned this when religion was irrelevant to the story seems to imply he feels that religious thinking leads to superstitious thinking.
- vacri 13y agoIt's pretty clear in the article that he was trying to convince himself despite his doubts. If he didn't get the low score in his game, he would have found something else to convince him it was right.
- livingparadox 13y agoI'm not sure what this has to do with my response...
- smsm42 13y agoYou know there's a difference between being religious and asking Hearts game to tell you if you should participate in the 419 scam? Most religions actually frown very hard of those kind of things. For Avraamic religions, there's a direct prohibition of such practices in Leviticus 19:26.
- eurleif 13y agoMost religions frown on other religions, too.
- smsm42 13y agoI really can't understand why you chose to answer my comment with this. I pointed out pretty clearly that a practice of homebrewn divination, in which the hero of the article engaged, is not "religious" and actually is explicitly forbidden by many religions. In response to that, you offer me meaningless platitude not connected to anything on the topic. What are you trying to accomplish here?
- eurleif 13y agoMy point was that Christianity forbids practicing Hinduism just as much as it forbids practicing divination. Being forbidden by religions does not make something non-religious.
- smsm42 13y agoThat is true, I can imagine a religion which encourages divination and for such religion divination would be a religious practice, of course. However, if such religion exists it is nowhere common in Western world. So a claim that significant amount of religious people belong to such religion would still be wrong.
- eurleif 13y agoIf anyone ever makes that claim, be sure to tell them that.
- jscheel 13y agoThis was self-confirmation and had nothing to do with religion. Please take your hate to /r/atheism.
- ronaldx 13y agoThis strategy is not in itself necessarily irrational - and maybe the opposite. Being able to implement mixed strategies is actually a game theoretic requirement for rationality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_%28game_theory%29#Pure_and_mixed_strategies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_%28game_theory%29#Pur...
- arjie 13y agoIt's being down on his luck that did it. I read something a while ago that the reason why many poor people do stupid things (like spend large amounts on the lottery) is that they tend to have poor judgement in general. However, the poor judgement arises from the poverty. When you are highly stressed about money, you find it hard to think rationally, apparently.
- Crito 13y agoI am not convinced that adequately explains the correlation. The poor may gamble away an irrational amount of their money because they are too stressed to think rationally, but it may also be the case that the endorphin hit that gambling gives them offers them a sort of temporary escape. Gambling addiction looks, at least on the surface, to have a lot in common with addiction to substances. I agree with your general premise, hardship probably does drive people to attempt the irrational, but I think gambling isn't necessarily a great example of this since there is likely more going on there.
- prawn 13y agoThat reminds me. The other in-detail telling of falling for a Nigerian scam I've read was actually by the wife of a minister who continued to throw money at the scammers before shooting her husband dead after an argument about money. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Winkler http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Winkler