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So are you saying that successful people don't cling to beliefs that have a lot of evidence against them? Because that's even more generally wrong that what yo

So are you saying that successful people don't cling to beliefs that have a lot of evidence against them? Because that's even more generally wrong that what you initially stated.

lisper 12y ago
No, that is not what I'm saying (please stop putting words in my mouth and raising straw-man arguments). I'm saying that clinging to false beliefs is not conducive to problem solving, and so if a society considers it virtuous to cling to false beliefs, problems will tend to go unsolved. It may well be that clinging to false beliefs has other societal benefits, but IMHO those are outweighed by the cost. I also believe that, all else being equal, an individual more likely to succeed if they don't cling to false beliefs, but that's not what is under discussion here. But if you want to discuss that, there are two important things to keep in mind: 1. All else is never equal. Societal conformance is very important to success, so in a society where clinging to false beliefs is considered a virtue, an individual may well do better by doing so. 2. Individual outcomes have a very high variance, i.e. they are due as much or more to luck as a person's choices. So in a population of millions you will always be able to find individuals who were successful despite doing all the wrong things (and vice versa by the way).
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  I'm not raising strawmen, I'm asking you things that quite logically follow from your statements. All I can say at this point is that your theory is definitely in conflict with my observations of the world. So much so that I see the theory as wishful thinking about how things ought to work than how they actually do.
  - lisper 12y ago
    My apologies, I misread what you wrote as a statement rather than a question (I swapped the words "you" and "are". Maybe I'm developing late-onset dyslexia.) So let me try this again: no, I am not saying that "successful people don't cling to beliefs that have a lot of evidence against them". I am saying that a society that considers it virtuous to maintain beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is going to be less effective at solving problems than a society that does not consider it a virtue, and so problems will tend to go unsolved more than if the society did not consider this a virtue. What observations of the world have you made that contradict this?

So are you saying that successful people don't cling to beliefs that have a lot of evidence against them? Because that's even more generally wrong that what you initially stated.

lisper 12y ago

No, that is not what I'm saying (please stop putting words in my mouth and raising straw-man arguments). I'm saying that clinging to false beliefs is not conducive to problem solving, and so if a society considers it virtuous to cling to false beliefs, problems will tend to go unsolved. It may well be that clinging to false beliefs has other societal benefits, but IMHO those are outweighed by the cost. I also believe that, all else being equal, an individual more likely to succeed if they don't cling to false beliefs, but that's not what is under discussion here. But if you want to discuss that, there are two important things to keep in mind: 1. All else is never equal. Societal conformance is very important to success, so in a society where clinging to false beliefs is considered a virtue, an individual may well do better by doing so. 2. Individual outcomes have a very high variance, i.e. they are due as much or more to luck as a person's choices. So in a population of millions you will always be able to find individuals who were successful despite doing all the wrong things (and vice versa by the way).

waterlesscloud 12y ago
I'm not raising strawmen, I'm asking you things that quite logically follow from your statements. All I can say at this point is that your theory is definitely in conflict with my observations of the world. So much so that I see the theory as wishful thinking about how things ought to work than how they actually do.
- lisper 12y ago
  My apologies, I misread what you wrote as a statement rather than a question (I swapped the words "you" and "are". Maybe I'm developing late-onset dyslexia.) So let me try this again: no, I am not saying that "successful people don't cling to beliefs that have a lot of evidence against them". I am saying that a society that considers it virtuous to maintain beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is going to be less effective at solving problems than a society that does not consider it a virtue, and so problems will tend to go unsolved more than if the society did not consider this a virtue. What observations of the world have you made that contradict this?