I see no choice but to live like this. The objective truth about how I stack up relative to others, what I amount to in the world, the things I have missed out on and all of the times I've failed others... it is too oppressive to think about. Better keep my blinders on and run forward in my own lane.
Hmm yes, the article didn't even mention it but avoiding (and I might add manipulating) information seems to be a critical part of developing healthy self confidence. Studies on Learned Helplessness show that the difference between an optimist and pessimist (who often has to battle depression and self doubt) is largely how they perceive themselves based on the information they let in as well as how they frame that information.
You can move forward without the blinders if you always look up while looking down. You may have missed things, you made others. You may have failed some, but without you others may have been failed worse. We form a circle, humans, there is always someone above and below you in the stack.
Calvin Mooers pointed this out in 1959, and his observation is known to information scientists as Mooers' Law. He was speaking mostly in the context of information retrieval, but he also described how it's true in a more general sense:
"Having information is painful and troublesome. We all have experienced this. If you have information, you must first read it, which is not always easy. You must then try to understand it. To do this, you may have to think about it. The information may require you to make decisions about it or other information. The decisions may require action in the way of a troublesome program of work, or trips or painful interviews. Understanding the information may show that your work was wrong, or that your boss was wrong, or may show that your work was needless. Having information, you must be careful not to lose it. If nothing else, information piles up on your desk—unread. It is a nuisance to have it come to you. It is uncomfortable to have to do anything about it. Finally, if you do try to use the information properly, you may be accused of puttering instead of working. Then in the end, the incorporation of the information into the work you do may often not be noticed or appreciated. Work saved is seldom recognized. Work done—even in duplication—is well paid and rewarded."
One of the great things about the internet is that you can choose to listen to people you might never meet or get along with, and update your views accordingly without the psychological pain described in the article.
A lot of libraries have archives of oral histories, which are a really great window into other people's lives, especially as a correction for assuming you know what someone else is thinking.
I found this to be true as well. I started off as an extremely rigid thinker, and it's my contact with people holding diverse views on and offline that have changed that. I'm still highly skeptical, occasionally bordering on pessimism, but I'm a much more flexible thinker. I don't seek to judge as much as I just try to understand perspectives.
I really doubt that could have happened, at least in any reasonable amount of time, without the internet.
>"Bombarding people with information that challenges their cherished beliefs — the usual strategy that people employ in attempts at persuasion - is more likely to engender defensive avoidance than receptive processing.
^The great fallacy of the stereotypical Facebook/television political flame war/shout fest. The result is almost always detrimental to both sides' understanding of eachother.
Rarely are you trying to convince the other person, in a public forum you're more arguing for the sake of those listening than trying to convince the person you're talking to.
I feel this pressure whenever I come up with a new startup idea. I hate doing lots of research, only to find that my idea has already been done. Most recently, I wasn't very happy with a portable router that I had bought, so I started brainstorming ideas for a new travel router that would be extremely easy to use and to set up. My idea was that your new wifi password would seamlessly sync to the router, and you could set it up from streamlined OSX toolbar or mobile application. But then I found the ASUS WL-330NUL, which already does everything I was imagining. And I also realized that I could never compete with hardware like that. I was just going to build a prototype with a Raspberry Pi and a few wifi adapters.
On a related topic: I hold very liberal views, and I've recently tried to expose myself to more conservative opinions. So far I've just subscribed to /r/Conservative on Reddit, and I've read a few articles on Breitbart and other conservative sites. I also read through some of the comments, which was very frightening. That is not a place for intellectual discussion. I have relatives who often send me articles from http://creation.com, so there's another source of information that I try to avoid..
Also, a few days ago I was on a flight, and the person next to me was telling me about his flat earth beliefs, and a wide variety of other conspiracy theories. He mentioned how Breivik was just a scapegoat, because the government had ordered the killing of those children. And also 9/11 was an inside job, Stalin was a hero, and how The Hunchback of Notre Dame takes place in Saigon, Vietnam. (I believe he came to that conclusion after visiting the Notre-Dame cathedral in Saigon.) It was an interesting 3 hours. At one point he was telling me how the sun is only 50 kilometers wide, and it moves around on giant cables. Also, there are no satellites in space. They are all underground, and that's how GPS works. Also that's why GPS sometimes has problems, because Google's Maps are all wrong. I tried to really understand all of his views, but I can't say they were very compelling. It's strange, because he was a very well-read person, and seemed quite smart, apart from these insane views.
Yeah, a lot of this stuff isn't "intellectual" discussion in the sense of a dispassionate search for truth but instead a form of loyalty signalling. On reading it you ask yourself, "why would anyone think that?" and then go digging; several iterations later you find their entire set of experiences, beliefs, values and loyalties is different. And you wonder where it came from - but it takes a village to raise someone like this, and there's an entire community out there who think in the same way.
Epistemology matters, and can't be separated from power relations.
The person with the extremely bonkers views is engaging in radical epistemology: those are his facts, because he doesn't trust anyone else's. If you were to dig long enough perhaps you'd find the point in his childhood where he rejected either educational authority or his own experimentation in favour of this fantasy world in which he's the sole arbiter of knowledge.
Oh the irony of riding an airplane as a flat earth believer. Kyrie Irving (a famous American basketball player) was in the news recently for being a flat earth believer, and it blew my mind because here's a guy who must take at least 100 if not 200 flights in a year. And it occurred to me that holding those beliefs is tantamount to accusing all pilots and other aviation professionals of being gatekeepers of a massive conspiracy - if the earth isn't round, something about the "public" model of flight is the most wide spread fabrication in human history, and the pilots must be in on it or else planes would be crashing left and right.
For some reason earlier this morning, I started thinking about this out of the blue. My hope is that he is just trolling but who knows these days.
If I ever meet a flat earther, I just want to ask "Have you ever seen a full moon? and if so, how do you explain it?"
> And it occurred to me that holding those beliefs is tantamount to accusing all pilots and other aviation professionals of being gatekeepers of a massive conspiracy
Haha yeah, I brought that up. His position was that all pilots are involved with the conspiracy. I asked why no-one has said anything yet, and his answer was that they were paid a lot of money. Not only that, but they would be killed, along with their spouses and children.
He also mentioned that there was a force field above the earth, so it was impossible to go into space. And above this forcefield is a layer of water. Something about the "waters above the firmament", which got weirdly Biblical, because he didn't seem to be religious at all.
I'm glad you tried to expand your bubble and understand the viewpoint of conservatism, though choosing sources like r/Conservative or Breitbart is perhaps equivalent to understanding the liberal/progressive view through Daily Kos or a Occupier. It might be representative of a certain strain of popular conservatism, but it doesn't get to much of the deep ideas or intellectual history. I'm not sure if that even matters, since I don't know what percentage of self-described conservatives really give those ideas any thought versus sticking to a "my team versus their team" mentality. But there are some serious conservative thinkers out there worth engaging.
An easy intro discussion of conservative ideas might be William F. Buckley's older interview show Firing Line, which is all on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/firinglinevideos
Disclosure: I don't consider myself conservative nor liberal.
I am also a very liberal person, but I greatly enjoy reading The American Conservative. Have you tried that? Also some of the contributors to UNZ.com are really interesting, but it's a very mixed bag.
> Also, a few days ago I was on a flight, and the person next to me was telling me about his flat earth beliefs
Just when I was about to say "don't go to all those conservative websites, they are full of mental cases" you pull out this real-life encounter of the nth kind. Yikes! This person was the very definition of nut-case. You have to wonder where and how such belief systems develop and take root.
It doesn't say much for the human condition other than, perhaps, we are one good power outage away from being cave men (and women).
Seriously though, I'd say the online landscape is populated by extremes. This applies to all viewpoints and subject, be it religion, politics or what to feed your dogs.
Don't form opinions based on that at all. That's not the real world. The images of both liberals and conservatives being painted online are absolute caricatures of reality. In real life (outside of running into demented cases on a plane) I have found most people agree on, dare I say, most topics at a fundamental level.
The key, in my opinion, is to actively engage in real-life conversations with a wide range of people and avoid echo chambers as much as possible. I can't tell you how to do that because it depends on where you live, where you work and your level of comfort. I'm the kind of person who has no problem whatsoever approaching a total stranger at a coffee shop to have a conversation.
If you watch TV, do watch news networks with different biases. They all have them. Realize they do what they do for ratings and do your best to filter through the nonsense. Nearly every TV news network has a bunch of clowns and a few serious people. Look for the latter and you'll get useful information.
If we are talking Fox News, I'd say Tucker Carlson's show is pretty good. Bret Baier and Chris Wallace are also decent. Most everyone else is a clown putting on a show for ratings. I won't talk about the liberal-leaning stations because I would imagine you know who's serious and who's a ratings clown, for example, I would imagine you might categorize Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) as a member of the latter.
I think the key is to be open to information from all sides while being careful to filter out attempts at manipulation and what I call "clowning for ratings". The BBC, Al Jazeera and Deutsche Welle ought to be part of everyone's news source rotations. And don't forget news from the rest of the American continent.
Yes, being well informed is a job.
Still can't get over your flight experience. I would have politely moved. No, I would have vomited into a bag and then moved.
If we are talking Fox News, I'd say Tucker Carlson's show is pretty good. Bret Baier and Chris Wallace are also decent. Most everyone else is a clown putting on a show for ratings. I won't talk about the liberal-leaning stations because I would imagine you know who's serious and who's a ratings clown, for example, I would imagine you might categorize Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) as a member of the latter.
The problem with your assessment here is that "clowning" is not actually a part of journalism. Fact-finding however, is part of journalism. The OP is making the case that people will actively ignore facts they are receiving when they can't parse the information to match up with their world view. They will dismiss facts as things like conspiracy or what you're calling "clowning for ratings" when they don't like what they are hearing.
Information dissemination that is based on verifiable facts garnered from multiple independent sources... this is the job of journalists. From what I've seen of Fox News, it does not subscribe to the verifiable facts method of journalism and relies instead upon the echo chamber method of repeating something enough times in attempts to make it seem truthful.
You are right, of course. Yet it is important to understand that ALL news media is biased and they are all distorting reality to one degree or another. I can't think of a single news show on any TV network that isn't biased, sometimes to a grotesque degree. And I consume news from a wide variety of sources.
In the case of Fox News, the three people I highlighted are, today, not in the "clowning for ratings" category to such an extent that listening to what they have to say isn't a total waste of time. I would not compare them, even for a second, to, say, Hannity (on Fox) or Maddow(MSNBC) or Blitzer (CNN). There's a huge difference between these last three, who are there to stimulate their respective echo chambers and the others.
Yes, you are right, people will actively ignore facts. Yet, the problem is deeper than that because of how the masses are being "managed" by experts. And it is a losing game...for the masses. In many ways it is no different from the expertise and techniques being used to get people to click on ads online.
Given the degree of manipulation we are exposed to today it is important to listen to everyone while avoiding obvious clowns. This should be met with the skepticism necessary to avoid being manipulated, the patience to allow evidence to surface and the research to ensure we don't form conclusions based on manipulation and lies rather than verifiable facts. That, for the masses, is almost impossible. And that's the problem. Because it works, which means the various players will continue to behave as they do and continue to optimize the techniques that produce the desired results: Viewers and Votes.
>Just when I was about to say "don't go to all those conservative websites, they are full of mental cases" you pull out this real-life encounter of the nth kind. Yikes! This person was the very definition of nut-case. You have to wonder where and how such belief systems develop and take root.
They "develop and take root" in a distrust of the established truths, which finds an outlet in some niche pet-theory (flat earth, etc) -- and an existential distress and unhapiness in living with them.
Which is not totally unhealthy, as a lot of established truths are either dictums or states of being held by force taken as inevitable/the way things are/gospel, and others are BS spread for profit (and also held as truth).
Of course rejecting those instead of the shape-of-the-earth type beliefs would be better. But it would also be more difficult (try rejecting an established "truth" and see how well it goes. In a repressive government it can even end in execution). Whereas believing in flat-earth at best makes other perceive you as cooky.
Given what you said, is it even worth having a conversation with someone who has gone out there to such an extent? If we are talking about science, where one can present evidence from which hypothesis can be re-verified by anyone, how do you deal with someone who just refuses to disconnect from their delusion for even a moment?
As an atheist I have had some interesting conversations with what I would characterize as "intense believers". I have friends who are Born Again Christians. I have endured intense verbal poundings of all kinds at their hands. I even had a case where one of them was yelling and screaming at me in the middle of a parking lot at midnight because I was going on a business trip to Amsterdam the next day and he felt I needed to kneel down and accept Jesus that very minute or I would surely go to hell and condemn my whole family just for setting foot on that city. Nice guy and all, but holy crap!
BTW, I have never done the opposite and tried to convince a believer to become an atheist.
When do you think someone is so far gone that an attempt to engage based on reason is futile?
Trying to be as open as possible and ready to debate is exhausting, and often leaves one tired and misunderstood. I can see how the 'big picture' reward isn't worth the day-to-day depression and anxiety. I still have yet to figure out the most efficient balance between more information and more inner stability.
I agree, though would add that it's not even so much about the exhaustion as it is that being 100% open all the time can also lead to intentionally misleading data being processed.
For example, I would assume most people have been the third party in a situation where two friends are in an argument and want someone to rule on it. Maybe it's just my friends that are that petty, but I end up in this position a lot. As they present it, often I just don't have enough information to make an informed decision; the tidbits they present me are quite obviously the well fought over talking points they devised and I have neither the background nor the education to intelligently comment on the argument most of the time. Relying on my gut sometimes is necessary (issues of emotion, what should person A do, etc), but it's not always the best option.
We can't be 100% ready and educated for every single issue. In fact, constantly changing the issue and bringing up others is a rather devious debate tactic, and also an informal fallacy. It's deceptive, and it can give the illusion that a position is stronger than it really is simply because it was prepared sooner and has more information immediately available than the opposition is able to bring up at that time. It seems strong at first glance, but it doesn't always hold up under scrutiny, but with constantly shifting topics and arguments, it's not possible to give such proper scrutiny.
Avoidance isn't just about self-preservation, it's about being able to rationally interpret the information you are presented. It's why I often find debates online so difficult because the discussion can change so rapidly that it's not possible to give claims reasonable treatment. It's also sometimes why I find it fascinating, because the rapid flow of information is also very addictive.
"The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs or paradigms."
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Bonus: "Look at yourself objectively" (by Aaron Swartz )
I think I dislike about papers like this, or at least how people refer to papers like this, is that it's easily phrased as a universal truth. As in, applying to 100% of the people 100% of the time. Which is clearly ridiculous, or else no one would ever change their minds from conflicting evidence at all.
> If we want to reduce political polarization, we have to find ways not only to expose people to conflicting information, but to increase people's receptivity to information that challenges what they believe and want to believe.
I believe the Greeks had discussed methods of persuasion to a great extent (as in logos, pathos, ethos) but also when to use which, and the study seems to affirm that shouting crazy hyperbolic slogans to get people emotionally charged is a better strategy for your existing fans than someone on the fence: to convince someone to jump sides, you're better off empathizing with them, bringing up objections slowly, etc.
Libertarians keep peddling their unsubstantiated, utopian dribble, including objective truth and anarchy, when their political philosophy is obviously a 1%'ers smokescreen exploiting Ayn Rand (refer to Thom Hartmann).
We're drowning in information. What do we need - More Ad targeting?
"The researchers believe understanding when, why and how people avoid information can help governments, firms and organizations reach their audiences effectively without drowning them in unwanted messages".
Sometimes people/institution even become aggressive when they get information that is completely opposite of what they believe, Galileo was convicted of heresy because he believed that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which was just opposite of what Catholic Church believe.
Though this kind of rigidity hinders our progress but there is another side of the coin. This is the sole reason that keeps us happy in everyday life. If we take into consideration each and every information's then our life will become a hell for sure. We can't take veggies and fruits, mostly toxic due to the preservative used; can't use car/bus as its harmful to the environment, can't even eat a burger or coke, leads to obesity. I think it's better to have the gift of avoidance though rigidness should be avoided.
I'm not sure Galileo was convicted so much for what he believed as for being kind of a dick about it.
This is one of those silly myths that we for some reason perpetuate, like the old chestnut about people laughing at Columbus because they thought the world was flat.
I don't think your analogy holds water. I know the health risks of veggies, they're not that bad compared to missing them out completely. I make a conscious decision to risk it when I eat veggies, but I accept that veggies have unhealthy stuff when they're processed.
But denying a scientific fact is not the same. If people would've not just eaten veggies but called news about bad preservatives "fake news", then you would've had a point.
I think some information is often a mixture of truths and lies which is why I tend to filter out all the major left/right media outlets on my Google News feed. I'm just not interested in playing fact checker for every newspaper because they have some left/right crusader journalist that's willing to die on a hill for a particular current political talking point. If those folks are going to mix lies with the truth then I'm going to take the risk of being an ignorant jerk that says "I don't know, I'll have to read up on it" than be led down a blind alley of someone's ideology masquerading as "the truth." Essentially, the most correct position in the majority of cases to be conscientiously ignorant and open to discussion when it's applicable to your life. Beyond that, be as dumb as the rest of humanity to the ins and outs of any issue if it's not interesting or fun to you.
Edit: also, I think this doesn't apply to matters that are of immediate relevance and consequence. So I do think someone like POTUS or a US Senator should stay informed if possible.
One would likely go mad not avoiding the ton of BS/propaganda put out daily by the mainstream media circus. Not sure the point of the study, if not to aid said circus to target people more efficiently. One would think there are more noble research to be done, other than to invent more crafty clickbait titles, or disguise your content with some psychological wizardry to evoke emotion, etc...
The same thing happened in digital advertising. People developed "Banner Blindness" and mostly do not notice the presence of ads in your page. It's almost like people are very intelligent and you cannot fool them for a long time.
Heh, the HN alt-right contingent is curiously mostly absent from these comments, especially given how many of them have recently discovered their passion for hard-line epistemological skepticism. It's as if they're avoiding the information in this article...
This article is interesting. Does anyone know of any studies/evidence/etc that shows how to get around this issue? Are there certain tactics that help people feel more comfortable with information even when it could have an adverse effect on themselves?
