2mo ago

Doctrine

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Literally every single person of all political stripes will see this and agree with this statement.

Smart people can be stubborn and would dismiss facts sometimes too
- Not just sometimes. Much of the time.
  
  Not just much of the time. Often.

indoctrinated people don't care if you think they're smart. in fact, "smart" is a pejorative to them, unless the adjective is applied to dear great leader, who's the only one allowed to claim the title, and the only one from whom information can be accepted as true
indoctrination indeed. GOP is a fucking cult

This is not entirely true though. Beliefs and opinions are heavily influenced by a lot of factors. Even educated people are not free from such errors. Like the backfire effect (Nyhan and Reifler (2010)): situations where people become more entrenched in their views when confronted with contradictory evidence.
Other studies have found that when presented with data, individuals with more education can sometimes be more divided in their beliefs, particularly when the topic is politically charged. For instance, some educated individuals may use their knowledge to selectively interpret data in ways that support their pre-existing views, a phenomenon known as "motivated reasoning." Confirmation bias relates to that. This has been observed in areas like climate change, where political and ideological factors heavily influence opinions. (See for example: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1704882114 )
In other words, no matter how educated or smart you are, you can still fall into ignorance and stubbornness. The key is to train your ability to think critically—especially when it comes to your own beliefs and opinions. Doing so can help you become more aware of biases and avoid common pitfalls in cognitive decision-making.
- Receiving an education, and being wise are two very different things.

Where meme
- Apparently I stumbled into Facebook somehow.
  
  Oh my god that's exactly the vibe I have been getting from Lemmy this past month. Add some minions to the feed from my grandmother and you got just Facebook with more communists.

I think this makes it seem a lot more black and white than it really is. Defaulting to information that agrees with your word view is a natural human bias. We all suffer from it and it's important to actively try and work against that
- Defaulting to information that agrees with your word view is a natural human bias.
  In general, perhaps, but in the face of conflicting facts?
  
  Everyone has their own set of facts. That’s the basis for their world view. Doesn’t mean those facts are pertinent to the question at hand but upsetting their entire worldview is not something people allow easily.
  And that’s human nature. We’re a social species. We belong to tribes and depend on our tribe for survival. If we could drop our worldview like a load of dirty laundry then we’d be walking away from our tribes and dying.
  Ask anyone who has had profound political disagreements with their family. It’s enormously painful. While you can drop a position here or there in an election, it’s not at easy to drop your family.

I'd much rather confirm whether new information is accurate before adjusting my world view. Not all new information is equal.
- This was my thought. Everyone challenges the source when they don't like info and honestly there is a ton of bad info out there. When it comes to research I like to know where the funding came from.

That's not true!

The problem is, this is wrong. Most people won't change their views easily. We instinctively downgrade evidence that disagrees with us and upgrade that which reinforces our beliefs.
Ironically, "smart" people can be FAR worse at this that stupid people. Just ask anyone who's tried to do IT work for a doctor. Smart people are able to build more elaborate mental constructs to explain contradictory evidence.
This comes to a particular head in science. Scientific papers are written in a weird way. It's always in the 3rd person, with as much personality taken out as possible. This helps when someone critiques it. Disagreements are with the paper, not the author. This is backed up by a LOT of training at university level. Even so, scientists are still prone to hanging onto outdated ideas far too long. These are people who are undoubtedly "smart" by any reasonable measure.
- I get what you're saying, but assuming you're talking about medical doctors, they're a bad example. I know three doctors well and they're all dumber than a sack of hammers. Becoming a doctor doesn't require much intelligence, it requires the ability to stay in school long enough (and being able to tolerate gross stuff from other people's bodies).
  What do you call someone who got all Ds in medical school? Doctor.
  
  It's actually part of my point.
  Doctors are intelligent, you have to be to absorb the amount of information they are required to learn. However, it's specialised intelligence. Being smart about medicine doesn't make you smart about other things.
  It's like we all have a pool of base intelligence. We can then pour it into various moulds. The traditional intelligent professions are often just reliant on a large amount of specialised intelligence. This actually robs them other other forms.
  It's easy, when you can demonstrate high intelligence, in a difficult field, to assume you are intelligent across the board. A stupid person can often know they are stupid and so can compensate. An "intelligent" person can be blindsided by their weaknesses.
- Its amazing what 2 smart people in a room can rationalize.

No, people do not change their opinions based on new facts. It's important to not think of it like that because even non "indoctrinated" people we would all consider rational work like this. If you really want to change people's opinions on things, especially things that are important, you need to know how our brains work to get there and you shouldn't think less of people for not changing their minds immediately. Studies have shown our rationality is not a means of making decisions but a means of explaining our decisions. I highly recommend this Vsauce video on the topic. It's a great watch. https://youtu.be/_ArVh3Cj9rw
I first saw this video in early 2021 after spending a lot of time trying my best to show people they were wrong about COVID misinformation and election misinformation. It was a nice epilogue to that period of my life.
- I highly recommend this Vsauce video on the topic.
  Okay, but you should be warned, it won't change my opinion.
  show people they were wrong about COVID misinformation and election misinformation
  I do think people forget how much contrary information is in the discourse when they try and make an argument and discover that their audience is unmoved. It's like talking to a 12 year old about legal drug use after they've received all their information from 90s Sitcoms and the D.A.R.E. program's most insane police officers.
  So much of our understanding of the world is a composite of our prior accumulated experiences and inputs. A single contrary data point will only provoke skepticism, as it collides with a bulwark of rebuttals. Shaping someone's views takes time, and works best on people who haven't spent years/decades inoculating themselves to the message. That's why propaganda exists in the first place. A steady repetition of claims and data points in favor of a particular outlook will leave people resistant to opposing views.
  That said...
  https://youtu.be/_ArVh3Cj9rw
  There are some good notes in the video, but so much of the article seems to want to rehash general logical fallacies, without addressing the underlying nature of the claims. This gets us to an argument from fallacy wherein you attempt to dismiss a claim entirely because of bad logic. "The sun rises in the east because God wills it!" is a fallacious claim, but I would not look for the sun to rise in the West as a result.
  Also...
  This video was created in partnership with Bill Gates and was inspired by his new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”
  You can't help grapple with the fact that Microsoft is one of the biggest modern contributors to misinformation, thanks to their massive investment in AI. And, mumble mumble Gates was on the Epstein Jet mumble mumble, which isn't so much a refutation of the video but a note on the motivations of the authors.
  Aside from the kid-sex stuff, Epstein is known for circulating some broadly ignorant and socially detrimental views on international finance, neoliberal economic reforms, and foreign policies. It can be argued that the Extended Mind Theory of Consciousness is pseudo-pscyhological drivel (particularly in how this video attempts to glamorize it, raise the stakes, and tie it into the fucking Fermi Paradox). This reads like the kind of overly dramatic pronouncements he and his friend Steven Pinker are best known for.
  Which, again, isn't even to say the core ideas are wrong. But the people pitching them... It's like getting a lecture on the moral hazard of warmongering from Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol. Or a condemnation of sexual assault from Donald Trump.

Funny. I was in a group of people (was, in past tense) that made fun of me because I was the first one to change minds if new evidence showed that I was wrong. They saw it as a weakness, as if my ideas were wrong because I was able to change them if I was proved wrong.
I guess this helps explain why I "was" and not "am" a part of that group anymore.
- It's not surprising though considering reasoning is more of a social defense mechanism than anything.

I always find that people that are unflinchingly rigid in their beliefs always seem to be incredibly happy.
I believe that this stems from their inability to grasp the concept that the things that you don’t want to be true sometimes are, and the things you wish were, sometimes aren’t.
- Ignorance truly is bliss.
  Drugs apparently are a close second.

Not a meme but ok

Nah, this sounds like bs to me
- I did what you see there

hot takes are already incoming, so just as a reminder: Sayings like this have assumptions that are necessary to be aware of before nitpicking details.
The saying is just saying that smart people are open minded to new ideas and information and indoctrinated people are taught to be close minded. It doesn't mean every new piece of information is immediately believed by the smart person or that smart people are immune to confirmation bias, just that they are generally open to new information supported by evidence and indoctrination teaches people to reject new information whether it is supported by evidence or not.
It is a generalization about a primary difference, not a hard and fast rule.

Lol sweet summer child…
- Things that should stay on reddit.
  
  I'm referencing Game of Thrones.
  If that makes you think of Reddit, that's on you.

Something I've been able to do somehow that I'm very proud of is to train myself to hold space for, and to appreciate cognitive dissonance — I've found that trying to quickly clear away the discomfort of it leads to doubling down on beliefs or opinions, which isn't productive. I used to do that a lot, because I had internalised an image of myself as someone whose views and beliefs are consistent and coherent (not like all those other stupid people). I cringe to think of past me, but I suppose that's good in a way, because progress.
Most of my progress has come from remodelling of my world view, which is a messy and lengthy process. Sometimes I have to sit with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance for a while before I can understand it and resolve it.

I’m dismissing any facts you are commenting that contradict this post.
- Oh yeah? Well I’m posting any contradictions that dismiss the comments on these facts! Ha!

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