
There’s no good way to kill a bad idea - spcelzrd
https://qz.com/966006/theres-no-good-way-to-kill-a-bad-idea/
======
carsongross
The article demonstrates a specific way that "bad" ideas can become more
deeply ingrained.

I am mildly agnostic towards the amount of contribution man is making towards
temperature change, I've read reasonable people with various opinions on it. I
consider myself an environmentalist, I think the clean air act was a good
thing and I am fine with government regulations around the environment, since
it is a commons towards which we have an intergenerational stewardship
relationship.

However, when I see skepticism towards man-caused climate change lumped in
with believing in lizard people, I can feel myself _physically_ becoming more
dug in in my skepticism.

This is not rational, of course: it's a "yeah, well fuck _you_ " reaction. And
perhaps it reflects poorly on me. Certainly it will earn me no karma here, nor
among the people I usually associate with. But, nonetheless, it is a
phenomenological reality, pushing me more deeply _into_ what the author
considers a bad idea.

 _> Once a view is popular with the general public, or just within your own
‘tribe,’ it takes a lot of courage even to question it to yourself_

Indeed. One wishes this criticism was raised more frequently to self-
criticism.

~~~
toovs
> However, when I see skepticism towards man-caused climate change lumped in
> with believing in lizard people ...

As it should be. It should be viewed as even worse. The lizard conspiracy
people aren't destroying our planet.

~~~
Flimm
There's three things wrong with this:

\- you're failing to heed the warning that demonising your opponents makes
them further entrenched in their position. If you're trying to save our planet
by persuading climate change skeptics, you should stop doing that.

\- You're equating the plausability of the lizard conspiracy to the
plausability of climate change being man-made. Don't, because they're not
equally implausible, and it's counterproductive.

\- Your argument that climate change skeptics are destroying the planet is
only true if climate change is indeed man-made, and therefore has no relevance
to the determination of climate change's existence and causes.

~~~
ythn
> Your argument that climate change skeptics are destroying the planet is only
> true if climate change is indeed man-made

Even if climate change is man made (and I believe it is), the argument is only
true if the _predicted dire outcomes of climate change in the predicted
timescales_ are also true (this I'm not as convinced of). There are likely
currently unknown variables that will retroactively devalue the predictive
strength of our models one we observe how the future _actually_ is vs. the
predictions.

Also, skeptics aren't destroying the planet any more than non-skeptics -
everybody still drives cars, eats meat, and uses electricity.

It can be argued that skeptics are hindering government policies that could
help mitigate negative effects of climate change, but so far the policies I've
seen proposed would have a near negligible effect other than making us feel
good for doing something.

------
DonbunEf7
Edit: My point is that killing an idea is necessarily hard, because ideas
automatically have moral superiority over humans. We as humans must
intentionally choose to endorse certain ideas which serve our interests, and
we must do so knowing that we are indelibly influenced by those same ideas.

Pirsig, from Lila:

"Just as it is more moral for a doctor to kill a germ than patient, so it is
more moral for an idea to kill a society than it is for society to kill an
idea."

Persig elaborates, explaining how e.g. civil rights in the USA are an example
of an idea coming to kill off a societal practice (racism) in favor of an
idealized society (post-racist egalitarianism).

Hofstadter, from GEB:

"It is not such a bad image, the brain as an ant colony! ... It is not such a
bad image, the brain as an ATN-colony!"

In this section, Hofstadter explains that the brain could be viewed
analogistically to symbol networks, and explores how individual symbols could
exist in many different contexts but are nonetheless coalesced in meaning when
doing actual computation.

Similarly, ideas are like symbols in the network of humans, and the
computation carried out by humans communicating in their daily lives
automatically gives rise to higher-level idea networks which use humanity as a
substrate, not unlike how Hofstadter's anteater perceives the intelligence of
an ant colony on top of the individual ants in the colony.

A final tweet [0]:

"Nobody _likes_ hearing that they are merely an idea-forge, a virus-hold for
memetic mutation, a propagator of the idea-marketplace, do they?"

[0]
[https://twitter.com/corbinsimpson/status/733424172651581441](https://twitter.com/corbinsimpson/status/733424172651581441)

------
nemacol
[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect)

[https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-
effect/](https://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/)

What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can
never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures,
hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though
they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate.
As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire
effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.

~~~
YCode
> you can never win an argument online

This is true online and it's true in person. As you said even if you "win" by
getting the other person to concede, the net result is often that they are
more walled into their position than before.

I've come to believe the real issue is that you should not be trying to "win"
a discussion in the first place.

Rather, you should assume (or at the very least pretend) for the moment that
their position is justified and they are "right". Under that presumption, ask
questions and allow them to elaborate on their position. In short, instead of
talking, listen without judging until you really, truly understand and have
acknowledged and accepted their position.

At that point you have a tool very few people ever acquire in a discussion.
You have the ability to frame your argument in their terms.

Now, that doesn't mean you will convince them you are right and they are
wrong, but it does mean they are going to be far more likely to listen to you
and consider what you've said more fairly than if you had simply bombarded
them with facts and figures, i.e. "logic".

~~~
vertex-four
Or, in other words, "have conversations, not debates". It's surprising how
many otherwise smart people don't realise that only a very, very small
minority actually enjoys debating.

------
interfixus
_“Once a view is popular with the general public, or just within your own
‘tribe,’ it takes a lot of courage even to question it to yourself,” says
Blackford. For example, just 50 years ago, homosexuality was banned in many
western countries. “It would have been a very brave person to put their hand
up and say, ‘There’s nothing wrong with being gay.’”_

And there you have it. The absolutes slither and shift. One generation's
unquestioned truth is another's indisputable anathema. Today, it would take a
very brave person to put his or her hand up and say, "There's something wrong
with being gay".

~~~
metaphorm
in Blue America, yes. In Red America, no.

social cohesion (or lack of it) and ideological balkanization has dramatically
intensified lately.

------
programminggeek
Here is the funny part. This article is a bad idea and it now can't be killed.

Turtles all the way down.

P.S. If you believe you are the rational one and that other people are
irrational, you are acting irrationally.

~~~
MR4D
Interesting postscript you have there. If I can predict the irrational actions
of other people, can I not be rational?

This certainly appears to happen frequently in the stock market, when only a
few people will be rational while the hordes are irrational (e.g. market tops
and market bottom being the most visible points of this behavior).

------
YCode
I suppose it's in the title, but I was disappointed the article doesn't even
attempt to provide some solutions.

The one proposal the article makes is poorly thought out.

It's become clear that in today's political culture ignoring or dismissing bad
ideas without properly addressing them with at least feigned respect pushes
the on the fence population into echo chambers where the idea can be confirmed
as good, e.g. anti-vaxxers, flat world believers, etc...

~~~
Buttons840
I think you might find some solutions in a great negotiation book called
"Never Split the Difference". Written by a former hostage negotiator. If you
can negotiate with someone who thinks they are the Messiah and has a gun you
might stand a chance online.

The problem is negotiation requires care and a lot of work. It's hard. And in
public forums others will probably mess up your progress.

My best guess in a public forum would be to play the "good cop" and quote and
defend the person I wanted to persuade. And while looking like I'm defending
them, and being their friend, I would put forth an idea that is more moderate
and thus move them towards being persuaded. This would be hard to do in the
chaos of an online forum like HN or Reddit though.

~~~
YCode
Thanks I'll have to check out that book.

I agree, a public forum really complicates the issue.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Yep, we still believe in the humors theory of medicine. In fact, there is a
popular app to help remind people to get their blood drained regularly. There
are also billboards reminding everyone that washing your hands is a waste of
water. We also believe that the sun rotates around the Earth. As such, since
we are the center of the universe, everyone laughs at the crackpots who
suggest that we would ever want to travel to other planets or even the moon.
/s

Of course, there has been a good way to kill ideas - evidence with real world
effect and patient engagement of naysayers over time. It makes me sad as from
the 1500s - 1900s we had so much invention and progress and revolutionized
people's thinking about the world, and we the heirs of all of that despair
that we can't get rid of bad ideas. If so, the fault lies with us, and this
fatalistic view is a bad idea that needs to be killed.

~~~
ythn
> We also believe that the sun rotates around the Earth.

Is it possible to prove that the sun _doesn 't_ rotate around the earth other
than saying "the supporting mathematics are much, MUCH easier if the earth
rotates around the sun"? From a relativistic perspective, couldn't you define
the earth as being still and everything else as moving relative to it?

~~~
GavinMcG
What do you mean by "prove"? Yes, you can define the earth as stationary, but
if you're taking that definition seriously – rather than just doing it to make
the math easier within that frame of reference, or for rhetorical purposes –
if you're taking it seriously then you've got a whole host of implications
that you have to explain. For example, why is Earth stationary, with the sun
rotating around it, while all the _other_ planets rotate around the sun? Given
what else we know about gravity, how do you account for the sun with its huge
mass orbiting the relatively tiny mass of Earth?

One response is that you throw _those_ "known" things out as well, and so on
down the rabbit hole.

We prefer theories to be coherent with the rest of our knowledge. Depending on
the extent to which you're willing to dispense with that – and to dispense
with a huge number of claims we take as settled – sure, you can choose to hold
on to basically any view. The question is why you're holding on to that and
throwing out the rest.

