
There is no middle ground for deep disagreements about facts - noego
https://aeon.co/ideas/there-is-no-middle-ground-for-deep-disagreements-about-facts
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cbanek
While I agree that the article does a good job of describing the current state
of things, I don't think it has always been this way. Let's go with the
opening paragraph:

"Consider how one should respond to a simple case of disagreement. Frank sees
a bird in the garden and believes it’s a finch. Standing beside him, Gita sees
the same bird, but she’s confident it’s a sparrow. What response should we
expect from Frank and Gita? If Frank’s response were: ‘Well, I saw it was a
finch, so you must be wrong,’ then that would be irrationally stubborn – and
annoying – of him. (The same goes for Gita, of course.) Instead, both should
become less confident in their judgment."

It's interesting they point out that both should be less confident. I think
this is actually how it was a few years ago. People used this tactic of
gaslighting or spreading possibilities to discount the hazards of cigarettes
and climate change. Comments like "well not all scientists agree," and "some
experts have taken the opposite view."

Then people began to doubt all experts, not just the ones spreading false
rumors. They determined if you can't trust one expert, and you don't have the
knowledge to determine if they are a good actor (which most people don't
have), then you just shouldn't trust experts and "trust yourself." Now we're
in the realm where our opinion is our reality. And since there are no experts
or anyone to trust, people are just herding opinion in their direction to get
people to buy things or do stupid things.

I feel like in the 90s, if someone were given the same story about what bird
it was, they would ask "well do either of these people know anything about
birds?" If someone knew more, they would trust their opinion more. Now that
question isn't even asked.

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harimau777
The article observes that people tend to ignore facts when it threatens their
identity. Therefore, it seems like the way to change people's minds is to
proactively find ways to remove the threats to their worldview and/or helping
them to find other worldviews that meet their needs.

That's, for example, the issue I have with Richard Dawkins. His job is
supposed to be promoting science, but by actively using it as a weapon to try
to attack people's worldview he makes people more likely to reject science.

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bediger4000
The article doesn't seem to have any ideas about how to deal with these deep
disagreements. Do we just let every try their best, and the faction that piles
up economic inefficiencies due to ultimately counter-factual beliefs to the
point that they fail is the loser? That seems to have been how the world
solved the Cold War, and the problems of the colonial powers.

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deogeo
That's assuming false beliefs act as economic hindrances - this is not
necessarily the case. Global warming comes to mind, and pretty much anything
else that's an externality on an international level - deforestation,
pollution, overfishing... Believing that the best contraception is abstention,
and no other method should be taught, will result in increased fertility due
to all the unplanned pregnancies, causing the group with that belief to grow
faster than groups using effective contraception.

Truth and Darwinian utility are correlated, but they are not the same.

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bediger4000
> Truth and Darwinian utility are correlated, but they are not the same.

I agree completely, and that's a problem - the USSR piled up a great many
externalities while slowing going down. But if we can't agree to disagree, and
even the factual basis of the universe is in contention (flood "geology"),
then what's left? You can't teach by armed enforcement. As the article says,
and experience dictates, arguments (in the sense of a set of convincing
statements leading to an inevitable conclusion) just don't work. The US as a
society slowly slid away from some kind of consensus about reality. You have
to let reality (which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it) teach a
few hard lessons. I hate this conclusion, by the way.

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jmpman
Sounds like an article written by someone who’s dating a homeopath and trying
to make amends after an argument.

