
The Modern-Day Mind-Killer - StokoeKeagan
https://www.keaganstokoe.com/post/the-modern-day-mind-killer
======
red_admiral
Since this is freshman-level "think, don't believe", here's an equally valid
counterargument at roughly the same level.

In Heinrich's book "The Secret of our Success" on cumulative cultural
evolution, he gives an example of pre-Columbus American cultures whose diet
was based on bitter manioc (a.k.a. cassava).

Like the name suggests, in its raw form it's too bitter to eat, but these
cultures evolved a set of traditions around the correct way to prepare it, and
any deviation was taboo. The traditions involved pounding, scraping, straining
and boiling the manioc over several days, most of the steps could only be
performed by women (at least in the studied Tukanoa culture) and the women
seem to have spend half their waking lives processing manioc.

So let's say you decide all the traditions are obviously bogus, do an
experiment and find that just boling the thing for a couple of hours removes
the bitter taste just as well.

The problem is the bitterness comes from cyanide, and boiling removes the
taste but not the cyanide itself - something which the traditional process is
really good at (Heinrich has studies and graphs to support this claim). Ten
years later, you and the small pre-modern rationalist community you've founded
are all in an advanced state of degeneration from cyanide poisoning.

The general principle here is called Chesterton's Fence (see the obvious wiki
page for details), which is that if you come across a fence in a field and
think it's stupid, make sure you really understand why it's there before you
tear it down.

There are more examples like this in the book, such as a taboo in Polynesia on
pregnant women consuming porpoises. It turns out that they do in fact contain
chemical compounds that increase the risk of birth defects.

To quote a review in the now-deleted Slate Star Codex blog by Scott Alexander
Ocasio-Cortez: "For basically all of history, using reason would get you
killed."

My own view is that "don't take anything on faith ever" is as bad a life plan
as "always follow traditions without question", and it's easy to think of lots
of freshman philosophy level arguments why (your 5-year old is too young to
properly understand electricity, would you want them to question your house
rule against poking things in power sockets).

_P.S. it's become a kind of in-joke among SSC followers to invent a surname
when they mention him now._

~~~
guscost
This is an excellent counterargument. Here is another one:

You will never be a completely rational being, no matter how hard you try. You
are very good at tricking yourself, and it happens all the time. If you
attempt to "think, don't believe", you will fail, and along the way yield all
control over _what_ you believe.

~~~
FeepingCreature
That's not an argument, just a sequence of assertions.

~~~
guscost
Each assertion is true. The last one is the argument, the first two are just
context.

~~~
FeepingCreature
I don't know what to tell you.

This is not how logic works.

~~~
stagas
We don't run on logic, trust me. I've spent the week writing a text editor. I
can trash logic completely. If you want to know, all absolutely logical pieces
of first-pass code failed terribly at edge cases that were completely
invisible and counter-intuitive. Not because the code was wrong, but because
it was right. I had to re-examine what I held to be true and came to realize
that we make sense of the world by assumptions that are only _loosely_ based
on reality. I highly recommend writing a text editor to everyone, as a hard
course on "logic", at least. It's the adaptation of monkey brain expectations
on a purely logical machine.

~~~
FeepingCreature
Well, since we don't run on logic, I'll just go ahead and disregard this
argument regardless.

------
Smithalicious
The buffet example is bad. You can't really go back in a buffet, so it's a
gamble where the certain outcome those first things (which you can see).
Furthermore it doesn't factor in the cost of having to walk more to get the
later items.

My only take away from it is that people don't really have as strong a
preference for buffet food as they might think. I'd also wager that avoiding
"bad" food is much more important than finding particularly "good" food.

~~~
yellowapple
Not to mention that the way the article presents that "study" doesn't make it
sound like they controlled for the very real possibility of "everything in the
buffet is appealing to around 75% of buffet eaters, so any reordering will
result in 75% grabbing the first thing they see".

Plus, the point of a buffet (for me at least, being the fatass I am) is to try
a little bit of everything, so unless it's something I already know I don't
like, I'm probably gonna grab it.

~~~
red_admiral
In a breakfast buffet, I always go for savoury over sweet, so I'm immune to
someone putting the muffins first. I'm probably "vulnerable" to croissants
versus sliced bread first though.

A friend of mine is a vegetarian; I don't imagine putting the ham first in the
buffet line would affect her much either.

------
crims0n
The article seems to be making a case for protecting your mind from the
constant bombardment of "junk food" media readily available in our current
culture. I respect the idea, but I find it impractical. I do however find it
effective to control the flow of that media, and in particular control the
order in which I consume it.

If I roll out of bed and open reddit or facebook first thing in the morning, I
feel like I am priming my mind for failure. Lately I have been trying to read
more enriching material in the morning, and slowly move into less useful
material as the day goes on. For example, I usually wake up and have my first
coffee while reading HN and WSJ. Mid morning break I may read a chapter of
whatever non-fiction book I am currently working on. Lunch may be Ars, TC, or
hackaday. And finally in the evening I will start moving towards reddit,
facebook, etc.

Maybe there are more disciplined people out there that can completely avoid
non-enriching material, but for some reason I can't shake it. I can however
move it to the least productive part of my day, and I generally feel better
for it.

~~~
omreaderhn
I built something to help with this actually:
[https://omreader.co](https://omreader.co)

You can read blogs (RSS feeds) and email newsletters on your Kindle. It allows
you to wake up and read long form content without needing your phone. I
personally find that whenever I have my phone on me I almost always end up
getting distracted so my solution is to just not have my phone anywhere near
me when I wake up in the morning (or throughout the parts of the day where I'm
trying to be productive).

I just launched it a few weeks ago. Any feedback would be great.

------
rytill
The buffet line analogy doesn’t really work. Since you can’t go backwards or
look too far ahead, you take the items at the beginning that are above your
satisfaction threshold, not knowing whether there will be items further along
that satisfy you.

~~~
krallja
With a buffet (and when browsing the Internet), you can absolutely go
backwards. Just get back in line. Yet we act as if there is a shortage of
$resource.

~~~
luckylion
> Just get back in line.

Which might take a long time, and by the time you're back at $item, it may be
out.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I wonder how long the lines were in the study, or if this was controlled for
at all.

------
tenebrisalietum
So obviously this can tie into current social media and the spread of mal-
information such as antivax, COVID mask protests, and memes that people let
alter their impression of people.

The traditional way to mitigate misinformation's harm was education and a
respect for the educated.

I think three things have happened that have prevented this from working:

\- We decided decades ago that people needed college degrees to enter much of
the workforce. This has reduced education to an employment gateway in the
minds of the majority of non-independently wealthy society. It may not have
done so if people actually needed the degrees for their jobs and alternate
career-starting things like apprenticeships were more available/known.

\- Education for all is seen as a method of making society for equal and
therefore the solution of a number of social ills. It really is, but has to be
done properly otherwise it doesn't work. Children who do not keep up tend to
be socially promoted. Children who are outcasts for various reasons, including
parental problems at home, drop out or degrade the experience for others in
the school. This either causes or is because many of the non-independently
wealthy masses see public school as a public babysitter, and they more or less
have to see things this way if they are living paycheck to paycheck, because
they can't afford to have someone stay home for their children.

\- The Internet has accelerated and likely caused fragmentation and in some
cases destruction of mass media, and has made mass media have to sell out and
become sensationalized to survive. Thus there is less and less of a common
media between people, and therefore less of an opportunity to provide any
substrate of a common culture. Social media bubbles exacerbate this.

~~~
Fellshard
We're also seeing an increasing number of cases where high-profile experts are
making high-profile claims that then fold in full public view; or experts that
make contradictory claims, under which case: from the perspective of a non-
expert, who's right?

Education is essential, and yet is not a panacea for thinking well. So when
experts can't seem to give people a straight answer, they'll simply turn to
their peer group and hope for the best. And right now, as you noted, peer
groups primarily consist of highly self-selected social media groups.

~~~
watwut
First problem is expecting expert answer to be simple, easy to understand,
without asterisks and conditions. Experts often disagree about nuances or have
competing theories.

Second issue is tendency to take the first confident guy with simple answer as
expert. The folding expert is pretty often not considered expert by people who
deal with the field - he is typically just someone confident and well spoken.

~~~
Fellshard
And how is the layman supposed to differentiate between the two? It's a fairly
intractable problem. Credentializing ends up having the opposite effect of
creating an orthodoxy that freezes the ability to think.

~~~
watwut
Well, credentials would be one thing. The lack of credentials sometimes is not
grave, but most of confident non experts don't have right ones. They may be
experts on something else.

Second thing is, if too many credentialed people object, there might be issue.

Third, lack of nuance, lack of asterisk and too much confidence are bad signs.

------
tomgp
The reason why people cut a cross in the base of Brussels sprouts is so they
tough part cooks faster so the more delicate leaves don’t go soggy the evil
spirits thing is just a nice story

~~~
dsr_
2 useful notes:

\- A less bitter variety of Brussels sprouts became widespread about a decade
ago

\- Any water-based method of cooking Brussels sprouts is convenient but
terrible compared to pan-frying with some onion and salt

~~~
asguy
Do you pan fry them entirely to done? I usually par-cook by steaming them a
bit, and then finish in the pan. Or roast them.

------
ngai_aku
This idea definitely takes on new meaning depending on which lense you’re
looking through. My first feeling was in agreement with the article because I
was considering the religious background in which I was brought up. My
worldview changed — for the better I would argue — after I really made a
conscious effort to examine my own beliefs. It took courage for me to step
outside of the group and pursue independent thought.

The more I read this article, the more uncomfortable I began feeling with the
tone it had, which I could see being used by the conspiracy/anti-science types
of the world. This idea that we all believe crazy ideas as a result of
overconfident experts is the same fallacy addressed by Isaac Asimov in his
essay “The Relativity of Wrong” [1]. The whole thing is worth a read, but I’ll
include the most relevant passage below.

> _In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute
> rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the
> earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow
> icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.

What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they
gradually refine and extend it with greater and greater subtlety as their
instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as
incomplete._

[1]
[https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.ht...](https://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.html)

------
ipython
Ugh. I hate these pseudo intellectual puff pieces. What ends up happening is
that this is used by all sides to reinforce their own existing thinking
patterns, not to challenge existing ones.

There are no actual actionable takeaways from reading this. As the article
says, we have an abundance of information. This, coupled with bad actors who
intentionally inject misleading, false, and emotionally charged information
into our incoming data stream, means our lizard brains are overloaded and
basically do the easiest thing possible: revert to emotion and agree with
information that confirms our already held biases.

The only thing that has been helpful to me is two fold: one, to revisit
technological triumphs of previous eras. I’m listening to 13 minutes to the
moon with my kids. It brings me to tears the focus, determination, and pure
dedication to science required to pull off such engineering feats. Second, I
push myself to read books. Mostly books about espionage because I find them
both entertaining and I like to think it helps me make sense of the noise
today. Currently I’m reading Ben Macintyres books - highly recommended.

------
ebiester
To add to others’ disagreements, I think there are two related traps in
independent thought First, there is a giant pyramid of knowledge that experts
have absorbed that the independent thinker hasn’t evaluated. Second, we
underestimate the pyramid of knowledge required for independent thought.

This doesn’t mean that a non-recognized expert cannot cultivate this knowledge
independently, but rather that it is exceedingly difficult to have both and
independent and valuable opinion of a wide variety of topics. Now, while this
does not account for the possibility of blind spots in fields or bias in
experts, it does mean that to have truly independent yet accurate thoughts,
you must account for that expertise in the thinking, which is a large task.

Do I think it makes more sense to directly read experts rather than secondary
and tertiary sources when creating opinions? Yes! However, that isn’t
independent thought. Perhaps my counter-proposal is independent thought in
areas of expertise, educated opinions based on expertise on topics about which
you care, and maintain humility in areas outside that sphere.

------
KirinDave
Is the thesis of this article: "it's important not to consume media or accept
popular opinions that trigger cognitive dissonance BECAUSE our preferences are
often determined by arbitrary aspects of our environment, bolstered by post-
hoc rationalization?" If so, that seems like the exact opposite of a good
idea, because the dissonance is probably there because of the exact same
arbitrary forces.

It also seems to imply that majority opinions are things to reject, rather
than interrogate. It applies a sort of inherent "don't be a sheep" mentality,
but if it's very cold outside then covering yourself in wool and keeping your
calorie ingestion up might actually be the most reasonable way to stay warm.

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I think this realization leads to the need
to challenge everything about your environment, accept the idea that different
points of view exist, and carefully evaluate if ideas are good and truthful
independently of their popularity. Implicitly siding with the minority opinion
every time leaves you just as open to manipulation as trusting the majority
every time, and we see both approaches used in many nation's politics.

~~~
jancsika
> Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I think this realization leads to the need
> to challenge everything about your environment,

If you understand systems-- why and how they work-- you don't need to
necessarily challenge everything. In fact, if you don't sufficiently
understand a system then "challenging everything" can signal a lack of
awareness and tacitly limit your options.

For example, the local mechanic can look at the queue of other customers and
decide it isn't worth the time to attempt to convince Socrates that fixing the
steering fluid leak is urgent.

In fact it's "turtles all the way down," because even when Socrates told me of
that encounter, I could see just how deep down the rabbit hole I'd have to go
to have any effect on their course of action. So I did my due diligence with
the weaker position of, "I've never gotten a suspicious estimate from that
mechanic." Same with at least two other people Socrates talked to.

Then one morning Socrates was late to work because the same car wouldn't run.
Socrates had to skip lunch and pay extra for a tow out to that same mechanic.

It was odd how Socrates suddenly seemed so reluctant to delve into the exact
nature of the problem with the car at that point.

~~~
KirinDave
> If you understand systems-- why and how they work-- you don't need to
> necessarily challenge everything. In fact, if you don't sufficiently
> understand a system then "challenging everything" can signal a lack of
> awareness and tacitly limit your options.

But how would you reach that recognition of the system with confidence without
interrogating it? What if your confidence in the system itself was informed by
coincidence, bias and genetic fallacies?

> For example, the local mechanic can look at the queue of other customers and
> decide it isn't worth the time to attempt to convince Socrates that fixing
> the steering fluid leak is urgent.

Oh my, "something something Engels was wrong..."

Nevermind that, Socrates might still be inclined in an era of plentiful
information to get a second opinion and quote on a damage car if the bill is
quite large. This is not at all unusual. Perhaps we might appeal to a parent
who says, "Oh yeah, that mechanic has never left me dissatisfied" and then at
least we are slightly decreasing the chance that pure proximity and chance
defined our preferences?

Which you in fact suggest, in the next paragraph. Is this not at least some
form of interrogation?

> In fact it's "turtles all the way down," because even when Socrates told me
> of that encounter, I could see just how deep down the rabbit hole I'd have
> to go to have any effect on their course of action. So I did my due
> diligence with the weaker position of, "I've never gotten a suspicious
> estimate from that mechanic." Same with at least two other people Socrates
> talked to.

It seems though like even this modest decision is something the article urges
us not to do, because evidence self-doubt or deliberation is itself a novel
"mind killer". The article itself is somewhat incoherent on this point,
suggesting that:

>> We live in the age of abundance. It's never been easier to passively
consume the opinions of others. It's also never been more dangerous.

Isn't a professional and authoritative opinion exactly what Socrates is paying
his mechanic Euthyphro for here? I think maybe you've misinterpreted the
article. The article urges folks to avoid consuming the opinions of people who
don't agree with you already, because their opinions might be compelling.

>> Our minds - when fed the first piece of information you come across - are
like crops without a ring of protection. They’re vulnerable and waiting to be
destroyed. By being deliberate about what we consume and what we believe, we
develop a ring of protection.

Which is a bit weird because, well, did these opinions the author wants to
defend emerge from a perfect void housing only the spirit of Descartes? Is not
the ultimate implicit and coincidental bias the one our parents furnished us
with? The author is arguing that people dare not consider any opinions than
these, because they might be invalidated.

But it's not clear why that would be so bad. Who says changing your mind when
new information presented is bad? If we're prone to proximity biases, genetic
fallacies and post-hoc rationalizations; then aren't we approaching something
closer to objectivity by re-evaluating our opinions over time? While we will
never remove _all_ bias, we can certainly strive to remove _some_ and that
seems somehow better if we accept the article's premise that it's somehow bad
to be manipulated by others.

Honestly, I wonder if you read the article carefully.

------
vz8
The buffet analogy is interesting, but flawed in the sense that:

1\. your selections don't radically change what the buffet offers in real time
like, say, Google search.

and

2\. Unless you take pains to anonymize, your buffet options are already skewed
to support your biases, say to starches.

My wife and I will research the same topic at the same time on our respective
workstations and get radically different results. The internet echo chamber
feeds back two very different experiences, side by side (Never mind what
happens when I fire up a non-US VPN)

One of us adds a single negative keyword to their search phrase and the
results are dishearteningly dystopic. Coworkers who rely on Facebook for their
daily dose of tribal information have an extremely different set of 'facts'
for any topic I care to mention.

What I find most disturbing about this is that few people can/will take the
time to compare notes across tribal or socioeconomic divides in a meaningful
way -- we're all consuming a different buffet and its becoming more difficult
by the minute to be sure of the chefs and suppliers.

------
0PingWithJesus
Articles like this always remind me of Clifford's "The Ethics of Belief". I
feel like no one ever sums up the the importance of thorough and independent
thought as well as Clifford did 150 years ago.

[http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Clifford_ethics.pdf](http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/Clifford_ethics.pdf)

------
markbnj
I didn't find a link to the buffet study, but isn't it possible that the
operator of the buffet leveraged past experience and placed the most popular
items first in the lineup?

~~~
raphlinus
Almost certainly this one, which explored the question of whether it would be
an effective strategy to encourage healthier food choices:

[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0077055)

Also, interesting fact: this is a Wansink paper. Wansink is a bullshit artist
of the highest order. So I think there's quite a meta-lesson here.

[https://www.vox.com/science-and-
health/2018/9/19/17879102/br...](https://www.vox.com/science-and-
health/2018/9/19/17879102/brian-wansink-cornell-food-brand-lab-retractions-
jama)

------
jonathanwallace
Taking the author's advice, does anyone have a link to the study the author
cites about the buffet line?

~~~
StokoeKeagan
[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0077055)

------
pantaloony
Starts off promising but spends a lot of space going nowhere. Lots of inline
links that go to other articles on the same blog. Reads like a self-help or
pop-business book and content marketing had a baby and it was raised by a TED
talk.

~~~
dutch3000
dead on. - ultimately a let down

~~~
drno123
And the Copernicus mention is too shallow for a company that claims to
innovate learning and speaks about thinking dor yourself. After researching
history of astronomy I found out that we are all served the narrative of bad
church against science, but turns out that, in time of Copernicus and Galileo
claiming that Earth revolves around the Sun without proving why parallax of
the stars cannot be observed was bad science.

------
miobrien
I really like the quote cited in the comments: “Be a seeker, not a believer.”

------
wintorez
The world is full of people who can think for themselves, but I’m afraid most
of them has became jaded and tired of educating others.

------
catalogia
If anything, I think the current state of the internet shows that fear is
still the mind-killer.

