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Studies Say Ideology Trumps Facts
Anti-Globalism writes "We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief."
I'm entirely not surprised.
In my opinion, broadly speaking, there are two kinds of people in the world; those who prefer an internal moral compass and those who prefer an external moral compass. The former tend to analyse things for themselves, look at all the facts and come up with a decision- is this "right/true/a good idea/etc". The latter tend to look to some higher authority- religion, the government, parents, spouse, boss, etc to make the majority of these decisions for them.
This doesn't mean that the former is automatically better than the latter- the latter have a vast pool of opinions to draw upon, while the former only have themselves and can be often actively disregard the opinions of others in the name of "doing what *they* want". Individualism for the sake of individualism, you might say.
Most people, I think, fall somewhere in the middle and lean one way or the other. I tend to lean towards the former, but I recognise the traps that can befall these kind of people and actively seek to avoid them.
Humanity as a whole has definitely peaked. We continue to enhance out technology, but the lump of meat at the centre of it has a fundamental flaw, built in by the evolutionary process. Our imaginations that make all the technology possible is a double edged sword that also results in all the useless and often destructive ideology.
If humanity has something approaching a "purpose", it is to create a successor intelligence (machine, biological or hybrid) and at that moment we will have become the gods we conjure in our imaginations, and also obsolete.
Actually, my best bet would be on "cognitive dissonance" rather than "conspiracy theory."
The best way to illustrate cognitive dissonance is via the classic experiment: you assign someone (e.g., a student) a Homer Simpson-esque job that's boring him to tears. Then you one day say he can stop doing it, you have something better to do with him. But you ask him if he can find a replacement for that previous crap job. You even offer a dollar if he does. So he'll go try to convince someone else that it's a great job to take. The fun thing is, after a while he'll have convinced himself too that it's a great job.
Apparently, having to reconcile between "I'm a nice and honest guy" and "I just lied to a bunch of people for a lousy dollar", he'll alter the latter to, basically, "yeah, well, it wasn't really a lie." Just to keep his mental model consistent.
It seems to be a function of at least the mammalian brain. When you have two contradictory ideas in your model, one has to give. With humans, though, if one idea is too important to let go, something else has to give.
Even more fun is that the strength of the effect is inversely proportional to how sustainable or justifiable that action is. If you offer him a lot more money, he has the escape of, basically, "yeah, well, I needed the money. So I have my price too. Bite me." If it's a precondition to getting out of that crap job, same thing, he has an excuse. But when there's no excuse he can wrap his mind around, he'll alter the truth so he doesn't need an excuse.
A similar fun effect is with kids. Apparently when they really want something or to do something, as silly deterrent like "mommy will pout" is often actually more effective than a harsh punishment, if applied consistently. When there is no real justification for "why didn't I do that, if I wanted to anyway?" something else has to give, and it becomes, "I didn't really want that in the first place." Fun stuff.
I find that the same applies to politics, religion, fanboys, or, for that matter, everything else. The least justifiable a position is, the more people will warp reality to keep it. And the more rabidly they'll defend that redefinition of reality, lest their whole mental model comes crashing down around their ears.
And, yes, applying more force just creates more resistance.
And for a last bit of fun, there's no defender more stalwart of a piece of bullshit, than someone whose model already broke down once and was patched to that bullshit. If they're going to have to admit "I was wrong and doing wrong" anyway, they'll run with that to the hilt, and make an even more warped model in the other direction. So funnily enough, there is no more rabid, say, XBox fanboy, than one who was a PS2 fanboy and felt betrayed by Sony and had to let their whole "Sony for ever!!!" model crash. And viceversa. There is no bible-thumper for puritan morals more rabid than someone who was a prostitute until last week. And viceversa: nobody does a good christian-baiting trolling like someone who still went to church last month. There is no Republican more rabid about every single aspect of that ideology, than someone who was a Democrat until they felt somehow betrayed. And viceversa.
But now they won't just change about the aspect where they thought they were cheated, they'll go for the whole list, from military spending to abortion stance to gay marriage to everything else. Now Party X is right in everything, and Party Y is wrong about everything, because I don't like Party Y any more. And I must enlighten the masses about how wrong and evil Party Y is!
And the least justifiable that position is (e.g., don't be silly, Sony didn't "betray" anyone and didn't owe you anything in the first place), the more immovable it will be. As I was saying, fun stuff.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Well, he obviously isn't trying to be elected a third time. The only way he can remain President is through a constitutional amendment (which I doubt Congress will give him) or a coup d'etat.
Did you hear how s/he responded to, say, McCain's ads? Is it possible that s/he just felt it inappropriate to subject passengers to overhearing any overt partisan messages originating from a publicly financed source (either the radio, or even the bus driver)?
I've got not idea since I wasn't there, but a non-partisan stance would seem like an appropriate one for a public employee while they are "on the taxpayer's clock" (barring, of course, elected officials who voters presumably may have elected in the expectation they would be partisan).
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Sound Bites just implement association and association is the basis of our emotional responses.
Mass media typically just hit us with sound bites, knowing that most people will just skim the news. They see Obama and Muslim in one sentence and even if it's saying that he's not one, Obama-Muslim is still the association created in many minds. Couple this with a Muslim- Terrorism association similarly constructed and Obama is now connected to that too. The association creates an emotional response and that is what drives most people.
It's not about logic. Just association.
This is well understood by spin doctors. You may notice that newspaper articles contain spin in the form of opinion and association building sound bites at the beginning but still include the actual facts at the very end. They do this knowing full well that most people won't read to the end and parse the data and process the logical inconsistencies but they can still provide counter arguments about bias by pointing to the end and saying "Look we really did include all the facts".
I was a poli sci major, now a law student (yeah, I know, what the hell am I doing on Slashdot...). I think the most useful discussion I ever heard in class was one on the general idea of "lenses" we see the world through.
The professor who taught the course had been in the Intelligence Community for some time, and this is an issue that analysts and other intelligence officers encountered constantly and is, in fact, encountered in essentially every career path. Analysts, who may not have visited the country they work on in years, will see it very differently than the man on the ground. The man on the ground, however, who is constantly tied up with a million small details, will likely see things differently and fail to see the big picture.
In my own life, I can think of a few instances where this has been particularly true. I had the "pleasure" of getting caught in the middle of a slum during the December 2001 riots in Argentina. Not a pleasant experience, needless to say. So now, every time I go back to Latin America, I'm paranoid. Once you've seen people getting stabbed and robbed all around you, you get that way. It's my "lens" - I always see things as less stable than they truly are, and always feel that I need to be ready to either batten down the hatches or bolt at any moment.
A more useful story would come from a recent work-related incident. A legal issue came up when I was an intern at a law office (yes, imagine that). I was in a conference with the other attorneys - all distinguished professionals with lengthy records - discussing the matter, and all of the attorneys handled it exactly like they would a case from a textbook - they played their "role". They took the facts they were given, assumed they were real, and attempted to find a legal answer to the situation. That's what lawyers do. After listening to discussion on this for several minutes, I piped up and questioned the very basis of the facts (the situation seemed a bit far-fetched to me - one not yet entirely corrupted by the practice of law - and I simply applied Occam's razor). I received strange stares for a moment, and then the attorney in charge of the matter said, "wow, I'd never considered that before. Let's look into it." Sure enough, I was right, and we saved a lot of money, headache, and effort on research and other costs.
People simply see things differently and will process information differently. Environment, experience, language, education, spirituality, family background, geographical origin, economic situation, genetics (to an extent), etc. all shape how we see the world - and how we even interpret - or even recognize - fact. It's only human. The best we can hope to do is to acknowledge it and to seek out those who view things differently in the hopes of honing our own vision and seeing things we hadn't seen before.
Actually, democracy works pretty well. There are two types - representative and direct. The direct democracy works much better than representative, because you don't have to trust the representatives. In fact, representative democracy encourages people to blindly trust, and this brings these issues.
I like to compare this difference to difference with a contract system. Representative democracy is like spoken (unwritten) contract - you have to rely on trust. Direct (or semi-direct) democracy is analogous to written contract system - you use higher law - in case of contract the judicial system, in case of direct democracy the referendum, initiative and recall to enforce the contract. Obviously, the written contract is better than spoken contract. But people have trouble understanding that direct democracy is better than representative democracy for exactly the same reason.
I would also like to note that this result doesn't affect democracy in negative nor positive way, because the people who are wrong can be wrong both ways equally. I believe that facts triumph over superstition in the end, because there is no single superstition, but the whole spectrum. For example, those believing in evolution are united in their belief. Those believing in creationism are very fragmented - ranging from people who believe in ID without God to young earth creationists.
... is the voice that can be used to correct falsehoods.
It is also the voice used to create falsehoods.
The modern media is not the fourth branch, or estate, of government. It is the First Estate. Let me explain.
The estates have classically been, in order:
1) The Church
2) The Aristocracy
3) Everybody Else
Traditionally added to this list has been
4) The Media ("Independent of church and state")
This was the rule up to one should think about 50 years ago in most countries. It's still the case today in many, especially latin american, countries. However, one should realise that the estates we not so much defined by WHO they were so much as WHAT they did. For instance, one can easily replace "aristocracy" with "very rich people", and the second estate model still fits modern society.
However, how does one replace "church" in modern society? Even in america, religious leaders wield only a small fraction of the power they once did. Do we then conclude that the model of the three estates is therefore outdated and does not apply? I would argue that this is not the case, and that the three estates model is in fact a valid model for how almost all societies operate on a basic level.
What did the first estate do? The church was closer to the people that the aristocracy. It wielded great influence over them through its sermons, traditions and omni-presence in society at large. It mostly sided with the aristocracy, to maintain the status quo. Though it would disagree with their policies when it suited its own purposes. The general idea was that the aristocrats ruled, while the church helped keep the people in line. In turn, the aristocrats would confer legal status, benefits and privileges to the church. It was a symbiotic relationship designed to keep power out of the hands of the masses.
Who replaces the church of the Ancien Régime in our 21st century society? No-one? Look beyond outward apearance and to the actual substance of the matter. Who is close to those in power and spreads their message to the masses? Who is close enough to the average citizen to influence their opinion? Who generally agrees with the government, but can disagree when it suits their purposes. Who benefits from their patronage?
The modern media, or at least the majority of it, constitutes the first estate in our modern society. I'd like to stress that I do not believe this to be the result of a conspiracy or plot. Rather, I would hold that the three estates model is a natural state towards which human societies will gravitate, without anyone ever consciously planning or realizing it.
The demise of church power in western society has left a vacuum. The Media has filled that vacuum. When people talk about the Daily Show being the only source of "real news", they are in effect pointing out the inherant difference between the "New Media" of the First estate (Bill O'Reilly), and the "Old Media" of the Fourth estate (Jon Stewart). These two model of media have always existed together, but in recent times, the First estate media has become the dominant type.
In order for idealogical to work, it needs propaganda. It needs a first estate. In order to resist ideology, we need the truth. We need a fourth estate. Right now, we have too much of the former and dangerously little of the latter.
May the Maths Be with you!
You handily glossed over the fact she only thought the book did not belong, and never did anything about it.
And you handily glossed over the fact that the GP used a poor quote to support his argument, and you're both missing something important. From the same article (emphasis mine):
The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.
"People would bring books back censored," recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin's predecessor. "Pages would get marked up or torn out."
Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.
Note: One of these contemporary reports from a different article/reporter claim that it was a little more than a simple request. Now back to the main point:
This presents one heck of a conflict: believe the witness accounts of her constituents garnered from the investigative reporting of news organizations that are trying desperately to dig up dirt on all fronts (yes, all. Just because someone has more dirt than another does not mean that the reporting is unfair.) or the words of the campaign that's trying desperately to get elected. Is there a truth to this? Of course, but it means one side is deliberately lying, spinning the truth, or honestly believes one way or the other despite being wrong. It really comes down to who you believe, if either.
I'm from the UK and recently took a holiday in San Diego to visit some relatives. Great place, but unfortunately they had a limited Sat TV package that only gave a choice of a few news channels, and Fox News was the one that got turned on most.
Now I've never seen Fox News before, and coming from a country there the TV news has a mandate to be unbiased, Fox News was quite a shock to the system. I've never seen anything like it. It's completely one sided (towards Republicans) crammed with emotional rhetoric deliberately aimed at misinforming the viewer. It so over exaggerates the current level of the "terrorist threat" to America, that an outsider viewing this crap would think you're on the cusp of being invaded.
Watching it reminded me of the kind of news propaganda that the Nazi's used in WW2 to convince their population that their cause was just and righteous, and demoralize their enemies.
I know that sounds a bit strong, but I was just so shocked at the level of dishonest manipulation Fox News are involved in. And horrified that there are people in the USA who actually watch this trash and BELIEVE that it's real news!
Yes, that was metaphorically speaking, and using the term "wiring" rather inexact.
The actual "wiring", as you noted, is largely the data. That's how we learn.
The metaphorical "wiring" I'm talking about is actually in the DNA and proteins encoded by it. It's how the neurons themselves are built to work. They don't rewire the network randomly, they have a bit of code in the DNA that says how they should work. The BIOS and bootstrap code of that neural network, so to speak. That's really what I'm talking about when I say "wired".
I hope it didn't cause too much confusion to anyone.
As for how would you check for consistency, I dunno, by running a proof through it and seeing if you get two contradicting results? There's even a conjecture that that's what dreams are: the night job that runs simulations through that data.
But in truth I doubt that there's anyone who can tell you exactly how the brain works, and which pathway belongs to the consistency checking job. If we knew that, we'd already have a working AI.
We can however look at it from the outside, like at a black box, and notice some things it does. And there is strong evidence that it does that kind of a model consistency check and cleanup. Even if we don't know exactly how it works, we can see what goes in and what comes out, and it looks that way.
Same as I can look at a plane and say it tries to keep its altitude constant, even if I have no fucking clue which control surfaces are used for that, and even less clue what the code running on its computers is.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
(Leviticus 11:11)
This is one of my favorite Bible quotes. I ask people if they take the Bible literally, then (if yes) ask them why they eat shellfish. If they do not take the Bible literally, then why are they against homosexuality?
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
You've come pretty close to my definition of evil: "Fucking over someone else for your own gain."
You've also described something I like to call, "Casual selfishness." It's those actions that only slightly inconvenience other people, but really gain you very little at all, done without consideration, and with forethought only about your own slight gain. I see casual selfishness every day on the ride in to work -- from those who don't queue up in slow moving traffic until they force their way in at the very end of the merge, for instance, or those who ride your ass though you couldn't go any faster.
Fortunately, those people are in the minority. I'd say it's only a percent or two who do things like that.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
1. Who fucking cares about which religion he was brought up in? Or even which religion (if any) he practices now? As long as he doesn't attempt to impose his religion (that includes Christianity) on others, it's a non-issue, or at least it should be to any reasonably intelligent person...
2. If you think Obama is a Communist, you (like most Americans) don't know the meaning of the term. I'm a socialist (as in left of the social democrats in Sweden, that would be pinko commie to you), and believe me, Obama is no communist. Here he would be on the far right side of the spectrum. His views on socialized health care for instance are to the right of even the most right-wing parties here.
Actually, according to the recently published Baylor Religion Survey, which was conducted by the Gallup Organization, traditional Christian religion greatly decreases credulity, from the occult to conspiracies to Bigfoot. It was one of the more surprising findings of the study.
He was pushing for some reforms since 2001 - that's not exactly doing nothing [...]
"Pushing" is not results. I literally don't care what they we're doing all this time. There is only one fact that matters, and that fact is that the man in charge failed to prevent the crisis that you acknowledge he knew was coming. The ONLY thing that matters to me is results. And based on results, Bush is an abject failure on this score (and nearly every other score, but I digress).
I recognize the roots of this came from the left. And they should be held responsible as well. But one man had the responsibility to SOLVE IT before it became a $700 billion dollar debacle.
As for McCain, I have zero confidence in that idiot. He's uneducated, he picked a horrendous VP candidate, he's a hothead who can't even control himself in public enough not to call his wife a c***, he dumped his crippled wife pretty damn fast once he returned from the war for a rich socialite.
I may not agree with Obama on a lot of issues, but at least I know he's not a moron. Is it too much to ask for educated Republicans who aren't dishonorable embarrassments to run for President?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
You WANT more government regulation and intervention in the markets? Because that's what you're asking for on these matters.
Damn fucking right I do. I want the government to hold S&P accountable when they claim that an MBS that contain tranches of subprime mortgages are AAA when they're so clearly not. I want the government to hold the banks responsible when they hand out predatory loans. These are *basic* things the government should have been doing to curtail the market forces that led to this situation. The fact that you don't understand that just says to me that you don't actually understand how the financial markets got to this place, and are instead intent upon parroting republicrat talking points.
This study would be more interesting if it were done using a nice, well-defined reproducible or falsifiable scientific or mathematical fact and a common misconception.
I'm at work and really need to get back to work so sorry for not providing references.
I read another study about memory and belief that used Iraq's involvement in 9/11 and Al Qaeda. They choose a sample of people that believed that that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were involved an 9/11 and had ties to Al Qaeda.
Evidence that there was no existing relationship at the time of the invasion was presented. Included in the evidence was video of Cheney, Rumsfeld and/or Bush explicitly denying they ever said there was a connection. The result was that people's belief about said involvement was momentarily changed. But over a period of days and weeks, as they forgot the details of the rebuttal, they returned to their original belief which was "easier to remember." Fascinating stuff.
Of course my recollection of the study is no doubt influenced by my ideology...
Some privacy policy Slashdot.