Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts(pnas.org)
pnas.org
Personal experiences bridge moral and political divides better than facts
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/6/e2008389118
173 comments
It's interesting to me that this delineates between facts and personal experience as if personal experience doesn't occupy the same space as facts. Perhaps a more useful way to think about people's relation to truth is one of proximity. For a given individual, their personal experience is entirely factual, and because it is also most proximate to them, it is weighted the most highly. Intuitively, I think we understand this, so we tend to weight other people's experiences similarly, knowing that those are as proximate to them as our experiences are to us.
If I understand it correctly, the claim is not that personal experience narration is a superior form of objective information to facts, it's that sharing personal experience is more likely to create a feeling of relational connection, which in turn is more likely to lead to a shift in position.
Tossing facts in an argument where people don't feel any personal connection is a bit like throwing stones at each other. Maybe the one with more and bigger stones gains a temporary advantage, but it leads to a retrenchment of positions, which doesn't help in the long run.
Tossing facts in an argument where people don't feel any personal connection is a bit like throwing stones at each other. Maybe the one with more and bigger stones gains a temporary advantage, but it leads to a retrenchment of positions, which doesn't help in the long run.
> If I understand it correctly, the claim is [...] that sharing personal experience is more likely to create a feeling of relational connection, which in turn is more likely to lead to a shift in position.
The last part is wrong. The authors are explicit on this point: they are not studying persuasion, i.e., changes in people's issue positions. (They never measure change in people's issue positions.) Instead, they are studying the effects of sharing factual claims vs. sharing personal experiences on respect: which strategy makes you more respected?
See especially page 3: "we leave aside the question of persuasion to focus on how best to foster respect in moral disagreements with political opponents."
The last part is wrong. The authors are explicit on this point: they are not studying persuasion, i.e., changes in people's issue positions. (They never measure change in people's issue positions.) Instead, they are studying the effects of sharing factual claims vs. sharing personal experiences on respect: which strategy makes you more respected?
See especially page 3: "we leave aside the question of persuasion to focus on how best to foster respect in moral disagreements with political opponents."
Huh, this is an important point that I missed from skimming the abstract too.
Are they saying that if I share my personal experience with you, you will feel more respected by me than if I share facts?
Are they saying that if I share my personal experience with you, you will feel more respected by me than if I share facts?
No, it's the other way around: if you share your personal experience with me, I'll respect you more than I would if you instead shared facts. At least, that's the authors' claim.
But what it means to "share facts" in these studies is not what you might anticipate. In Study 5, for example, participants speak with someone who disagrees with them about gun control. In the article, we're told that these interlocutors "offered either personal experiences or shared factual knowledge to support that stance." But the Supporting Information (which is separate from the article) shows what the interlocutors really said:
> Well, I do think you’re wrong about gun policy. I am [for/against] gun control, and I feel pretty strongly about that. I don’t know how you can call yourself an American if you don’t think that guns [hurt people and communities/keep our communities safe]. I believe this because I have read many books and governmental reports on gun policy, so my factual knowledge has really made me feel strongly about this. [1]
The interlocutor claims to be basing his views on "factual knowledge," but no actual facts are offered. To me, this seems a bad way to study the effects of fact-giving in discussions. If you want to do that, you should...study discussions in which facts are given.
Study 4 is similar in this respect. Then again, in the authors' defense, there's more to the article than these two studies.
[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2021/01/25/200838911...
But what it means to "share facts" in these studies is not what you might anticipate. In Study 5, for example, participants speak with someone who disagrees with them about gun control. In the article, we're told that these interlocutors "offered either personal experiences or shared factual knowledge to support that stance." But the Supporting Information (which is separate from the article) shows what the interlocutors really said:
> Well, I do think you’re wrong about gun policy. I am [for/against] gun control, and I feel pretty strongly about that. I don’t know how you can call yourself an American if you don’t think that guns [hurt people and communities/keep our communities safe]. I believe this because I have read many books and governmental reports on gun policy, so my factual knowledge has really made me feel strongly about this. [1]
The interlocutor claims to be basing his views on "factual knowledge," but no actual facts are offered. To me, this seems a bad way to study the effects of fact-giving in discussions. If you want to do that, you should...study discussions in which facts are given.
Study 4 is similar in this respect. Then again, in the authors' defense, there's more to the article than these two studies.
[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2021/01/25/200838911...
Narcissism. "I've read many books and governmental reports..." is (presumably) a fact. It's a fact about the person saying it and not about the issue. It's a way to claim "I know what I'm talking about" without evidence.
Unfortunately in today's world, you can be well read in any subject and still end up on either side based on what you've read.
Unfortunately in today's world, you can be well read in any subject and still end up on either side based on what you've read.
> It's a fact about the person saying it
Which ironically enough, seems to be the definition itself of "personal experience".
Notice also how there is emotion thrown in: "it made me feel strongly about". How is this supposed to be an argument?
Which ironically enough, seems to be the definition itself of "personal experience".
Notice also how there is emotion thrown in: "it made me feel strongly about". How is this supposed to be an argument?
> How is this supposed to be an argument?
I agree, if heard that kind of argument then I would think it was ridiculous and narcissistic.
My personal experience is that people often argue in this way, and if I’m being honest if I don’t catch myself than I too am tempted to argue this way.
I think there’s a few factors going on, foremost perhaps an aspect of normal human psychology is that when humans process information and from that information come to a observation or conclusion, we tend to remember the conclusion we came to and not the process of coming to that conclusion. Also, I know that I personally (and also everyone else too I believe) think about myself quite a bit more than anyone else. It’s easy to live in my head and forget that not everyone knows what think I know.
So tldr - forgetting stuff and being selfish
I agree, if heard that kind of argument then I would think it was ridiculous and narcissistic.
My personal experience is that people often argue in this way, and if I’m being honest if I don’t catch myself than I too am tempted to argue this way.
I think there’s a few factors going on, foremost perhaps an aspect of normal human psychology is that when humans process information and from that information come to a observation or conclusion, we tend to remember the conclusion we came to and not the process of coming to that conclusion. Also, I know that I personally (and also everyone else too I believe) think about myself quite a bit more than anyone else. It’s easy to live in my head and forget that not everyone knows what think I know.
So tldr - forgetting stuff and being selfish
Do they not control for "trust" that the person has genuine factual knowledge? So your personal doubting due to lack of sources is controlled for, I believe, in their "manipulation checks" on page 1.
So people who aren't presented with enough cues to create trust (and even the strongest rationalist has their own thresholds here, e.g. your heart surgeon, a Nobel laureate, etc) would be factored into account. Citation only matters to the listener when trust doesn't exist, esp when "determinations of truthfulness in the universe" isn't even what the researchers care to study -- but rather, how respect develops between the people who receive trusted facts vs trusted experiences :)
So people who aren't presented with enough cues to create trust (and even the strongest rationalist has their own thresholds here, e.g. your heart surgeon, a Nobel laureate, etc) would be factored into account. Citation only matters to the listener when trust doesn't exist, esp when "determinations of truthfulness in the universe" isn't even what the researchers care to study -- but rather, how respect develops between the people who receive trusted facts vs trusted experiences :)
[deleted]
Thanks for the correction!
Anecdotally this seems true. Dick Cheney is a hard core neo con but having daughters who were lesbian made him a lot more understanding on the issue of gay rights.
John McCain was similar but his personal experience of being a POW made him a life long advocate against torture.
There’s a famous video of Christopher Hitchens who used to believe that water boarding people was justified in some cases. He volunteered to a mock water boarding session and immediately bailed and said it changed his view on water boarding.
Anti immigrant attitudes are sometimes found among those who have the least contact with immigrants. The cities which are cosmopolitan and full of immigrants are often very pro immigration.
This feels like a very HN zeitgeist where people are just data processors who come to conclusions by analyzing data.
Language is a broken tool. There’s a difference between reading about and seeing the floor plans of the Sistine chapel and actually being there and gazing up at it.
John McCain was similar but his personal experience of being a POW made him a life long advocate against torture.
There’s a famous video of Christopher Hitchens who used to believe that water boarding people was justified in some cases. He volunteered to a mock water boarding session and immediately bailed and said it changed his view on water boarding.
Anti immigrant attitudes are sometimes found among those who have the least contact with immigrants. The cities which are cosmopolitan and full of immigrants are often very pro immigration.
This feels like a very HN zeitgeist where people are just data processors who come to conclusions by analyzing data.
Language is a broken tool. There’s a difference between reading about and seeing the floor plans of the Sistine chapel and actually being there and gazing up at it.
But your examples are slightly different. In those, the person changing their mind has suffered the consequences of holding a particular opinion. Have a billionaire live on the streets for a year and he will change his opinions about homelessness, subject a bully to bullying and he might stop bullying others, an anti-feminist dad with a few daughters might become a feminist, and so on.
If John McCain only had heard about others experiences being POWs had he become a life-long advocate against torture? Probably not. This has been explored in the context of political conflicts; between Boers and coloreds in South Africa, between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, and between Israel and the Palestinians. The research indicates that merely talking to someone suffering from oppression or injustice does not change one's opinion about that oppression or injustice.
If John McCain only had heard about others experiences being POWs had he become a life-long advocate against torture? Probably not. This has been explored in the context of political conflicts; between Boers and coloreds in South Africa, between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, and between Israel and the Palestinians. The research indicates that merely talking to someone suffering from oppression or injustice does not change one's opinion about that oppression or injustice.
Occasionally it swings in the opposite direction. I've met immigrants who are staunchly anti-immigration.
This is an example of broken language.
Immigrants are never simply anti-immigrant, for example there might be nuance to their view as to whether it is okay to cut in line, especially if they waited the ‘legal’ way.
Immigrants are never simply anti-immigrant, for example there might be nuance to their view as to whether it is okay to cut in line, especially if they waited the ‘legal’ way.
The vast majority of people who are "anti-immigration", and who are not immigrants themselves (or recent descendants thereof), are not "simply anti-immigrant" either. Most "immigration restrictionists" want to reduce the levels of immigration significantly compared to current levels, but very few of them want to drive it all the way down to literally zero with no exceptions whatsoever ever allowed. Also, many "immigration restrictionists" want to reduce immigration by certain groups (whom they view as "culturally alien" or "problematic"), but are quite happy for continued (or even increased) immigration by groups they like. So if it is true that "immigrants are never simply anti-immigrant", well that's true of non-immigrants too.
No, I truly mean people who are against any sort of immigration. A subset of which who say that they escaped from worse cultures and don't want the new culture to be diluted.
I agree with you, though it would have been nice if you listed a single view going the other direction ;-)
These are examples of an individual being sympathetic towards something that isn't traditionally part of their political affiliation's viewpoints. The study is about building respect between people with different political viewpoints.
Even Hitler was against employing gas warfare in WWII due to his experience with it in the Great War.
I think the aspect that spans between your comment and the one you replied to is this:
Why should “personal experiences” be a different category than “facts?” (even taking for granted the extra step you mentioned, where it is the use of these experiences within a discussion, not the absolute existence of the experience, at play).
For example, suppose I know you and you are honest and trustworthy, so if you verbally testify to an experience, I’ll believe it.
Why would there be a difference in you coming to me and saying, “I attended a BLM rally and just observed such a clear and obvious peaceful sense of non-violent protesting” vs you coming to me and saying “According to research institute XYZ, statistically almost none of the BLM protests involved violence.”
Both of those things are facts in 100% the same sense, in every way. But because you personally claim to experience one of them, I am likely to give it more weight.
Even though there are plenty of reasonable hypotheses why humans would rely on this heuristic, it is still a big problem and a big source of manipulation, from liars, deceivers, conspiracy theories, debunked cranks, folk wisdom, etc.
If our goal is to believe as accurately as possible then we should not feel accepting or accommodating of a heuristic quirk in which we regard one set of facts that have the door wide open to manipulation (anecdotes of others) as generally more compelling than facts sourced through research, compiling data, journalism and so forth.
If we let up the pressure to thwart this heuristic, the most likely outcome is that people use confirmation bias and folk wisdom to construct false realities - and indeed in the US we have been seeing that play out in a huge violent saga. That didn’t happen because people don’t like being confronted with hard facts, it happened because we have allowed much too weak of a sense of social obligation to align beliefs with accurate predictions, as opposed to merely letting people feel they are entitled to believe whatever they want.
Why should “personal experiences” be a different category than “facts?” (even taking for granted the extra step you mentioned, where it is the use of these experiences within a discussion, not the absolute existence of the experience, at play).
For example, suppose I know you and you are honest and trustworthy, so if you verbally testify to an experience, I’ll believe it.
Why would there be a difference in you coming to me and saying, “I attended a BLM rally and just observed such a clear and obvious peaceful sense of non-violent protesting” vs you coming to me and saying “According to research institute XYZ, statistically almost none of the BLM protests involved violence.”
Both of those things are facts in 100% the same sense, in every way. But because you personally claim to experience one of them, I am likely to give it more weight.
Even though there are plenty of reasonable hypotheses why humans would rely on this heuristic, it is still a big problem and a big source of manipulation, from liars, deceivers, conspiracy theories, debunked cranks, folk wisdom, etc.
If our goal is to believe as accurately as possible then we should not feel accepting or accommodating of a heuristic quirk in which we regard one set of facts that have the door wide open to manipulation (anecdotes of others) as generally more compelling than facts sourced through research, compiling data, journalism and so forth.
If we let up the pressure to thwart this heuristic, the most likely outcome is that people use confirmation bias and folk wisdom to construct false realities - and indeed in the US we have been seeing that play out in a huge violent saga. That didn’t happen because people don’t like being confronted with hard facts, it happened because we have allowed much too weak of a sense of social obligation to align beliefs with accurate predictions, as opposed to merely letting people feel they are entitled to believe whatever they want.
> Why would there be a difference in you coming to me and saying, [ ... ]
because if I really don't want to agree with you, I can accept your story but regard it as an anecdote that does not contradict what I see/read from my media bubble.
I can't do that with the study from research institute XYZ, so I'll just dismiss it out of hand. This requires more cognitive effort (for example, I have to explicitly or implicitly assert that XYZ people are all liars, or idiots, or both).
It's much easier for me to accept your story because even if I don't believe it to be true or representative, my rejection doesn't require much effort, and doesn't require me being overtly negative towards you.
because if I really don't want to agree with you, I can accept your story but regard it as an anecdote that does not contradict what I see/read from my media bubble.
I can't do that with the study from research institute XYZ, so I'll just dismiss it out of hand. This requires more cognitive effort (for example, I have to explicitly or implicitly assert that XYZ people are all liars, or idiots, or both).
It's much easier for me to accept your story because even if I don't believe it to be true or representative, my rejection doesn't require much effort, and doesn't require me being overtly negative towards you.
What I’m saying is that the heuristic you describe is perfectly understandable, but it’s a bad outcome for society. My comment is not about the “why” behind the existence of this heuristic. There are many obvious reasons that leap off the page in terms of evolutionary adaptation, confirmation bias, availability heuristic, halo bias and so forth.
Instead what I am saying is that if I approach a new conversation tomorrow and I say to myself something like this,
> “Boy, my friend Bob sure is not going to like to hear about the very overt evidence of Trump siding with white supremacists. He won’t like that so I’d better not appeal to facts where Trump’s quotes were compiled and analyzed by researchers. Instead I should tell him about my experience walking near a Trump rally and directly observing racist language going unrebuked by campaign staff. Then at least he’ll connect with the part that is my experience instead of immediately taking a motivated cognition biased position gainsaying the more official data.”
then that would be a very bad thing - much worse than directly confronting Bob with the actual facts and making it clear it’s not OK for Bob to inhabit a false reality where one type of fact (anecdotes) is accepted but another (data, research, journalism) is rejected. That cannot be left unchecked.
Mitt Romney actually said it quite well in the Senate inauguration proceedings after the Capitol riot,
“If you respect people who are disappointed by the outcome of the election and believe it was stolen, the best thing you can do is tell them the truth.”
Of course the election is just an example, but the point is more general. If someone is resistant to real facts, and you actually respect them and want to reach a positive conclusion, the best thing is absolutely always to confront them with the truth. If you instead deliberately mollify it and water it down to an anecdote they are more likely to accept while not adjusting their beliefs, you are only disrespecting them and hurting yourself, the other party, and discourse in general.
Instead what I am saying is that if I approach a new conversation tomorrow and I say to myself something like this,
> “Boy, my friend Bob sure is not going to like to hear about the very overt evidence of Trump siding with white supremacists. He won’t like that so I’d better not appeal to facts where Trump’s quotes were compiled and analyzed by researchers. Instead I should tell him about my experience walking near a Trump rally and directly observing racist language going unrebuked by campaign staff. Then at least he’ll connect with the part that is my experience instead of immediately taking a motivated cognition biased position gainsaying the more official data.”
then that would be a very bad thing - much worse than directly confronting Bob with the actual facts and making it clear it’s not OK for Bob to inhabit a false reality where one type of fact (anecdotes) is accepted but another (data, research, journalism) is rejected. That cannot be left unchecked.
Mitt Romney actually said it quite well in the Senate inauguration proceedings after the Capitol riot,
“If you respect people who are disappointed by the outcome of the election and believe it was stolen, the best thing you can do is tell them the truth.”
Of course the election is just an example, but the point is more general. If someone is resistant to real facts, and you actually respect them and want to reach a positive conclusion, the best thing is absolutely always to confront them with the truth. If you instead deliberately mollify it and water it down to an anecdote they are more likely to accept while not adjusting their beliefs, you are only disrespecting them and hurting yourself, the other party, and discourse in general.
> That cannot be left unchecked.
While I agree with your goal, this approach relies on the idea that "not leaving it unchecked" results in some sort of change in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the evidence I've seen doesn't really support that "confronting them with the truth" actually accomplishes this. It would be lovely if this turns out not to be the case.
While I agree with your goal, this approach relies on the idea that "not leaving it unchecked" results in some sort of change in the right direction.
Unfortunately, the evidence I've seen doesn't really support that "confronting them with the truth" actually accomplishes this. It would be lovely if this turns out not to be the case.
Why can't it simply be left unchecked? Why is it so important to you that Bob believe what you believe?
In many cases, there is direct, tangible existential crisis at stake when aggregated across all the individual disagreements. The rise of modern white supremacy, fascism, insurrection, environmental devastation, harm and denial of basic rights to trans people, and so on. If in every individual case, you leave it unchecked and figure “whatever, they can just believe whatever they want, who cares” then it adds up to rioters charging into the Capitol with Confederate flags and pipe bombs. Working backwards it creates impetus on everyone to not leave any of that unchecked, whether it’s your crazy uncle on Facebook spouting off about young earth creationism or anti-environmentalism or a white supremacist yelling claims that the presidential election was stolen.
If you’re just disagreeing about which potato chip brand is the best, by all means let it go and leave it unchecked, but it seems clear the general context is about disagreements on contested social issues with serious stakes.
In a lot of ways the main issue is that several generations of the developed world have completely wasted decades of prosperity, to the point now where it really, actually is true that “mundane” day to day problems for people actually tie in to serious existential problems that have to be collectively dealt with.
If you’re just disagreeing about which potato chip brand is the best, by all means let it go and leave it unchecked, but it seems clear the general context is about disagreements on contested social issues with serious stakes.
In a lot of ways the main issue is that several generations of the developed world have completely wasted decades of prosperity, to the point now where it really, actually is true that “mundane” day to day problems for people actually tie in to serious existential problems that have to be collectively dealt with.
> to the point now where it really, actually is true that “mundane” day to day problems for people actually tie in to serious existential problems that have to be collectively dealt with.
The only thing this applies to is global warming. It is not an existential threat for Bob to think there was election fraud during the Trump election anymore than Ted the Bernie supporter to think the election was stolen from him twice.
Spreading the idea that the US government can afford to give $1200/mo UBI to each of its citizens by simply taxing the rich is more dangerous to the stability of the government/economy than some dipshit thinking the earth is flat.
Finally, as for climate change, we have the facts and people don’t care. They didn’t care in 2002, they didn’t care in 2012, and they didn’t care in November. At this point, convincing Bob has not worked, and frankly it doesn’t matter because it’s not a problem that can be solved through individual actions.
The solution is to legislatively fix it with intelligent people from both sides of political spectrum if it needs to have staying power (ala cap and trade). Or, if the Democratic Party is very confident in not losing the majority in the next 8 years or so, just ram a non-market approach down everyone’s throat (ala oil/coal bans) and call it good.
There are way too many people who still take the Bible/Koran /whatever seriously to clutch onto the notion that correcting people with facts is going to actually fix anything.
The only thing this applies to is global warming. It is not an existential threat for Bob to think there was election fraud during the Trump election anymore than Ted the Bernie supporter to think the election was stolen from him twice.
Spreading the idea that the US government can afford to give $1200/mo UBI to each of its citizens by simply taxing the rich is more dangerous to the stability of the government/economy than some dipshit thinking the earth is flat.
Finally, as for climate change, we have the facts and people don’t care. They didn’t care in 2002, they didn’t care in 2012, and they didn’t care in November. At this point, convincing Bob has not worked, and frankly it doesn’t matter because it’s not a problem that can be solved through individual actions.
The solution is to legislatively fix it with intelligent people from both sides of political spectrum if it needs to have staying power (ala cap and trade). Or, if the Democratic Party is very confident in not losing the majority in the next 8 years or so, just ram a non-market approach down everyone’s throat (ala oil/coal bans) and call it good.
There are way too many people who still take the Bible/Koran /whatever seriously to clutch onto the notion that correcting people with facts is going to actually fix anything.
[deleted]
I do think the current rise of anti-truth fascism forking out of the Republican party is an extremely serious existential threat to the US. It does matter to challenge every false claim of a stolen election.
It sounds like you believe people can behave more in line with the Rational Human used to model older economic theories. I'm not so sure confirmation, affinity, or proximity biases can be held down. What we need is a system that is either immune to these biases, or is designed to thwart them.
My opinion: individual's actions and beliefs do not put a dent in the tsunami of bias that swamps our brains. We need systemic thinking (e.g. science has a decent structure with double blind studies).
My opinion: individual's actions and beliefs do not put a dent in the tsunami of bias that swamps our brains. We need systemic thinking (e.g. science has a decent structure with double blind studies).
I think a precondition of the entire discussion is that we’re talking about what’s more effective in resolving disagreement - which would be measured by whether a disagreement process approaches the conclusion that would be reached between two rational agents sharing their information.
Note that I am not saying I believe humans do act that way, rather that is the yardstick of outcome to decide if one disagreement resolution technique is better than another.
Note that I am not saying I believe humans do act that way, rather that is the yardstick of outcome to decide if one disagreement resolution technique is better than another.
Maybe the issue is different views of what the disagreement is over?
I tend to view the disagreement as being over policy not over rationalism/facts. If at the end of the discussion both people agree on the policy I see that as successful even if they still disagree on the evidence that supports that policy.
I tend to view the disagreement as being over policy not over rationalism/facts. If at the end of the discussion both people agree on the policy I see that as successful even if they still disagree on the evidence that supports that policy.
I don’t think so. In fact there is actual theory about all this.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem
- https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf
and in particular,
- https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/prior.pdf
If your goal is just to manipulate someone else into doing what you want, regardless of what the facts say nor what their beliefs say about the facts or about your beliefs, then sure, that is pure manipulation and not related to strategies for effective disagreement resolution.
It’s also not relevant or useful to bring up the fact that humans are not rational Bayesian actors, again because we’re talking about how best to achieve unified shared understanding of the true facts and to ensure we only derive beliefs from that (anything else can only be manipulation, not decision resolution, by definition). We may fall short of the best solution due to our flaws and limitations, but that doesn’t render the best solution any less the best, not make some other seemingly more attainable solution better or more worthwhile.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem
- https://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/agree-econ.pdf
and in particular,
- https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/prior.pdf
If your goal is just to manipulate someone else into doing what you want, regardless of what the facts say nor what their beliefs say about the facts or about your beliefs, then sure, that is pure manipulation and not related to strategies for effective disagreement resolution.
It’s also not relevant or useful to bring up the fact that humans are not rational Bayesian actors, again because we’re talking about how best to achieve unified shared understanding of the true facts and to ensure we only derive beliefs from that (anything else can only be manipulation, not decision resolution, by definition). We may fall short of the best solution due to our flaws and limitations, but that doesn’t render the best solution any less the best, not make some other seemingly more attainable solution better or more worthwhile.
I'm not sure that my goal is to get people to believe as accurately as possible so much as it is to get other people to do the right thing. That is to say, my goal is persuasion.
Generally speaking, I also try to encourage people to believe as accurately as possible. However, as a practical matter convincing people to do that doesn't scale.
Generally speaking, I also try to encourage people to believe as accurately as possible. However, as a practical matter convincing people to do that doesn't scale.
I think you are saying tbe same thing. “Do the right thing” means “their beliefs are accurate with regard to what is the best action to take.” Of course, it assumes you are starting out with the “right” action, which is why a much better goal is “ensure everyone believes as accurately as possible.” That way you aren’t just persuading them (and in fact you aren’t even looking at it as an issue of persuading them), rather you are taking the view of how best to ensure both parties are optimally persuaded by the facts.
A goal to persuade without a goal to induce accurate beliefs is just manipulation.
A goal to persuade without a goal to induce accurate beliefs is just manipulation.
>false realities
Or just other people's realities. You mention BLM riots, which affected me a great deal; tens of millions in damages to my city, destruction of local landmarks, one of the teachers in my local school district was arrested for assaulting a state politician for recording them burning a police car, and to top it off, they smashed the pharmacy where I get my wife's medicine, so she had to go without for a few days. This isn't some biased false reality/folk wisdom. This was my experience so when people tell me they were "peaceful protests" or the news says "statistically, they were 99.99999999% peaceful" but I look at what I saw with my own eyes, and also what was on TV in other cities... I can't be convinced that they weren't violent, destructive, and plainly, evil, no matter how much other people tell me what to think.
Or just other people's realities. You mention BLM riots, which affected me a great deal; tens of millions in damages to my city, destruction of local landmarks, one of the teachers in my local school district was arrested for assaulting a state politician for recording them burning a police car, and to top it off, they smashed the pharmacy where I get my wife's medicine, so she had to go without for a few days. This isn't some biased false reality/folk wisdom. This was my experience so when people tell me they were "peaceful protests" or the news says "statistically, they were 99.99999999% peaceful" but I look at what I saw with my own eyes, and also what was on TV in other cities... I can't be convinced that they weren't violent, destructive, and plainly, evil, no matter how much other people tell me what to think.
>This was my experience so when people tell me they were "peaceful protests" or the news says "statistically, they were 99.99999999% peaceful" but I look at what I saw with my own eyes, and also what was on TV in other cities... I can't be convinced that they weren't violent, destructive, and plainly, evil, no matter how much other people tell me what to think.
Your point is well taken. I live in a large city. The area where I live, while mixed, is majority minority. My own experience was quite different. No one assaulted teachers from my local school. I saw no businesses burned. I don't know anyone who was directly impacted by the months of daily BLM protests.
Those are my experiences. Why are you telling me what I should believe?
I mirrored my experiences against yours to point out that your anecdotal experience is not the whole of the story. Nor is mine.
Now for some facts that neither you nor I actually experienced:
Where I live there were a few instances of violence against police (and in every single case, nearly all the folks involved were both white and from out of town).
There were also numerous instances of police instigating violence against peaceful protestors.
There were a few instances of looting, and the police and local government addressed them quickly and harshly, as just about everyone, including the protestors (many of whom were captured on video chasing would-be looters away) was horrified and angered by such actions.
There were (and are) violent miscreants who should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. However, those folks were a tiny group compared to those who peacefully protested.
When you hear folks say the protests were "mostly" peaceful, they are empirically correct. Something like 20,000,000 people around the US peacefully protested against police violence.
At most, a few thousand people committed acts of violence and vandalism. Let's say there were even 10,000 (a high number, I suspect) folks who committed violent/destructive acts alongside the peaceful protests.
If that's correct, 99.95% of people protested peacefully and 0.05% of folks were violent/destructive.
I'm not sure how that could be construed as anything other than "mostly peaceful". in fact, I'd characterize it as "overwhelmingly peaceful".
I'm most certainly not telling you what to think or believe. Just presenting my own experiences and a few facts.
Don't take my word for it. I'm just some random asshole on the Internet.
The facts speak for themselves.
Your point is well taken. I live in a large city. The area where I live, while mixed, is majority minority. My own experience was quite different. No one assaulted teachers from my local school. I saw no businesses burned. I don't know anyone who was directly impacted by the months of daily BLM protests.
Those are my experiences. Why are you telling me what I should believe?
I mirrored my experiences against yours to point out that your anecdotal experience is not the whole of the story. Nor is mine.
Now for some facts that neither you nor I actually experienced:
Where I live there were a few instances of violence against police (and in every single case, nearly all the folks involved were both white and from out of town).
There were also numerous instances of police instigating violence against peaceful protestors.
There were a few instances of looting, and the police and local government addressed them quickly and harshly, as just about everyone, including the protestors (many of whom were captured on video chasing would-be looters away) was horrified and angered by such actions.
There were (and are) violent miscreants who should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. However, those folks were a tiny group compared to those who peacefully protested.
When you hear folks say the protests were "mostly" peaceful, they are empirically correct. Something like 20,000,000 people around the US peacefully protested against police violence.
At most, a few thousand people committed acts of violence and vandalism. Let's say there were even 10,000 (a high number, I suspect) folks who committed violent/destructive acts alongside the peaceful protests.
If that's correct, 99.95% of people protested peacefully and 0.05% of folks were violent/destructive.
I'm not sure how that could be construed as anything other than "mostly peaceful". in fact, I'd characterize it as "overwhelmingly peaceful".
I'm most certainly not telling you what to think or believe. Just presenting my own experiences and a few facts.
Don't take my word for it. I'm just some random asshole on the Internet.
The facts speak for themselves.
Normally I'd agree, but I'll point you to comments elsewhere in this thread as to why this is misleading. The amount of damage is huge, and this was excused all the while by the group's leaders and other "peaceful" supporters with "people > property" and similar logic. Using this same logic, I'm sure 99+% of Nazis were peaceful during the holocaust as well.
>this was excused all the while by the group's leaders and other "peaceful" supporters
Who? Specifically. This is important. AFAIK, no reasonable, law-abiding people advocated for or excused violence and destruction.
In fact, such violence was roundly criticized and there were calls from all quarters for the apprehension and prosecution of anyone committing violent acts.
I've heard the same refrain over and over again. But no one ever actually names names. So. Who are these people who actually advocated for violence and destruction during the protests last summer?
That isn't a rhetorical question, friend.
Who? Specifically. This is important. AFAIK, no reasonable, law-abiding people advocated for or excused violence and destruction.
In fact, such violence was roundly criticized and there were calls from all quarters for the apprehension and prosecution of anyone committing violent acts.
I've heard the same refrain over and over again. But no one ever actually names names. So. Who are these people who actually advocated for violence and destruction during the protests last summer?
That isn't a rhetorical question, friend.
I posted a status update the morning after a major riot happened in my neighborhood that consisted of a short summary of what happened, a statement that I was ok, and essentially "fuck the rioters." I could name names of friends who, in response, insisted on "people > property", "fuck the racist capitalist system", "rioting is language of the unheard", "looting is reparations," and "don't tell black people how to protest." I'm sure you can find examples of this on twitter and reddit if you look—it was unavoidable for a time.
Since I'm not willing to out my friends or comb through old social media, have an example from local media instead: https://www.wbez.org/stories/winning-has-come-through-revolt...
Also, an image macro posted to my wall, representative of the kinds of stuff I was seeing at the time: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnCI4_9W4AAAxDf.jpg
Since I'm not willing to out my friends or comb through old social media, have an example from local media instead: https://www.wbez.org/stories/winning-has-come-through-revolt...
Also, an image macro posted to my wall, representative of the kinds of stuff I was seeing at the time: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnCI4_9W4AAAxDf.jpg
>I could name names of friends who, in response, insisted on "people > property", "fuck the racist capitalist system"
How many of those friends are elected or appointed public officials?
And what political power/social clout does Ariel Atkins[0] have? Especially given that over 100 arrests were made and as the mayor of Chicago said[0]:
"This is not legitimate First Amendment-protected speech. … This was straight-up felony, criminal conduct"
So some of your friends and an "activist" made incendiary comments.
No one with any real power or media reach condoned or encouraged violence during the BLM protests. Not one.
If a bunch of randos mouthing off is a huge problem, how much of a problem do you consider the statements encouraging violence by some folks with real power and media reach[1][2][3][4]?
[0] https://www.wbez.org/stories/winning-has-come-through-revolt...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz-zWeqtVo8&feature=youtu.be
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/01/02/gop-r...
[3] https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/die-for-something-arizo...
[4] https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/461498-why-are-we-t...
How many of those friends are elected or appointed public officials?
And what political power/social clout does Ariel Atkins[0] have? Especially given that over 100 arrests were made and as the mayor of Chicago said[0]:
"This is not legitimate First Amendment-protected speech. … This was straight-up felony, criminal conduct"
So some of your friends and an "activist" made incendiary comments.
No one with any real power or media reach condoned or encouraged violence during the BLM protests. Not one.
If a bunch of randos mouthing off is a huge problem, how much of a problem do you consider the statements encouraging violence by some folks with real power and media reach[1][2][3][4]?
[0] https://www.wbez.org/stories/winning-has-come-through-revolt...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz-zWeqtVo8&feature=youtu.be
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/01/02/gop-r...
[3] https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/die-for-something-arizo...
[4] https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/461498-why-are-we-t...
You asked someone to explain their comment about the "group's leaders and other 'peaceful' supporters." I gave you an example of both. If you want more, they're not hard to find by searching for the slogans I recited.
I am thankful that government officials and more respectable media outlets with significant reach have tended to condemn the BLM rioting. Outright endorsements probably would have made the situation worse. And even tacit support can have disastrous consequences, as we saw at the Capitol. But they're not activists and they don't speak for the movement (although who can?).
I am thankful that government officials and more respectable media outlets with significant reach have tended to condemn the BLM rioting. Outright endorsements probably would have made the situation worse. And even tacit support can have disastrous consequences, as we saw at the Capitol. But they're not activists and they don't speak for the movement (although who can?).
>But they're not activists and they don't speak for the movement (although who can?).
Exactly. Given the decentralized nature of BLM (dozens if not more local and regional groups), I don't think anyone can reasonably say that any one person or group speaks for the BLM movement as a whole.
As such, making the assumption that a few loud voices are representative of millions of people seems inaccurate at best, and an effort to discredit millions of people who desire positive change in the methods, focus and biases of US law enforcement, based on the violence and hyperbole of a tiny minority at worst.
And the same can be said of the vast majority of those who, however misguided, protested in support of the specious claims of a "stolen" election.
A vanishingly small minority of those people committed acts of violence and destruction too. And the millions who supported that point of view shouldn't be tarred with the same, broad brush as those who committed acts of violence and insurrection.
Both of those tiny groups should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The difference between those two groups is that the public/elected officials who supported the BLM protestors right to exercise their First Amendment rights overwhelmingly condemned and decried the violence committed alongside those legal, lawful protests.
While many public/elected officials decried and condemned the violence and insurrection at the Capitol, a non-trivial number of public/elected officials who supported the Big Lie[0][1] of a rigged election encouraged violent action, and some may[2] have even knowingly conspired with violent factions to facilitate their insurrection.
That's a big difference. And we should acknowledge that. Not because it's a partisan thing, but because we're supposed to be a nation of laws -- and when those who are elected/appointed to make and enforce those laws actively work against our constitutional order, they must be dealt with directly and strongly -- or we risk the basis of our societal order.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
[1] https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/the-capitol-mob-was-on...
[2] It's important to note that no elected officials have been charged with aiding the insurrectionists, there are indications that a few may have done so. Investigations should continue and anyone who provably (and that's a critical point) aided and assisted the violent scum who tried to subvert our constitutional government must be vigorously prosecuted -- but only if there is sufficient evidence. We are, after all, a nation of laws.
Exactly. Given the decentralized nature of BLM (dozens if not more local and regional groups), I don't think anyone can reasonably say that any one person or group speaks for the BLM movement as a whole.
As such, making the assumption that a few loud voices are representative of millions of people seems inaccurate at best, and an effort to discredit millions of people who desire positive change in the methods, focus and biases of US law enforcement, based on the violence and hyperbole of a tiny minority at worst.
And the same can be said of the vast majority of those who, however misguided, protested in support of the specious claims of a "stolen" election.
A vanishingly small minority of those people committed acts of violence and destruction too. And the millions who supported that point of view shouldn't be tarred with the same, broad brush as those who committed acts of violence and insurrection.
Both of those tiny groups should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The difference between those two groups is that the public/elected officials who supported the BLM protestors right to exercise their First Amendment rights overwhelmingly condemned and decried the violence committed alongside those legal, lawful protests.
While many public/elected officials decried and condemned the violence and insurrection at the Capitol, a non-trivial number of public/elected officials who supported the Big Lie[0][1] of a rigged election encouraged violent action, and some may[2] have even knowingly conspired with violent factions to facilitate their insurrection.
That's a big difference. And we should acknowledge that. Not because it's a partisan thing, but because we're supposed to be a nation of laws -- and when those who are elected/appointed to make and enforce those laws actively work against our constitutional order, they must be dealt with directly and strongly -- or we risk the basis of our societal order.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie
[1] https://talkingpointsmemo.com/feature/the-capitol-mob-was-on...
[2] It's important to note that no elected officials have been charged with aiding the insurrectionists, there are indications that a few may have done so. Investigations should continue and anyone who provably (and that's a critical point) aided and assisted the violent scum who tried to subvert our constitutional government must be vigorously prosecuted -- but only if there is sufficient evidence. We are, after all, a nation of laws.
I am sorry you feel this way, and I hope you will find a way past the biases that are preventing you from accepting the facts.
Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. That's not allowed here and we ban accounts that do it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
And I'll say the same to anyone who supports BLM, that's my point.
That’s not much of a point. It’s really just you being on the demonstrably wrong side of actual facts, but acting like your extreme and indefensible take deserves equal validity or ontological status as a “right” belief, but it completely and unequivocally doesn’t.
You wouldn’t be saying this stuff to BLM supporters, only an echo chamber filled with your non-fact-based alternate world. There’s a complete difference of kind between what you’re saying and actual reality, one that can’t be overcome or mitigated at all just by your own gainsaying. Your stance just is, factually, invalid, and you calling the opposite stance invalid as if it’s just two sides of some coin is likewise just invalid all the way down.
You wouldn’t be saying this stuff to BLM supporters, only an echo chamber filled with your non-fact-based alternate world. There’s a complete difference of kind between what you’re saying and actual reality, one that can’t be overcome or mitigated at all just by your own gainsaying. Your stance just is, factually, invalid, and you calling the opposite stance invalid as if it’s just two sides of some coin is likewise just invalid all the way down.
It's only demonstrably wrong if you're going to insist on the very literal "almost none of the BLM protests involved violence" and ignore that that statement, in isolation, is rather misleading. Sure, most of the protests were peaceful. But when they weren't, it was was very bad.
I was living in Downtown Chicago during the two major BLM protests that went violent last year. From my window, I saw people shooting out windows, starting fires, and looting. Even if it were a moot point to call 911, it didn't matter because you'd get a busy signal if you tried calling. Businesses I frequented, including the coolest camera shop I've ever seen, were destroyed. In the days following these riots, it took 45 minutes to an hour to enter my neighborhood because of National Guard checkpoints. The grocery stores and pharmacies were closed because their windows were smashed in, they were looted, and they were generally smashed to hell. And local BLM organizers infamously defended their actions as the "cry of the unheard" and the looting as "reparations."
I've read accounts similar to my own from people in Seattle and Minneapolis.
I get that some opponents of BLM want to use these riots to discredit what the movement stands for. But BLM proponents shouldn't try to gas light me and others who were victims of these demonstrations in defense. They were horrific. People died.
I was living in Downtown Chicago during the two major BLM protests that went violent last year. From my window, I saw people shooting out windows, starting fires, and looting. Even if it were a moot point to call 911, it didn't matter because you'd get a busy signal if you tried calling. Businesses I frequented, including the coolest camera shop I've ever seen, were destroyed. In the days following these riots, it took 45 minutes to an hour to enter my neighborhood because of National Guard checkpoints. The grocery stores and pharmacies were closed because their windows were smashed in, they were looted, and they were generally smashed to hell. And local BLM organizers infamously defended their actions as the "cry of the unheard" and the looting as "reparations."
I've read accounts similar to my own from people in Seattle and Minneapolis.
I get that some opponents of BLM want to use these riots to discredit what the movement stands for. But BLM proponents shouldn't try to gas light me and others who were victims of these demonstrations in defense. They were horrific. People died.
Nobody is gaslighting anyone. By your own account, the perpetrators of the looting, property damage, etc., were not part of the BLM protests, but clearly differentiated groups adding violence to something non-violent.
I live in NYC and in my neighborhood we also had windows boarded up after days of looting, cars smashed in the street, fires and more. Literally none of it was related to the BLM movement.
Similarly with Portland where many friends and coworkers live, the violence there was literally brought about by Trump and his false allocation of Homeland Security agents to “protect” federal landmarks, yet they abducted people off the street with no due process.
I’m certain looting happened, destruction happened, violence happened. It happened literally around the corner from my apartment.
That absolutely does not give anyone any entitlement to indulge racist or fascist biases to blame that violence on BLM or associate it with somehow representing the purpose of BLM, etc.
I live in NYC and in my neighborhood we also had windows boarded up after days of looting, cars smashed in the street, fires and more. Literally none of it was related to the BLM movement.
Similarly with Portland where many friends and coworkers live, the violence there was literally brought about by Trump and his false allocation of Homeland Security agents to “protect” federal landmarks, yet they abducted people off the street with no due process.
I’m certain looting happened, destruction happened, violence happened. It happened literally around the corner from my apartment.
That absolutely does not give anyone any entitlement to indulge racist or fascist biases to blame that violence on BLM or associate it with somehow representing the purpose of BLM, etc.
You assert that the groups responsible for the rioting were clearly differentiated from the BLM protests, but I don't see how one can differentiate them without making a no-true-Scotsman argument that the rioting somehow goes against the principles of the movement and they can be distinguished on that basis. At the time, some people were claiming that the rioting was the work of alt-right agents provocateurs, but that doesn't seem to have panned out. (Cf. the assertions that the Capitol rioters were antifa agents provocateurs.)
It's also not a good argument given there were loud voices claiming to speak for BLM that were justifying the rioting and looting. Reparations, smashing the racist capitalist system, etc. Maybe they don't represent the movement as a whole, but if so, the movement had lost its voice to extremists by that point.
An example of this kind of thing, posted by a friend who took part in BLM protests, in response to a status update I made: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnCI4_9W4AAAxDf.jpg
Bad actors doing embarrassing or destructive things is a real problem for ad-hoc decentralized movements. And that's why I'm careful to not hold the acts of individuals against a movement unless said acts are the whole point of the movement. But at the same time, "Black Lives Matter riots of 2020" is the most accurate label for the events in question that I can think of.
It's also not a good argument given there were loud voices claiming to speak for BLM that were justifying the rioting and looting. Reparations, smashing the racist capitalist system, etc. Maybe they don't represent the movement as a whole, but if so, the movement had lost its voice to extremists by that point.
An example of this kind of thing, posted by a friend who took part in BLM protests, in response to a status update I made: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnCI4_9W4AAAxDf.jpg
Bad actors doing embarrassing or destructive things is a real problem for ad-hoc decentralized movements. And that's why I'm careful to not hold the acts of individuals against a movement unless said acts are the whole point of the movement. But at the same time, "Black Lives Matter riots of 2020" is the most accurate label for the events in question that I can think of.
I hope you understand how unreasonable you sound to me. You're telling me that what I both saw and experienced, with verified fact and video evidence, isn't real. Your conviction that you know more about me and my life, than me, and your insistence on how invalid it is, makes you sound, frankly, like some sort of political zealot.
I tend not to waste my time convincing other people of things to this degree. I will share my experience, but beyond that, it would be unreasonable for me to tell someone else that their experience isn't even real, which is what you're doing.
I tend not to waste my time convincing other people of things to this degree. I will share my experience, but beyond that, it would be unreasonable for me to tell someone else that their experience isn't even real, which is what you're doing.
Please do not perpetuate flamewars on HN and do not cross into personal attack yourself. It's not what this site is for and it's no ok here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I'm respectfully exchanging ideas. I challenge you to find my personal attacks. Please do not blame me for the content other users post.
You needn't look far—there was a personal attack in your GP comment: "you sound, frankly, like some sort of political zealot". Swipes like that are certainly not respectful, and they're definitely not ok in HN comments. Actually, every single sentence in that comment had some sort of swipe in it.
If you don't think that was crossing into personal attack and breaking the site guidelines, you're underestimating the impact of your comments. it would be a good idea to recalibrate by reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and remembering that this sort of comment always lands with far stronger impact on the reader than the commenter thinks it will. Objects in the mirror are much closer than they appear.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
If you don't think that was crossing into personal attack and breaking the site guidelines, you're underestimating the impact of your comments. it would be a good idea to recalibrate by reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and remembering that this sort of comment always lands with far stronger impact on the reader than the commenter thinks it will. Objects in the mirror are much closer than they appear.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
"you sound, frankly" -addressing their extreme rhetoric, not them. How they come across is different than who they are. Every statement was a "swipe" at their disrespectful and unreasonable arguments, not them as a person. If I'm not allowed to defend my ideas and position, respectfully, in the context of discussion, within site guidelines, what's the purpose of discussion? It's enough that respectful, in-context posts I've made on controversial topics have been flagged and removed regularly here. Is this supposed to be another reddit/4chan echo chamber?
What you are saying is simply not ok. If your take away of your experience led you to believe BLM is responsible for significant violence, that is a manifestation of problems with you and your beliefs, not an accurate fact-based conclusion drawn from a legitimate interpretation of the BLM movement or any experience of BLM protests. You saying that I sound unreasonable by not letting your shit slide doesn’t change anything. You can say that. You can cling to racism-based biased refusal to accept the facts or accept your stated understanding of your experience is wrong and unduly biased, but it does not make what you’re saying any more legitimate or worthy of respect. What you are saying is just unacceptably wrong - it really is, really - in a way where you cannot just say, “well I believe different” and have that be treated like it’s valid or on equal footing.
You are starting off from a position so irredeemably far from acceptable fact-based reality, that for you to say my response sounds unreasonable is completely unsurprising and carries no weight.
It might sting to have your attachment to what you think is an acceptable interpretation of your experience called out for the unreasonable anti-BLM bias that it is. Oh well, the anti-BLM fantasy stuff is not OK, not going to slide.
You are starting off from a position so irredeemably far from acceptable fact-based reality, that for you to say my response sounds unreasonable is completely unsurprising and carries no weight.
It might sting to have your attachment to what you think is an acceptable interpretation of your experience called out for the unreasonable anti-BLM bias that it is. Oh well, the anti-BLM fantasy stuff is not OK, not going to slide.
I'm confused... it's verifiable fact... insurance claims from the riots are between $1-2 billion in damages... dozens of people died and between just a few cities thousands of police were injured, who knows how many protestors and bystanders... support for the movement dropped rapidly once things escalated... these are the facts. How can you look at this, and when someone says they witnessed just a small piece of it, say they're "irredeemably far from fact based reality" and you just can't let it "slide". Consider at least, that your extreme position harms your movement. What is your exact criticism of my opposition? Or at the very least, to what I witnessed?
Please stop.
Please stop.
> as if personal experience doesn't occupy the same space as facts
There is some overlap but it is not the same space. Humans tend to extrapolate and generalize. For example based on your personal experience with one (or a few) persons of ethnicity1 you may generalize that all persons of ethnicity1 have attribute2. But this is not a fact.
There is some overlap but it is not the same space. Humans tend to extrapolate and generalize. For example based on your personal experience with one (or a few) persons of ethnicity1 you may generalize that all persons of ethnicity1 have attribute2. But this is not a fact.
Many facts are universal claims that are actually pretty hard to prove. It can take many scientific studies to establish a fact. It's often not easy to figure out what to believe.
It's also often the case the whoever is asserting a fact didn't figure it out themselves. They are repeating someone else's assertion. Often, they misunderstood or simplified.
With personal stories, it's simpler: do you believe the person telling the story or not?
It's also often the case the whoever is asserting a fact didn't figure it out themselves. They are repeating someone else's assertion. Often, they misunderstood or simplified.
With personal stories, it's simpler: do you believe the person telling the story or not?
N.b. in “An Essay in aid of a Grammar of Assent”[0], John Henry Newman makes a distinction between real and notional apprehension that would, I think, be useful here.
[0] http://www.newmanreader.org/works/grammar/chapter4-1.html
[0] http://www.newmanreader.org/works/grammar/chapter4-1.html
> this delineates between facts and personal experience as if personal experience doesn't occupy the same space as facts
As a matter of neuroscience, from a quick search it appears that they do not, [0] although as a philosophical point sure, personal history narratives consist (at least partly) of beliefs of facts.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2952732/ (or if you like paywalls: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017%2FS1355617710000676 )
As a matter of neuroscience, from a quick search it appears that they do not, [0] although as a philosophical point sure, personal history narratives consist (at least partly) of beliefs of facts.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2952732/ (or if you like paywalls: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017%2FS1355617710000676 )
It usually doesn’t. Most facts today are outside most people’s personal experiences. Many like scientific facts are outside their economic reach to experience or verify. This is one of the major roots of the “post-truth” thing. Since facts can’t be verified we rely on trust, which is collapsing.
In a literal sense, personal experiences (when accurately described) are a proper subset of facts.
[deleted]
Every “fact” contains an element of subjective interpretation. It is literally not possible to present a fact in a way that is unbiased by subjective reasoning. Or if it is possible, we certainly have discovered a way to do it.
Personal experiences are not facts- they can be cherry-picked, they can be biased, they can be exaggerated and even just made-up. When reporting a supposedly objective fact, you have at least the benefit of multiple independent points of view over it- something observable happened and multiple people reported on it. When you hear a personal experience, you're often hearing an unconfirmed and un-confirmable recount of things that are entirely outside of public verification.
Facts can very much be cherry-picked (there are infinitely many of them, after all), so facts alone don't get you closer to the truth. On the contrary, the way people use facts is by selecting them after the fact (no pun indended) to bolster a position they've already settled on. Everyone does this, and with a little self-honesty anyone can easily observe themselves doing it.
I’m a bit unclear on what the word “fact” means. Does it mean “known true proposition”, or “independently verifiable true proposition about an event”, or what?
Key point:
"The problem is that facts—at least today—are themselves subject to doubt, especially when they conflict with our political beliefs (21). In the past decades, America has seen a decentralization of news and information (22) that has allowed people to gather their “own facts” (i.e., alternative facts; ref. 23). Most recently, claims of “fake news” allow people to distrust any information that fails to align with their political beliefs (24, 25) and to trust fake news that aligns with their beliefs (26)."
This is the epistemic crisis we're currently facing. Up until about the late 70s we had 3 news networks that were all pretty much middle of the road politically. Newspapers could have more of a discernible political leaning, but even there most of the mainstream ones we're pretty centrist. People who hewed to an extreme political position in either direction were ostracized and thus had a very small audience. We had more of a common narrative which is now gone.
"The problem is that facts—at least today—are themselves subject to doubt, especially when they conflict with our political beliefs (21). In the past decades, America has seen a decentralization of news and information (22) that has allowed people to gather their “own facts” (i.e., alternative facts; ref. 23). Most recently, claims of “fake news” allow people to distrust any information that fails to align with their political beliefs (24, 25) and to trust fake news that aligns with their beliefs (26)."
This is the epistemic crisis we're currently facing. Up until about the late 70s we had 3 news networks that were all pretty much middle of the road politically. Newspapers could have more of a discernible political leaning, but even there most of the mainstream ones we're pretty centrist. People who hewed to an extreme political position in either direction were ostracized and thus had a very small audience. We had more of a common narrative which is now gone.
Don't forget the media lied throughout that time too; let us not forget the craziness of satanic ritual abuse, or the lies that led to the vietnam war, etc...
The media and the government routinely mislead the public, look at in 2019 the intentional confusion of blackmarket thc vapes and tobacco vaping. Or more recently, the use of human trafficking.
To claim there was sometime in the past where the news was good and reliable would require overlooking a huge amount of actual historic malfeasance.
The media and the government routinely mislead the public, look at in 2019 the intentional confusion of blackmarket thc vapes and tobacco vaping. Or more recently, the use of human trafficking.
To claim there was sometime in the past where the news was good and reliable would require overlooking a huge amount of actual historic malfeasance.
There's a notable difference between:
1) a media outlet that repeats government lies about why we are fighting a war (or how it is going)
2) a media outlet that ignorantly repeats mistruths that are present in the (sub)culture
3) a media outlet that makes up its own lies
In the early 2000s I went to “the south” for the first time, and on the news there was a story about a suspicious hanging of a black man ruled suicide, but his hands were tied behind his back and was dating the sheriff’s white daughter.
Found out a decade later that story never happened, and it was a big enough deal for it to be in the list of urban legends and a controversy of how the news decided to report it at the time.
We have been dealing with (3) for a very long time. We dont even know what’s polluted our minds as truth.
Reality almost never matches with your worst fears, reality is typically different and strange. You should be very skeptical if it matched your worst fears no matter what the source.
Found out a decade later that story never happened, and it was a big enough deal for it to be in the list of urban legends and a controversy of how the news decided to report it at the time.
We have been dealing with (3) for a very long time. We dont even know what’s polluted our minds as truth.
Reality almost never matches with your worst fears, reality is typically different and strange. You should be very skeptical if it matched your worst fears no matter what the source.
It seems as if your story corresponds with my (2), not my (3) ?
Hm I could see that, but to me “decided to report” in this case referred to making up its own lies
The difference only exists if you think government lies are better than subculture lies or private party lies. Lies are lies. There's plenty of 50-100yo examples of news organizations twisting the truth to benefit their stakeholders.
Extremely fair point. The entire Hearst empire was not exactly known for not playing fast and loose with the truth when it benefitted them, and there were, as you say, plenty of others.
> Don't forget the media lied throughout that time too; let us not forget the craziness of satanic ritual abuse, or the lies that led to the vietnam war, etc...
The satanic ritual abuse stuff was in the 80s early 90s. Lies that led to vietnam, sure. But also there were lies that led to the Iraq war in the more fractured Fox News/internet age so it seems like the more fractured, politicized news didn't help protect against that.
> To claim there was sometime in the past where the news was good and reliable would require overlooking a huge amount of actual historic malfeasance.
Sure, my point was there was a past where we had a more common narrative. That certainly has downsides, but now we're seeing that it had some advantages compared to our current fractured era.
The satanic ritual abuse stuff was in the 80s early 90s. Lies that led to vietnam, sure. But also there were lies that led to the Iraq war in the more fractured Fox News/internet age so it seems like the more fractured, politicized news didn't help protect against that.
> To claim there was sometime in the past where the news was good and reliable would require overlooking a huge amount of actual historic malfeasance.
Sure, my point was there was a past where we had a more common narrative. That certainly has downsides, but now we're seeing that it had some advantages compared to our current fractured era.
Emma Goldman was writing about yellow journalism about prostitution and "the traffic in women" and liberal response to it back in 1910. It's 110 years later and Nicholas Kristof et al. are still publishing the same dreck in the New York Times, absolutely nothing has changed.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-the-whi...
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-the-whi...
> Don't forget the media lied
The significance of that varies by person. If you need social reinforcement to validate your interpretation of information the media lying is certainly significant, but then if you are more reliant upon social reinforcement you aren't acting on original interpretations of the information anyways. In other words this argument is moot.
The significance of that varies by person. If you need social reinforcement to validate your interpretation of information the media lying is certainly significant, but then if you are more reliant upon social reinforcement you aren't acting on original interpretations of the information anyways. In other words this argument is moot.
I think it's still an argument, because in the real world, over 90% of the population is absolute cattle that do as they are told.
This upsets the 10% very much.
This upsets the 10% very much.
In 1980 newspapers were where >50% of advertising dollars were spent, now it's going to nothing - and - they have to fight for every little click using click bait.
You can see the natural progression towards hyper bifurcated viewpoints.
You can see the natural progression towards hyper bifurcated viewpoints.
As long as we're talking about objective facts, I'll add that "Going to nothing" means going from $25B/y down to $5B/y, which is a huge drop - but also $5B/y.
It's continuing to trend downward, so "going to nothing" is not a clearly false summary, but we might as well be specific
Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/20244/estimated-print-adverti...
It's continuing to trend downward, so "going to nothing" is not a clearly false summary, but we might as well be specific
Source: https://www.statista.com/chart/20244/estimated-print-adverti...
Your chart literally shows a line over a decade 'going very quickly towards $0'.
If they were just smaller that would be one thing, but the change in what they get paid for is bigger, I think.
A paper supported by the big department store's ads is incentivised to be broad, because the store wants to sell to everyone. Likewise a paper supported classified and by sunday realtor adds -- nobody wants to sell their house exclusively to members of some fringe, they want the widest distribution.
But a paper supported by its most outraged subscribers will cater to them, and importantly, to keeping them outraged.
A paper supported by the big department store's ads is incentivised to be broad, because the store wants to sell to everyone. Likewise a paper supported classified and by sunday realtor adds -- nobody wants to sell their house exclusively to members of some fringe, they want the widest distribution.
But a paper supported by its most outraged subscribers will cater to them, and importantly, to keeping them outraged.
Unfortunately not, as the numbers are already on the table.
People don't need to pay for news, so they generally won't.
The smaller publications are all getting wiped out, NYT and a few others will remain paywalled in a smaller state of affairs, and that's it.
People don't need to pay for news, so they generally won't.
The smaller publications are all getting wiped out, NYT and a few others will remain paywalled in a smaller state of affairs, and that's it.
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...
What Mass Media calls facts are more often wrong than right, even without any political bias. When political bias are factored in, so called "facts" are complete opposite of what they are.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-ge...
What Mass Media calls facts are more often wrong than right, even without any political bias. When political bias are factored in, so called "facts" are complete opposite of what they are.
Including the NYT communist shilling with Walter Durante? That doesn't seem so middle of the road.
Different era. "Up until about the late 70s" makes it sound like this was the eternal state of affairs, but it wasn't. It was a few postwar decades.
Right, if I could edit (too late now it seems) I would add "from post WWII till about the late 70s".
So we went from heavily left to middle of the road for a few decades to back to left? Sounds like reversion to normal state of affairs.
The New York Times is generally a liberal publication, but not a leftist one. An example of a leftist publication might be Jacobin https://www.jacobinmag.com/ for example.
Communism is s not very liberal :D
No true year before the late 70s saw newspapers making up lies
A personal experience is a fact. It is a fact we can be pretty sure of, and we know the context of that fact. Obviously, once we extrapolate from that experienced fact, it becomes bias.
A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust. Even if I trust the source of that fact, I am often not sure if I understand the fact properly. Anyone who has ever tried to understand a math theorem might relate.
It is entirely rational to trust more in your personal bias. In fact, I would argue that the only way to trust a fact is to make it somehow into something that you can personally experience. For example, to understand a math theorem, it helps to look at lots of different kinds of examples where it holds (and where it doesn't).
A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust. Even if I trust the source of that fact, I am often not sure if I understand the fact properly. Anyone who has ever tried to understand a math theorem might relate.
It is entirely rational to trust more in your personal bias. In fact, I would argue that the only way to trust a fact is to make it somehow into something that you can personally experience. For example, to understand a math theorem, it helps to look at lots of different kinds of examples where it holds (and where it doesn't).
Eyewitness testimony is a personal experience that's been well proven to be poorly correlated with others' personal experience of the same event. You may be redefining "fact".
I am not redefining fact, but you are trying to reinterpret a personal experience as something it isn't. A personal experience is not an objective accurate fact about the world. There is no such thing. It can only ever be a bias. Just as an example can usually not be the proof of a theorem, just an indication that the theorem might be true.
There are facts. Like: "My laptop will not run indefinitely without power". Right?
Tell that "fact" to a person not speaking English. Or to somebody who has never seen a laptop. Or to somebody, who doesn't know what "power" is. If you interpret "indefinitely" as in "within my lifetime", will that sentence still be true in the future?
Once we've stripped the contextual stuff from your sentence, your sentence is a fact in a similar way to "1 = 1" being a fact. These kinds of facts are not that terribly interesting, because they are context-free, and context is usually the entire point of a fact.
Oh, and I would argue that your laptop does not run indefinitely without power is a very personal experience, at least for me.
Once we've stripped the contextual stuff from your sentence, your sentence is a fact in a similar way to "1 = 1" being a fact. These kinds of facts are not that terribly interesting, because they are context-free, and context is usually the entire point of a fact.
Oh, and I would argue that your laptop does not run indefinitely without power is a very personal experience, at least for me.
I agree that person experiences are not exactly reliable, but I think it's also good to remember that they can have the appearance of facticity and accuracy, as indicated by the sentiment of the person you were replying to.
Please tell me where you get your input if not from personal experience? Logical fallacy to say because interpretation of sensory inputs is not perfect therefore we are bind and know nothing about the world
You're attacking a straw man.
My point is that there's a method by which we start from observations and, through a process that (critically) involves other people, we reach an objective understanding of a subject. The observations aren't facts, but the conclusions can be.
My point is that there's a method by which we start from observations and, through a process that (critically) involves other people, we reach an objective understanding of a subject. The observations aren't facts, but the conclusions can be.
[deleted]
> A personal experience is a fact. It is a fact we can be pretty sure of, and we know the context of that fact. Obviously, once we extrapolate from that experienced fact, it becomes bias.
> A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust.
I think this is a very common sentiment, because of the immediacy of the experience, but that doesn't make it true.
My biggest gains as a human came when I started questioning whether my natural interpretation of the world was actually very good. It turns out, my natural inclinations for understanding things is pretty bad, and now that I recognize that, I am a much more effective human being.
Having gone through that journey, I now spot it all over the place with others. People misinterpret the world all of the time, and they do it without question because it's their personal experience, and how can that be wrong? It's too bad. We waste so much potential not accounting for our own limitations.
> A fact that is not a personal experience is difficult to trust.
I think this is a very common sentiment, because of the immediacy of the experience, but that doesn't make it true.
My biggest gains as a human came when I started questioning whether my natural interpretation of the world was actually very good. It turns out, my natural inclinations for understanding things is pretty bad, and now that I recognize that, I am a much more effective human being.
Having gone through that journey, I now spot it all over the place with others. People misinterpret the world all of the time, and they do it without question because it's their personal experience, and how can that be wrong? It's too bad. We waste so much potential not accounting for our own limitations.
I don't disagree with you. You just don't understand what I wrote.
Right, STEM-types tend to lampoon religion due to being based on "mere faith" rather than "hard evidence."
But anything that is not directly experienced by oneself requires some substantial faith; one cannot possibly redo all science experiments oneself and personally collect evidence.
Therefore one must have faith that the aggregate scientists had no motivation to skew or misrepresent evidence.
As a scientist, I know how reasonable doubting this to be.
But anything that is not directly experienced by oneself requires some substantial faith; one cannot possibly redo all science experiments oneself and personally collect evidence.
Therefore one must have faith that the aggregate scientists had no motivation to skew or misrepresent evidence.
As a scientist, I know how reasonable doubting this to be.
What bridges divides the best is unfortunately a common enemy that has agency, which unites previously warring factions against a common outgroup. This is the unfortunate reality of our tribal brains. Just look at how this whole GME episode (common villain - hedge funds) has brought the US left and right closer together (even though the gulf remains large) than they've been in years. COVID was a missed opportunity, we had an opportunity to cleverly frame as an outgroup threat (which lacked agency, so it's not an ideal driver of group cohesion), which we didn't do.
On that note, the stonks crowd have already sentenced Robinhood to death even though the facts of the case have been wildly misrepresented. The belief that Citadel et al was out to get them and pulled strings to make it happen took hold with religious fervor even when the evidence says that's not what happened at all.
I mostly agree, but the only evidence we have is Robinhood's word which industry people seem to have taken as gospel. It's not implausible that they're lying, given that Citadel is their biggest customer, and they could've done what they did without breaking any laws, e.g. by purposely failing to arrange the appropriate credit lines in time, thereby guaranteeing that they'll be able to go "oops, we don't have the capital, we have no choice but to shut her down now".
Having a “common enemy” may be effective in bridging old divides, but it also creates a new divide. Having the common enemy of Japan in WWII was effective in uniting the US nation, but it also resulted in the persecution Japanese Americans.
Someone close to me runs a hedge fund - I guess that makes him the bad guy somehow, the “common enemy.” He’s a one man operation working from home. He made a bad judgement call and shorted too much GME. Now his personal financial stability has been rocked. WSB really showed him. They really defeated those evil hedge fund managers.
Someone close to me runs a hedge fund - I guess that makes him the bad guy somehow, the “common enemy.” He’s a one man operation working from home. He made a bad judgement call and shorted too much GME. Now his personal financial stability has been rocked. WSB really showed him. They really defeated those evil hedge fund managers.
Isnt this a scenario that a hedge fund manager should know about?
He took the risk of a short, and the market went the wrong way, there is nothing more to it.
He took the risk of a short, and the market went the wrong way, there is nothing more to it.
Seems like we abandoned this type of emotional, personal rhetoric not because it didn't work but because it worked too well at manipulating people's opinions. I wonder if we can return to it without losing our grasp of reality.
I'm imagining YouTube (or maybe even HN) comments becoming dominated by stories of harm supposed people have supposedly experienced. There's no way to tell if a person you're interacting with in these kinds of contexts has actually experienced the harm they claim or if it's just being used to manipulate. So I'd agree that in the case of internet forums I'm not entirely sure this is a step in the right direction. For person-to-person, face-to-face interactions IRL it would be a different story as you could rely on non-verbal cues to help determine validity and you might have a history of relationship with the person you're interacting with.
This paper just validates as “fact” something that I strongly believed by “personal experience” :-D
As humans (evolutionarily social creatures), we have a natural empathy that’s hard to circumvent unless the discussion turns into very abstract statements about belief & facts & rationality. IME, all but a narrow segment of people are typically very receptive to hearing about and empathizing with other’s experiences. Over time, this might also significantly change perspectives through osmosis.
Very rarely do perspectives change in any significant manner before and after a “logical argument” — and for good reason https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...
As humans (evolutionarily social creatures), we have a natural empathy that’s hard to circumvent unless the discussion turns into very abstract statements about belief & facts & rationality. IME, all but a narrow segment of people are typically very receptive to hearing about and empathizing with other’s experiences. Over time, this might also significantly change perspectives through osmosis.
Very rarely do perspectives change in any significant manner before and after a “logical argument” — and for good reason https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/03/repost-epistemic-learn...
The upshot of these experiments appears to be: communicating a "relevant, harm-based, and personal experience" leads people to rate you as more rational and respect you more. Maybe because it reframes the interaction from "who will win this fight, you or me?" to "gosh, I'm a vulnerable human, and here's part of how I got that way", which makes beating them at this game or demonizing them...somewhat less appealing.
So we politely validate the other person's personal experience and go on our way, forgetting about the whole thing and cleaving back to our original ideas within a few hours.
That is to say, maybe neither of the interventions in this study has any long-term impact.
That is to say, maybe neither of the interventions in this study has any long-term impact.
Vulnerability has been popular for a while now as a way of successfully navigating crucial conversations.
Here is an awesome discussion between Andrew Yang and a moral psychologist named Jonathan Haidt about these issues:
https://youtu.be/gjufYwIbITw
Haidt also has a book named The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.
https://youtu.be/gjufYwIbITw
Haidt also has a book named The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.
In politics, there's a saying, "A story is worth 1000 spreadsheets."
Actually when it comes to personal experiences, and human to human offline interaction I've just noticed I don't need to agree with everyone.
I have liberal friends, conservative friends. I've dated liberals and I've dated conservatives. Well I still vote, I'm not nearly as political as I used to be. I don't use social media ( including online dating) , if only because I found people to be insanely mean. I don't want to be called slurs when discussing politics, and that's what happens online. Now if I'm at a bar, I might actually even buy a voter from the other team a beer. I can see his or her humanity. Online the other team is literally a group of evil villains who want to destroy all that is good in the world. And I'm at the point where I think social media needs to be heavily regulated to stop society from imploding. It's just too powerful, too harmful of a tool as is.
I have liberal friends, conservative friends. I've dated liberals and I've dated conservatives. Well I still vote, I'm not nearly as political as I used to be. I don't use social media ( including online dating) , if only because I found people to be insanely mean. I don't want to be called slurs when discussing politics, and that's what happens online. Now if I'm at a bar, I might actually even buy a voter from the other team a beer. I can see his or her humanity. Online the other team is literally a group of evil villains who want to destroy all that is good in the world. And I'm at the point where I think social media needs to be heavily regulated to stop society from imploding. It's just too powerful, too harmful of a tool as is.
I would just not take your own and others political opinions too seriously. Most ideologies and political opinions are just broad, highly speculative, poorly informed guesses about the best way a government should run a country. Stick to things you actually have personally experience and are an expert in to have more serious opinions about
> And I'm at the point where I think social media needs to be heavily regulated to stop society from imploding. It's just too powerful, too harmful of a tool as is.
Heavy regulation would seem like a good solution, except it does nothing to shift incentives. Those remain unaddressed.
Heavy regulation would seem like a good solution, except it does nothing to shift incentives. Those remain unaddressed.
This is only true if someone deems you or your experiences credible, and this in turn is highly related to existing biases and relative places in social hierarchies.
It's a good point and the study does some investigation of the question in Section 7 [1]. They find the trend seems to generalize across multiple speaker identities. Personal experiences appear more effective than facts at fostering respect for a wide range of different speakers.
[1]: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/6/e2008389118#sec-7
[1]: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/6/e2008389118#sec-7
From this article, "motivational interviewing" is supported by actual research.
That's a nice change.
My people on the left keep doing the "fat shaming" equivalent (scolding) for politics and policy. Stubbornly wrong.
Most of the advice about debating and persuasion is worse than wrong. This article calls out the "backfire" effect.
I was one of them. I eventually figured out it doesn't work. I've been trying to find and learn better strategies.
I've tried to apply lessons learned from Camp Wellstone, Prof David Domke, http://www.heroesnarrative.org. (I even study people from the other side, like Frank Luntz, Ben Shapiro, Grover Norquist. Know they enemy and all that.)
I'm also very impressed by ideas from deradicalization, cult deprogramming, Chris Voss' (hostage negotiator) "radical empathy" and others. Guarded optimism that this stuff will help.
I'm just so sick of the food fight. Alas, there's still real work that needs to be done. And I'm forever trying to figure out how to sneak progress thru the chaos of war.
That's a nice change.
My people on the left keep doing the "fat shaming" equivalent (scolding) for politics and policy. Stubbornly wrong.
Most of the advice about debating and persuasion is worse than wrong. This article calls out the "backfire" effect.
I was one of them. I eventually figured out it doesn't work. I've been trying to find and learn better strategies.
I've tried to apply lessons learned from Camp Wellstone, Prof David Domke, http://www.heroesnarrative.org. (I even study people from the other side, like Frank Luntz, Ben Shapiro, Grover Norquist. Know they enemy and all that.)
I'm also very impressed by ideas from deradicalization, cult deprogramming, Chris Voss' (hostage negotiator) "radical empathy" and others. Guarded optimism that this stuff will help.
I'm just so sick of the food fight. Alas, there's still real work that needs to be done. And I'm forever trying to figure out how to sneak progress thru the chaos of war.
I think one way to distill down the simplest change is this: listen in order to understand and not to judge.
I keep on feeling like I'm following the argument, but then I keep stumbling across the "supporting moral beliefs with facts" part, and it just seems like it's missing something basic.
You can't ever "prove" moral statements just with facts to begin with, that's the whole point of Hume's Guillotine or the is-ought problem. A moral statement with supporting facts is always, by definition, going to also have moral statements supporting it as well, and it's turtles all the way down; the moral statement is ultimately going to be resting on at least one "moral axiom" aka value aka opinion. So of course focusing on facts isn't going to be wholly convincing.
And personal subjective experience is an appeal to emotion. Those are convincing in the moment, but they're rather ephemeral. Any moral conclusion needs to be recognized for what it is; if the reasoning is valid, it rests upon values that might just be different than yours.
One anecdote... I recently had an extremely disappointing multi-day discussion with an old friend who I discovered attended the insurrection. (Did not enter, but made it to the Capitol steps.) I was at first shocked and dismayed, but then through the bonds of our friendship we were able to empathize with each other's emotional experience, why his community was important to him, etc. We thought afterward that maybe we really would be able to have a respectful exchange of views. But then after that it was just disappointment again - it became clear that he just wasn't going to let go of the belief that it was all staged by Antifa, no matter how much I disproved his various meme jpgs. So at least in that case, that intermediate phase of sharing personal subjective experience only really went so far. (We're not in touch anymore.)
You can't ever "prove" moral statements just with facts to begin with, that's the whole point of Hume's Guillotine or the is-ought problem. A moral statement with supporting facts is always, by definition, going to also have moral statements supporting it as well, and it's turtles all the way down; the moral statement is ultimately going to be resting on at least one "moral axiom" aka value aka opinion. So of course focusing on facts isn't going to be wholly convincing.
And personal subjective experience is an appeal to emotion. Those are convincing in the moment, but they're rather ephemeral. Any moral conclusion needs to be recognized for what it is; if the reasoning is valid, it rests upon values that might just be different than yours.
One anecdote... I recently had an extremely disappointing multi-day discussion with an old friend who I discovered attended the insurrection. (Did not enter, but made it to the Capitol steps.) I was at first shocked and dismayed, but then through the bonds of our friendship we were able to empathize with each other's emotional experience, why his community was important to him, etc. We thought afterward that maybe we really would be able to have a respectful exchange of views. But then after that it was just disappointment again - it became clear that he just wasn't going to let go of the belief that it was all staged by Antifa, no matter how much I disproved his various meme jpgs. So at least in that case, that intermediate phase of sharing personal subjective experience only really went so far. (We're not in touch anymore.)
The work of James G. March is also very interesting in this regard. In particular, he wrestled with our description of rational decision-making. Instead of seeing bounds to rationality as some defect to be worked&modeled around, his contention was that rational people may not actually what we want, or even want to be, when we organize, collaborate, inform ourselves and others and, of course, make a decision.
If you are interested in this angle, I can recommend the collection "Decisions and Organizations".
If you are interested in this angle, I can recommend the collection "Decisions and Organizations".
This is because people are rational. Things you personally observe are your only source of fundamental information. You are an expert in very few things and one of them is the things you observe. I'm glad people understand this intuitively
Political opinions are broad highly speculative guesses about subjects you're not an expert in
Political opinions are broad highly speculative guesses about subjects you're not an expert in
[deleted]
I totally agree! I recently wrote a blog post saying something like this:
http://blog.drgriffin.com.au/posts/2021-01-13-facts-will-not...
http://blog.drgriffin.com.au/posts/2021-01-13-facts-will-not...
One of the things we need to face as a society is that facts don't change anyones minds...
I see a potential source of bias in this paper - the study is of the use of facts in political topics. This means that they are studying topics where facts have proven insufficient to settle the debate.
Yes; beyond a (very) small in-group of people we are part of, larger groups of people relate mainly through shared stories, not 'facts'. Hence religion, nation myths, etc. Likewise, they fight over conflicting stories.
Yuval Harari does a concise and brilliant job of explaining this in Sapiens, which I seem to recommend to everyone I meet.
TL;DR: facts are not how humans interact.
Yuval Harari does a concise and brilliant job of explaining this in Sapiens, which I seem to recommend to everyone I meet.
TL;DR: facts are not how humans interact.
It seems the root of things is that emotions beat thoughts, and personal experiences help deliver the emotional argument without having to directly argue the emotions.
Personal experience allowed me to bridge the gun-control divide.
I was a strong advocate of gun control, and was dating a rancher's daughter, and she said, "my dad keeps a pistol in the glove compartment because there are rattlesnakes all over the ranch, and when he sees one he kills it so that it doesn't bite his granddaughters."
As a result of that conversation I changed my view on gun control, though I still firmly believe in strict gun control in urban settings.
I find that friendships also allow me to bridge moral & political divides. When the anti-police movement (ACAB = All Cops Are Bastards) erupted in San Francisco, I became angry at my fellow liberal kindred--some of my friends are cops, and they're good cops, and I didn't like seeing them being demonized.
Friendships help bridge many divides: It's hard to be homophobic when half my friends are gay. It's hard to hate Trump supporters when at least one of my rugby teammates is a Trump supporter (I don't agree with him--I think he's misguided--but I don't hate him).
I was a strong advocate of gun control, and was dating a rancher's daughter, and she said, "my dad keeps a pistol in the glove compartment because there are rattlesnakes all over the ranch, and when he sees one he kills it so that it doesn't bite his granddaughters."
As a result of that conversation I changed my view on gun control, though I still firmly believe in strict gun control in urban settings.
I find that friendships also allow me to bridge moral & political divides. When the anti-police movement (ACAB = All Cops Are Bastards) erupted in San Francisco, I became angry at my fellow liberal kindred--some of my friends are cops, and they're good cops, and I didn't like seeing them being demonized.
Friendships help bridge many divides: It's hard to be homophobic when half my friends are gay. It's hard to hate Trump supporters when at least one of my rugby teammates is a Trump supporter (I don't agree with him--I think he's misguided--but I don't hate him).
How meaningful are facts when most of politics is about preference.
The problem with "objective facts" is that they are often carefully selected or pulled out of context to bolster the arguer's position. I'm sure everyone can think of objective facts related to covid that both make the disease seem more deadly, and also objective facts that make it seem less deadly.
Appeals to emotion with subjective experiences have the same problem. You can use them to bolster support for the arguer's position even if it's only representative of a tiny sample.
The actual optimal policies we should be making over a wide variety of issues (environment, immigration, healthcare, and more) are very difficult to ascertain from objective facts or subjective experiences alone since both reflect the agendas and biases of those presenting them.
For any given issue there will be enough facts and stats to tell the story you want to tell, and for any given issue there were be some heartwrenching experiences of how someone was screwed over by the issue/policy.
Appeals to emotion with subjective experiences have the same problem. You can use them to bolster support for the arguer's position even if it's only representative of a tiny sample.
The actual optimal policies we should be making over a wide variety of issues (environment, immigration, healthcare, and more) are very difficult to ascertain from objective facts or subjective experiences alone since both reflect the agendas and biases of those presenting them.
For any given issue there will be enough facts and stats to tell the story you want to tell, and for any given issue there were be some heartwrenching experiences of how someone was screwed over by the issue/policy.
> [0] For example (and this is just one example), I remember last year stories about how covid-19 victims were going into mass graves in New York City. And while that was a true and an objective fact, important context was left out. The context that was missing was that they were being buried on Hart Island, which is literally a mass grave site designated for unidentifiable persons dying of any cause, not just covid. But if you leave that part out it seems like the bodies are piling up so fast and so high the authorities had no choice but to dump the corpses in mass graves. Whereas in truth only unidentifiable/unclaimed covid victims were buried on Hart Island, and the same fate happens to any of NYC's homeless when they die for any reason and nobody claims the body.
Except even your "objective fact" lacks the context.
Hart island is and was a mass grave for unidentified/unclaimed bodies... however the number of dead going to that island was way way higher than years before during normal times. Hell even in october of last year at a time where the virus was more under control there was still 4 times(360 vs 90) the number normally going to that island. the number buried there through october was over 2 times the total buried there from the previous year with two more months to go in the year.
even people who discount covid as a bad, made up thing also can't escape the fact that the year is far more deadly from deaths of any cause than prior years:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
So either people are dying from something else at an alarming rate that defies predictions or covid is something worth taking seriously(also, the fact that death is not the only outcome and there are people with serious long term negative effects).
Except even your "objective fact" lacks the context.
Hart island is and was a mass grave for unidentified/unclaimed bodies... however the number of dead going to that island was way way higher than years before during normal times. Hell even in october of last year at a time where the virus was more under control there was still 4 times(360 vs 90) the number normally going to that island. the number buried there through october was over 2 times the total buried there from the previous year with two more months to go in the year.
even people who discount covid as a bad, made up thing also can't escape the fact that the year is far more deadly from deaths of any cause than prior years:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
So either people are dying from something else at an alarming rate that defies predictions or covid is something worth taking seriously(also, the fact that death is not the only outcome and there are people with serious long term negative effects).
I ended up deleting that example because I knew someone was going to quibble about it. More people were buried on Hart Island in 2020 than previous years but more people were buried everywhere in 2020. That doesn't change the fact that Hart Island existed pre-covid and will continue to exist post-covid and that the "mass graves" stories were based on carefully selected out-of-context facts in order to paint covid in a deadlier light.
Fair enough i didn't notice that you deleted that.
> That doesn't change the fact that Hart Island existed pre-covid and will continue to exist post-covid
sure. i don't take issue with that. it was just one of many reports on the anomaly events like the refrigerator morgues and other events. Fact of the matter this disease is very deadly and the articles of the time show it.
here's articles from both sides of the aisle during that time period:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/11/us/hart-island-coronavirus-bu...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/aerial-images-new-york-hart-islan...
Both show proper context and highlight how different the burials were. (neither of them are AP stories) fox notes that burials went from one day a week to five days a week. both offer the history of the island and what it's normally used for. I see a fair article from both of those ideologically opposed orgs.
> That doesn't change the fact that Hart Island existed pre-covid and will continue to exist post-covid
sure. i don't take issue with that. it was just one of many reports on the anomaly events like the refrigerator morgues and other events. Fact of the matter this disease is very deadly and the articles of the time show it.
here's articles from both sides of the aisle during that time period:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/11/us/hart-island-coronavirus-bu...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/aerial-images-new-york-hart-islan...
Both show proper context and highlight how different the burials were. (neither of them are AP stories) fox notes that burials went from one day a week to five days a week. both offer the history of the island and what it's normally used for. I see a fair article from both of those ideologically opposed orgs.
And, while I don't debate the premise of the OP's article, the big redeeming virtue of objective facts is that we can dig into them - exactly like we're doing here.
This was the biggest lesson I learnt when doing my PhD. One of the sections I had to look at what factors led to successful software projects within companies. This could be anything, from going with Open Source, buying the right software from the right vendor, management involvement, 10X developer in the company or even something as simple as user training. You can practically pick whatever factor suits your bias and you will find the data that supports your argument.
Perhaps because it's all true and all those factors help the projects?
You are right. The problem comes when it is time to weight which one is most important when making a decision. Open source Vs of the shelf all these "true"facts are brought to the table. It often ends up being what head honcho wants or going with IBM/Microsoft. No one ever got fired for making that decision
Sure, this is the obvious takeaway if you are solely interested in how to persuade others and advance your agenda. But the reason why personal experiences are better at bridging moral/political divides is because shared experience makes it possible for to hear another viewpoint. If all you get from this study is an improved approach to advancing your issue, that's a shame.
I have lots of shared experiences with my parents, but there is no bridging our moral/political divide. The assumptions they use in their model of the world, as well as the data, are completely inappropriate. At least to accomplish my goals.
I think unless conversations agree on the assumptions and agree on the data sources and data itself, and even the logic, it’s going to end in disagreement. My parents can hold conflicting viewpoints simultaneously, in sentences one after another, and have no problem with it.
I think unless conversations agree on the assumptions and agree on the data sources and data itself, and even the logic, it’s going to end in disagreement. My parents can hold conflicting viewpoints simultaneously, in sentences one after another, and have no problem with it.
"My parents can hold conflicting viewpoints simultaneously, in sentences one after another, and have no problem with it."
They probably say the same about you. The hard truth is that most people hold conflicting opinions. It usually takes about 20 years of being an adult to come to this realization.
They probably say the same about you. The hard truth is that most people hold conflicting opinions. It usually takes about 20 years of being an adult to come to this realization.
Also opinions and perspectives change. I was quite liberal, politically, in my 20s. In my 50s I'm quite conservative, though I would never have thought that could be the case when I was 22.
That seems to be fairly common. School curriculum tends to have a brainwashing element to it. Also, each generation thinks it has all the answers. I remember discussions with older relatives, trying to convince them of something. They turned out to be right more often than not.
Viewpoints are typically the intersection of a number of values. Your interpretation of conflict might just be a function of how your values are weighted vs those of your parents.
...shared experience makes it possible for to hear another viewpoint.
That's specifically why personal experience is a persuasion tool and an effective one - which isn't an absolute bad thing but also doesn't make it an inherently good thing.
The average person, debating on the Internet or off, tends to start in an intensely emotional state. Giving your own personal experience backs them down from that intense emotional state.
Once the person has backed-down a bit you can give your pitch and your pitch can be anything, either a plea for rational inquiry into the situation or your own intensely manipulative, emotional and off-kilter claims.
I personally try to go from polarized emotional shouting matches to "let's make a model of the world and consider what makes sense in it" approaches. I think if you can get someone to start thinking about things that way, you have given them thinking-tools and not simply openness.
Something to think about is that simple openness is by no means an inherently good thing. A lot of New Age ideologies talk about the need to stay open with upshot that people open themselves to all sorts of poisonous and delusional crap. Being open but selective in what you let in is much better.
That's specifically why personal experience is a persuasion tool and an effective one - which isn't an absolute bad thing but also doesn't make it an inherently good thing.
The average person, debating on the Internet or off, tends to start in an intensely emotional state. Giving your own personal experience backs them down from that intense emotional state.
Once the person has backed-down a bit you can give your pitch and your pitch can be anything, either a plea for rational inquiry into the situation or your own intensely manipulative, emotional and off-kilter claims.
I personally try to go from polarized emotional shouting matches to "let's make a model of the world and consider what makes sense in it" approaches. I think if you can get someone to start thinking about things that way, you have given them thinking-tools and not simply openness.
Something to think about is that simple openness is by no means an inherently good thing. A lot of New Age ideologies talk about the need to stay open with upshot that people open themselves to all sorts of poisonous and delusional crap. Being open but selective in what you let in is much better.
You're right. This is how people with an agenda misuse facts. But just because specific facts can be misused does not mean we abandon using facts at all. Many facts are biased. All personal experiences are biased. Being less wrong is the goal.
Or as the late great Mark Twain put it: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
A good example of FUD spreading using 'facts' is the current war on vaping. More contentiously, there is also the war against glycophosphate.
A good example of FUD spreading using 'facts' is the current war on vaping. More contentiously, there is also the war against glycophosphate.
Reminds me of the apocryphal but excellent quote:
"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." Mark Twain
"If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." Mark Twain
I don't know anything about these "wars". What's happening?
There's a bunch of ads promoting making vaping illegal, on terrestrial radio/tv fear mongering about heavy metals aimed at the 'Karen' crowd. As far as I can tell they are based on a few people who died after consuming grey market THC cartridges and some studies where the scientists intentionally cranked up the wattage above spec to get metal release.
Glycophosphate (Round-Up) allegedly caused cancer in a few workers who, per label, grossly misused it. There have a been a few high profile lawsuits, at least one in CA, over those cancers, and corresponding calls to ban it. This is of course despite both an excellent safety record and lack of safer alternatives, asserted by many studies and meta studies from the FDA and the European equivalent. Glycophosphate though, is 'factually'[0] listed by IARC as a class 2A carcinogen. I'm sure there are few HN threads digging into this one if you have lots of time to kill.
[0]IARC is basically a factory of 'facts' that sound bad but aren't when it comes to cancer: class 2A is the same class as eating red meat.
Glycophosphate (Round-Up) allegedly caused cancer in a few workers who, per label, grossly misused it. There have a been a few high profile lawsuits, at least one in CA, over those cancers, and corresponding calls to ban it. This is of course despite both an excellent safety record and lack of safer alternatives, asserted by many studies and meta studies from the FDA and the European equivalent. Glycophosphate though, is 'factually'[0] listed by IARC as a class 2A carcinogen. I'm sure there are few HN threads digging into this one if you have lots of time to kill.
[0]IARC is basically a factory of 'facts' that sound bad but aren't when it comes to cancer: class 2A is the same class as eating red meat.
> This is of course despite both an excellent safety record and lack of safer alternatives, asserted by many studies and meta studies from the FDA and the European equivalent.
Leaded gasoline had an extraordinary safety record for decades before suddenly being recognized as dangerous. The story is actually fascinating. But my point is this is actually not as strong of an argument as you might think, especially since glyphosate is a patented chemical effectively sold by one company.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc...
Leaded gasoline had an extraordinary safety record for decades before suddenly being recognized as dangerous. The story is actually fascinating. But my point is this is actually not as strong of an argument as you might think, especially since glyphosate is a patented chemical effectively sold by one company.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc...
I think that the patents on glyphosate itself expired recently. The RoundUp-ready seeds are still protected, though.
Glyphosate itself was discovered back in the 50's; patents around that would have expired ~50 years ago.
The patents around glyphosate resistant soybeans expired five or ten years back; someone immediately produced and released an unencumbered version. (I don't think it's as popular as you'd think; the yields are a bit lower than the state-of-the-art varieties available now, and farmers purchase new seeds every year for a lot of reasons beyond patent encumbrance.)
The patents around glyphosate resistant soybeans expired five or ten years back; someone immediately produced and released an unencumbered version. (I don't think it's as popular as you'd think; the yields are a bit lower than the state-of-the-art varieties available now, and farmers purchase new seeds every year for a lot of reasons beyond patent encumbrance.)
Wow, that was fascinating -- thanks for the link.
[deleted]
Roundup deserves its bad press, regardless of which exact scandal caused it to penetrate popular consciousness. Monsanto's highest margin R-Up product range is ultra-high dosage pesticides together with crops designed to tolerate the pesticide. It kills all rival plants, as advertised, and through its effect on funghi and bacteria it has plenty of knock-on effects on local ecologies. It's real "Silent Spring" material.
The decision by the EU Parliament to ensure that decisions about permissibility of pesticides are based on open science, rather than the proprietary study model that dominated before, has led to a lot of good research. Cf. e.g.,
https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/176/2/253/5835885?ca...
The decision by the EU Parliament to ensure that decisions about permissibility of pesticides are based on open science, rather than the proprietary study model that dominated before, has led to a lot of good research. Cf. e.g.,
https://academic.oup.com/toxsci/article/176/2/253/5835885?ca...
Our political divide has little to do with facts. More than anything it's driven by the hyperbole produced by popular media.
I have watched the right and left respond to the media's outrage of the day, week, month, on cue, and stop just as fast, for years now.
More than anything our political divide is a result of our fandom based culture and "fans" don't care about facts. We grow up with this. If you're born in New York you're either a Mets or a Yankees fan and the other team sucks and always will no matter what the facts are.
Every night CNN and FOX compete to see who can stir up the most outrage in their fan base. We've got to the point where you're either a "fascist" or a "socialist". There is no middle ground for the hard core fan and they make the most noise.
QAnon is another fine example. Those fans love to wallow in their shared insults and disdain for those who don't "follow Q". They're "smart" and everyone else is a fool. The find great joy in believing that and they will not give it up for anyone's "personal experiences". They'll give it up when it "goes out of style".
Most fans move on eventually because trends go stale and fandom feeds on trendiness. Our "Media" is constantly looking for "the next trend" ("outrage of the month" in the case of politics) and when they see one with potential they'll push it for all it's worth and squeeze it til the last nickle is made out of it.
We all love the concept of "free speech" but we live in a time where bullshit goes viral and can be deadly when it does. Where I live 55% of my neighbors believe "masks don't work" while 1 in 70 of them who've gotten infected with covid-19 have died. Last year I saw them claim "the vaccine has a tracker chip in it", "proof that mask don't work is I can smell my farts when I wear one", "the virus is a hoax".
We have to figure out how to deal with these issues. With over 400,000 lives lost to covid-19 just here in the U.S. de-platforming bullshitters has to be on the table.
I have watched the right and left respond to the media's outrage of the day, week, month, on cue, and stop just as fast, for years now.
More than anything our political divide is a result of our fandom based culture and "fans" don't care about facts. We grow up with this. If you're born in New York you're either a Mets or a Yankees fan and the other team sucks and always will no matter what the facts are.
Every night CNN and FOX compete to see who can stir up the most outrage in their fan base. We've got to the point where you're either a "fascist" or a "socialist". There is no middle ground for the hard core fan and they make the most noise.
QAnon is another fine example. Those fans love to wallow in their shared insults and disdain for those who don't "follow Q". They're "smart" and everyone else is a fool. The find great joy in believing that and they will not give it up for anyone's "personal experiences". They'll give it up when it "goes out of style".
Most fans move on eventually because trends go stale and fandom feeds on trendiness. Our "Media" is constantly looking for "the next trend" ("outrage of the month" in the case of politics) and when they see one with potential they'll push it for all it's worth and squeeze it til the last nickle is made out of it.
We all love the concept of "free speech" but we live in a time where bullshit goes viral and can be deadly when it does. Where I live 55% of my neighbors believe "masks don't work" while 1 in 70 of them who've gotten infected with covid-19 have died. Last year I saw them claim "the vaccine has a tracker chip in it", "proof that mask don't work is I can smell my farts when I wear one", "the virus is a hoax".
We have to figure out how to deal with these issues. With over 400,000 lives lost to covid-19 just here in the U.S. de-platforming bullshitters has to be on the table.
[deleted]
> Both liberals and conservatives believe
Upon seeing that I stopped reading.
Most people abhor objectivity and cannot perform self-reflection within anything remotely close to any outside observation. Asking people to self-identify against loaded (poorly understood) political labels only compounds the otherwise commonly stupid behavior at play.
Data does not exist for the general population to make better decisions. It is there only for the trained analyst, leader, manager to make better decisions. I know that sounds elitist, but in discussions of behavior data elitism seems to take on radically different definitions compared to social contexts, and I am fine with that.
Upon seeing that I stopped reading.
Most people abhor objectivity and cannot perform self-reflection within anything remotely close to any outside observation. Asking people to self-identify against loaded (poorly understood) political labels only compounds the otherwise commonly stupid behavior at play.
Data does not exist for the general population to make better decisions. It is there only for the trained analyst, leader, manager to make better decisions. I know that sounds elitist, but in discussions of behavior data elitism seems to take on radically different definitions compared to social contexts, and I am fine with that.
Facts are what Parents/Teachers "teach" us;
Personal experiences are facts. What the article refers to as "facts" are more properly known as "factoids". Approximately 73% of quoted statistics are simply made up, and an unknown percentage are deliberately misleading.
An actual personal experience is a very different thing from a second-hand (or worse) anecdote.
An actual personal experience is a very different thing from a second-hand (or worse) anecdote.
Many many people reject personal experience of any type as specious and constantly reject opinions contrary to their own when shown contradictory evidence on this basis. It is a large part of the reason the country is the way it is.