No, people do not change their opinions based on new facts. It’s important to not think of it like that because even non “indoctrinated” people we would all consider rational work like this. If you really want to change people’s opinions on things, especially things that are important, you need to know how our brains work to get there and you shouldn’t think less of people for not changing their minds immediately. Studies have shown our rationality is not a means of making decisions but a means of explaining our decisions. I highly recommend this Vsauce video on the topic. It’s a great watch. https://youtu.be/_ArVh3Cj9rw
I first saw this video in early 2021 after spending a lot of time trying my best to show people they were wrong about COVID misinformation and election misinformation. It was a nice epilogue to that period of my life.
I highly recommend this Vsauce video on the topic.
Okay, but you should be warned, it won’t change my opinion.
show people they were wrong about COVID misinformation and election misinformation
I do think people forget how much contrary information is in the discourse when they try and make an argument and discover that their audience is unmoved. It’s like talking to a 12 year old about legal drug use after they’ve received all their information from 90s Sitcoms and the D.A.R.E. program’s most insane police officers.
So much of our understanding of the world is a composite of our prior accumulated experiences and inputs. A single contrary data point will only provoke skepticism, as it collides with a bulwark of rebuttals. Shaping someone’s views takes time, and works best on people who haven’t spent years/decades inoculating themselves to the message. That’s why propaganda exists in the first place. A steady repetition of claims and data points in favor of a particular outlook will leave people resistant to opposing views.
That said…
There are some good notes in the video, but so much of the article seems to want to rehash general logical fallacies, without addressing the underlying nature of the claims. This gets us to an argument from fallacy wherein you attempt to dismiss a claim entirely because of bad logic. “The sun rises in the east because God wills it!” is a fallacious claim, but I would not look for the sun to rise in the West as a result.
Also…
This video was created in partnership with Bill Gates and was inspired by his new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”
You can’t help grapple with the fact that Microsoft is one of the biggest modern contributors to misinformation, thanks to their massive investment in AI. And, mumble mumble Gates was on the Epstein Jet mumble mumble, which isn’t so much a refutation of the video but a note on the motivations of the authors.
Aside from the kid-sex stuff, Epstein is known for circulating some broadly ignorant and socially detrimental views on international finance, neoliberal economic reforms, and foreign policies. It can be argued that the Extended Mind Theory of Consciousness is pseudo-pscyhological drivel (particularly in how this video attempts to glamorize it, raise the stakes, and tie it into the fucking Fermi Paradox). This reads like the kind of overly dramatic pronouncements he and his friend Steven Pinker are best known for.
Which, again, isn’t even to say the core ideas are wrong. But the people pitching them… It’s like getting a lecture on the moral hazard of warmongering from Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol. Or a condemnation of sexual assault from Donald Trump.
The problem is, this is wrong. Most people won’t change their views easily. We instinctively downgrade evidence that disagrees with us and upgrade that which reinforces our beliefs.
Ironically, “smart” people can be FAR worse at this that stupid people. Just ask anyone who’s tried to do IT work for a doctor. Smart people are able to build more elaborate mental constructs to explain contradictory evidence.
This comes to a particular head in science. Scientific papers are written in a weird way. It’s always in the 3rd person, with as much personality taken out as possible. This helps when someone critiques it. Disagreements are with the paper, not the author. This is backed up by a LOT of training at university level. Even so, scientists are still prone to hanging onto outdated ideas far too long. These are people who are undoubtedly “smart” by any reasonable measure.
I get what you’re saying, but assuming you’re talking about medical doctors, they’re a bad example. I know three doctors well and they’re all dumber than a sack of hammers. Becoming a doctor doesn’t require much intelligence, it requires the ability to stay in school long enough (and being able to tolerate gross stuff from other people’s bodies).
What do you call someone who got all Ds in medical school? Doctor.
It’s actually part of my point.
Doctors are intelligent, you have to be to absorb the amount of information they are required to learn. However, it’s specialised intelligence. Being smart about medicine doesn’t make you smart about other things.
It’s like we all have a pool of base intelligence. We can then pour it into various moulds. The traditional intelligent professions are often just reliant on a large amount of specialised intelligence. This actually robs them other other forms.
It’s easy, when you can demonstrate high intelligence, in a difficult field, to assume you are intelligent across the board. A stupid person can often know they are stupid and so can compensate. An “intelligent” person can be blindsided by their weaknesses.
Not a meme but ok
Something I’ve been able to do somehow that I’m very proud of is to train myself to hold space for, and to appreciate cognitive dissonance — I’ve found that trying to quickly clear away the discomfort of it leads to doubling down on beliefs or opinions, which isn’t productive. I used to do that a lot, because I had internalised an image of myself as someone whose views and beliefs are consistent and coherent (not like all those other stupid people). I cringe to think of past me, but I suppose that’s good in a way, because progress.
Most of my progress has come from remodelling of my world view, which is a messy and lengthy process. Sometimes I have to sit with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance for a while before I can understand it and resolve it.
Literally every single person of all political stripes will see this and agree with this statement.
