[HN Gopher] People Who Jump to Conclusions Show Other Kinds of T...
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People Who Jump to Conclusions Show Other Kinds of Thinking Errors
Author : pseudolus
Score : 143 points
Date : 2021-10-21 11:04 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| RandomLensman wrote:
| That lake fishing example is terrible without any indication what
| "most" really means. If I take that to mean that 99% of all fish
| in one of the lakes are red, then seeing one red fish already
| makes me pretty confident which lake it is from.
|
| There is also this massive assumption in whole thing that
| investing time to study or decide actually increases positive
| outcomes. Might need to show that and then see if time spent vs.
| possible upside is well allocated.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I'd wager that's part of the puzzle - lacking information, you
| jump to the conclusion that 99% are single color in a given
| lake. But, "most" could be 51% or anywhere in between.
|
| How many fish do you need to catch to be relatively confident
| you've covered the 51% possibility? 2-3? 9-10? I'm sure there's
| a mathematic solution, but my gut tells me I'd want more than
| 2-3. Maybe as many as 10 or 20, depending on how frequently
| fish are caught.
| hannasanarion wrote:
| The confidence is pretty easy to calculate with Bayes rule.
| p(redLake|redFish)= p(redFish|redLake)*p(redLake)/p(redFish).
|
| If you're doing multiple experiments, then you can say that
| p(redLake) is your belief and update it by multiplying by
| p(redFish|redLake)/p(redFish) every time you see a red fish,
| and its inverse whenever you see a grey fish.
|
| If both of the lakes are 49-51, the update size is 0.51/0.50
| = 1.02. Each red fish you see should increase your confidence
| in the red lake by 2% over whatever it was before, and vice
| versa.
|
| Assuming your original assumption is 50-50: After you see one
| red fish, you can be 51% confident in the red lake. If you've
| seen 5 more red fish than grey, you can be 55% confident. If
| you've seen 10 more red fish than grey, you can be 60%
| confident. If you've seen 30 more red fish than grey, you can
| be 90% confident.
|
| If the proportion of fish in each lake is more substantial,
| your bayesian update is larger and your confidence increases
| faster. If each lake is 90% one color, a single piece of
| evidence should give you 90% confidence.
| anovikov wrote:
| Haha i am a person who jumps to conclusions, and i actually
| bought my most recent car after 1.5 visits to dealerships (i
| tried BMW but the dealer was rude to me so i left before i
| actually found out anything, and went straight to Volvo and i am
| super happy with my new S60). So i think i am qualified for an
| opinion :D
|
| One thing that hits me is conspiracy theories. Although i am not
| buying into any of the currently circulating ones (covid
| deliberately invented by Chinese, mind control chips and 5G,
| faked Moon landings), i understand people who do. Actually,
| hiding link between cell phones and cancer was a very viable idea
| through ~mid-2000s when cell phones became just way too numerous
| so if the link was true, it would become impossible to hide (and
| this is about the time when i heard of this theory a lot, then it
| gradually subsided, i haven't really heard of it in any serious
| manner in the last 10 years). After all, we know that they quite
| deliberately denied addictiveness of tobacco? They denied harm
| from leaded gasoline and lead water pipes? There is so much nasty
| crap authorities concealed or actively denied because they made
| money on it. They still deny how dangerous and addictive sugar
| is. Many of them still deny global warming.
| kbelder wrote:
| Abiogenic origin of oil in the Earth's crust. There's no strong
| scientific evidence for it, so I can't bring myself to believe
| it; but I can't bring myself to dismiss it, either. It somehow
| strikes a cord in me as a reasonable thing.
|
| I have to keep telling myself "It's probably not true," but if
| it ever turns out to be proven, I'd be shouting "I KNEW IT!"
| rmorey wrote:
| It's a "Jump to Conclusions Mat". You see, it is a mat that you
| put on the floor, and it has different CONCLUSIONS written on it
| that you could JUMP TO.
| jcadam wrote:
| That is the worst idea I've ever heard.
| kergonath wrote:
| I envy you.
| tomlue wrote:
| people underestimate the cost of dwelling on problems. There is
| great value to coming to conclusions quickly.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| The article lacked a single counter-example to show when jumping
| to a conclusion might be advantageous.
|
| And yet much of life is dominated by such cases.
|
| Great ball players jump all the time.
|
| Hunters jump or go hungry.
|
| Soldiers jump or get jumped.
|
| Financial traders jump all day long. It doesn't mean they don't
| study at night, but during they day, they don't spend time
| pondering trades that disappear as fast as a gap in traffic.
|
| Maitre d's jump.
|
| Taxi drivers jump.
|
| Fork lift drivers jump.
|
| Customs inspectors jump.
|
| Politicians jump.
|
| Not everyone jumps.
|
| Engineers work things out. But they still have to jump sometimes
| before the factory explodes or the heat shield disintegrates or
| the oxygen runs out.
| gilmore606 wrote:
| Fortune favors the bold. People telling you to never be bold
| want all the fortune.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Conspiracy theories are a manifestation of skepticism.
|
| One insight recently in the political theater is to determine
| what your audience is skeptical of. Everyone is skeptical of
| something, and these biases, when pinpointed, can be
| illuminating.
|
| On any topic you can split skepticism into groups. Are you more
| skeptical of government? The pharmaceutical industry?
| Corporations? Which?
| tgflynn wrote:
| > Conspiracy theories are a manifestation of skepticism.
|
| They're a manifestation of biased skepticism. Conspiracy
| theorists tend to be skeptical of everything except their own
| favorite conspiracy theories.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| All skepticism is biased by one's background. The 'quid est
| veritas' of our age will become more difficult with all the
| noise, deep fakes, powerful interests, etc.
| tgv wrote:
| IMO, they are born from distrust rather than skepticism, even
| though they are clearly related.
| cryptica wrote:
| Conspiracy theories aren't 100% irrational. It's irrational to
| assume that they are all 100% wrong and don't contain any correct
| or at least useful information. People do make plans together and
| influential people do tend to hang out together... It's not
| illogical to assume that they hatch plans to maintain the social
| order in a way that works for them and that some of these plans
| will be at the expense of the general population. Of course
| saying this isn't mathematically rigorous but each person who
| reads this should know axiomatically from first hand observation
| that rich people do hang out together and that rich people are
| generally good at implementating their visions/plans (how else
| they got rich?).
|
| This kind of logic is acceptable because decisions about one's
| life can never be made on the basis of mathematically rigorous
| information because you very rarely come across such kind of
| information in your day to day life. To suggest that the
| mainstream consensus is always accurate is to deny past history
| and present reality. No matter your religion, you can always
| point to incredibly large groups of people who believe some facts
| that you perceive to be incorrect.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I think the problem is that people don't follow through their
| thinking or double check their facts, leading to flights of
| fancy.
|
| This is why Occam's razor is such a useful tool. Suppose your
| conspiracy is correct. Now how many things do you have to
| explain to make this conspiracy work? If it's too many, maybe
| your ideas are wrong and you need a simpler answer.
| wongarsu wrote:
| People conspire all the time, so there's bound to be conspiracy
| theories that are true. I think it's telling that the author
| uses the moon landing as an example, which to me seems to be
| among the least likely (but somewhat popular) theories. All
| credible evidence points to the moon landing actually
| happening, making it a good candidate for this study. Simply
| labeling that "endorse conspiracy theories" is a bit
| thoughtless though.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| The "fake" moon landings is an interesting example; although
| the number of direct eye-witnesses is tiny, there are
| thousands of scientists and engineers at NASA that will
| queue-up to testify they really happened, and nobody who
| actually knows anything will deny it.
|
| But the affirmers are all people in white lab-coats, and many
| people automatically distrust anyone in a white lab-coat. No
| "ordinary people" went to the moon and witnessed it
| themselves. I believe you could pick out the lunar lander
| from Earth, using a BIG telescope, as a small dot. But no
| amateur stargazer could do that. So all the affirmative
| testimony comes from a group of people who were all working
| for the same team.
|
| So if you don't trust that team, there's no reliable evidence
| _against_ the CT. (There 's no evidence _for_ it either; but
| if you don 't trust the people who know, then to doubt seems
| rational)
| wongarsu wrote:
| Yes, the level of evidence kind of depends on your world-
| view. I would have said that the fact that both the US and
| the USSR both claimed it happened, with the USSR seemingly
| only losing from that, is already strongly in support of
| the moon landing being real. But some people divide the
| world differently, to them it's politicians and mainstream
| media, and scientists employed by them, who are making that
| claim, which makes that group look much less diverse.
|
| I imagine you could just as easily make a study "people who
| look at fewer partitions of datasets reach wrong
| conclusions more often". Just as you can sample more fish
| from a lake and see if there's a pattern in their color,
| you can try to look at more perspectives and see if there's
| a pattern one way or the other.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Conspiracy theories aren't 100% irrational.
|
| The term is often used to refer to implausible "theories" that
| make very strong claims, but have zero supporting evidence and
| make zero testable predictions.
|
| Of course, it's true that people conspire all the time.
|
| Implausible "theories" that make strong claims are exciting and
| entertaining. They're fun to play with. They become a problem
| when they go viral, among groups of people with limited
| critical thinking skills.
|
| The internet has been responsible for this, by democratising
| information. Anyone who failed at school can still look up
| shifty research papers online, misunderstand them, and not not
| know how to evaluate the evidence.
|
| This is a social pandemic, and I have no idea what the cure is.
| But I'm certain the cure _isn 't_ more censorship.
|
| > you can always point to incredibly large groups of people who
| believe some facts that you perceive to be incorrect.
|
| Hardly any propositions about the world are "mathematically
| rigorous" - there's nearly always a big chunk of judgement
| needed to decide the truth of a proposition. That doesn't mean
| that all judgements have equal value; some beliefs are
| "wronger" than others. There seem to be large groups of people
| with opinions that are screamingly, obviously, completely
| wrong, and as close to 100% irrational as makes no difference.
|
| Some "conspiracy theories" lack adequate supporting evidence,
| but are at least arguable. For example, it's a fact that in the
| past, groups of people have been given vaccines that were
| deliberately contaminated by the manufacturer. It's therefore
| not unreasonable to ask for evidence that this hasn't happened
| in the case of e.g. COVID vaccines.
|
| I prefer to reserve the term "conspiracy theory" for that class
| of opinions that is obviously completely batshit.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| > They become a problem when they go viral, among groups of
| people with limited critical thinking skills.
|
| Agreed, and to expand on this: I believe another problem is
| that these conspiracy theorists also believe that they have
| secret knowledge that the man doesn't want you to have.
| Finally, they are smarter about something than those folks
| with education and success.
|
| This makes them an easy target for real conspiracies,
| conspiracies by folks that merely want to take their money.
| See, for example, the anti-GMO movement and specifically the
| anti-GMO seed packs you can buy.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > See, for example, the anti-GMO movement
|
| I'm against GMO. Not because I believe retail GMO food is
| likely to be harmful; I mean, harmful foods _could_ be
| made, but we have testing.
|
| I'm against GMO because (a) a lot of GMO plants have been
| engineered to be grown with heavy use of herbicides and
| pesticides, (b) GMO crops make a farm non-organic, and I'm
| in favour of organic farming for environmental reasons; and
| (c) GMO companies lobby incessantly against food labelling.
| If a food supplier doesn't want to label my food, then
| absent any other excuse, I presume there's something they
| don't want me to know (yes, I read food labels in
| supermarkets. I carry a credit-card-sized magnifier in my
| wallet, for that purpose).
|
| What is an "anti-GMO seed pack"? Would that just be a pack
| containing seeds that are not genetically modified?
| bulatb wrote:
| It's rational for them to lobby against GMO labeling
| because it's a lose-lose proposition, even if they
| honestly believe their food is safe and eat it
| themselves. Either it scares off consumers (some of whom
| won't know what GMO means but understandably assume it's
| bad because it's disclosed) or they have to spend a bunch
| of money on "consumer education" and lose some of them
| anyway.
|
| That's whether GMOs are safe or not.
|
| Water companies would also lobby against "Warning: heavy
| water" and Cisco would lobby against "gigahertz
| radiation" labels, but not because they have something to
| hide.
| kbelder wrote:
| You probably mean "hard water"?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Doesn't mean they're hiding something.
|
| No it doesn't.
|
| But without a label of the form "contains GM
| ingredients", I am being deprived of choice about what I
| eat. It's reasonable to expect people to care a lot about
| what they eat.
|
| > Water companies would also lobby against "heavy water"
| labels
|
| If you mean labelling ordinary water as "heavy" because
| it contains a tiny amount of deuterium, I'm not that's
| analogous. Even if it is, I'm not sure that saying "They
| would say that, wouldn't they" makes their arguments
| against labelling more persuasive.
| bulatb wrote:
| It's not a prefect analogy because it only really
| captures the producer's point of view. They _are_ hiding
| the product 's heaviness or GMOness itself, but because
| they think that doesn't tell you anything about its
| safety or general worthiness and so should not be part of
| your decision.
|
| You should still be able to avoid the product for
| environmental reasons, or just because, but of course
| they don't think so. (HN's favorite Sinclair quote about
| men and salaries and understanding.)
| Gunax wrote:
| There are degrees of conspiracy theory, and as a term it's been
| highly undermined and politicized, sort of like 'fake news'.
|
| I think that it's easy to fall into a false dichotomy between
| 'believing that everything conventional is true' and
| 'conapiracy theories are real'.
|
| Sometimes conspiracy theorists defend themselves by asking
| things like 'do you trust the
| government/corporations/church...?' as if I must either trust
| everything a government has ever said or (eg.) believe it's
| harbouring secret ET bases. Or that no doctor has ever lied or
| they are hiding the secret cancer cure.
|
| And yea, maybe I am missing something that's real. The issue is
| that there is such a deluge of crap, that no one can possibly
| know every theory. You could spend months or years just
| researching one of (9/11, crisis actor, qanon, moon landing,
| telepathy, etc).
|
| We may just be talking about different types of conspiracy
| theories though, as mentioned by the other responder.
| scandox wrote:
| Lots of people hum and haw and get things totally wrong. The
| question is not how fast you jump but how well prepared the
| ground of your thought was for the situation.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| It's about impulse control.
|
| Most criminals do not have it either.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| This describes my world in programming. I have learned to be
| careful and deliberate in software efforts, and it pays. But I
| work with quite a few type 1 jumpers that spend countless wasted
| hours trying to solve problems because they jump too fast to
| conclusions. FD, I'm often accused by friends and family of
| overthinking things.
|
| I'm curious if there's a correlation between type 1 jumpers and
| people who are more entrepreneurial risk takers.
| droptablemain wrote:
| https://archive.md/49OLq
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| This headline and article are essentially, "Foolish people are
| often foolish."
| micdr0p wrote:
| I always thought I was too quick to jump to conclusions. After
| reading this, I'm not so sure I am any more.
|
| I guess the true conclusion-jumpers don't think they are.
|
| David Dunning strikes again!
| dsizzle wrote:
| Haha. (I had just come here to note one of the authors is the
| Dunning from the Dunning-Krueger effect -- I honestly didn't
| know anything about him, such as whether he was still alive!)
| sharklazer wrote:
| An experiment based on drawing red or grey balls/fish/things...
|
| You know, this really isn't a valid experiment. If you do the
| probability calculations then 2-3 draws is all you need. All this
| is based on the assumption getting red or grey is high
| probability, >90%.
|
| This is exactly how distributors do defect testing on lots
| incoming goods.
| iammisc wrote:
| This thread is basically chock full of people jumping to
| conclusions, including myself. It seems to me that jumping to
| conclusions is part of the human condition, and I find it
| difficult to blame them for that.
| greenail wrote:
| I think most people on this thread have jumped to apply this
| generally when I think it is intended to be focused on
| schizophrenia. I also think the research shows that bias
| intervention training doesn't really take over the long run and I
| question how useful this is for the average joe.
| motohagiography wrote:
| "Jumpers," as described mostly just lacked a fear of consequences
| of being wrong and were presented with an incentive to guess. Not
| to be conspiratorial, but one can't help but notice a recent
| preoccupation in mainstream outlets with pathologizing conspiracy
| theorists, dissenters, and now, "jumpers."
|
| Referencing Khaneman and Tversky's "system 1 and system 2" from
| their bestseller Thinking Fast and Slow without crediting it
| seems to be more about avoiding the scrutiny that would draw, and
| instead, appearing authoritative with statements about how
| ancient psychological researchers commonly distinguish between
| these types of thought. We should even be concerned someone who
| could be a "jumper," may also have schizophrenia, as our thinking
| may have applications to that.
|
| Maybe it's interesting, or maybe on closer inspection and
| thoughtful consideration it resembles propaganda to ignore your
| instincts, trust the narrative, and provides blunt tools for
| being suspicious of others who don't. If only most people were
| smart and comfortable enough to jump to conclusions and then
| course correct as needed, we could avoid the consequences of
| groupthink by those who fear criticism above all.
| macksd wrote:
| > lacked a fear of consequences of being wrong
|
| This is interesting. It used to be that some of the people
| we're discussing, let's use flat-earthers as an example, were
| just really, really committed to their idea. It was their whole
| identity and persona, and they would just never be able to
| accept anything different. This seems to me to be the opposite
| of what you describe. It's like they were terrified of being
| wrong, so they embraced not admitting it no matter what. They
| would never accept that they had been wrong. (With a few
| exceptions - I've engaged with A LOT of flat-earthers and some
| of them do give me the impression they just like playing
| devil's advocate, etc.)
|
| Lately though, QAnon seems to have embraced this idea. They've
| made statements that will be very quickly falsifiable, and will
| actually say "Who cares if it's not true - we just support
| patriotism / freedom, etc. and what part of that do you
| disagree with?" They'll make statements that will be very
| quickly falsifiable (for instance, I saw a post claiming Nancy
| Pelosi had been arrested for high crimes, and Trump was now
| making his move - but a few days later obviously that wasn't
| true). _That 's_ what I call a lack of fear of consequences of
| being wrong. But to me it seems a new phenomenon.
| iammisc wrote:
| I'm a right winger. I don't know any Q people. It seems to me
| that mostly left wingers know Q people and know all the
| details. My leftist father in law will explain in detail to
| me everything Q said, and I just nod along going like... why
| would you even bother reading this stuff?
| macksd wrote:
| I know several in person. I'm probably right of center and
| definitely live in a predominantly right area. They put it
| on their IG stories and they bring it up in person. Without
| cutting them off socially, not really sure how I can avoid
| hearing it from time to time.
| helen___keller wrote:
| > Not to be conspiratorial, but one can't help but notice a
| recent preoccupation in mainstream outlets with pathologizing
| conspiracy theorists, dissenters, and now, "jumpers."
|
| No conspiracies needed. QAnon type conspiracies are more
| visible than ever (as they get blown up on social media) and
| personally I've seemed to notice a pretty big uptick in 'uncle
| so and so went off the deep end so we had to cut off
| communication' type stories.
|
| This increase in attention feeds news stories about conspiracy
| adherents (and anybody that can be lumped in with them, even if
| it's not warranted).
|
| > maybe on closer inspection and thoughtful consideration it
| resembles propaganda to ignore your instincts, trust the
| narrative, and provides blunt tools for being suspicious of
| others who don't
|
| This is almost all "news" nowadays. Antifa is running the left,
| QAnon is running the right, somebody is out to get you and ruin
| the American way of life and we're going to tell you who the
| bad people are if you just tune in for our next segment.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| > I've seemed to notice a pretty big uptick in 'uncle so and
| so went off the deep end so we had to cut off communication'
| type stories.
|
| I wonder how long that sort of cutting off has been happening
| in the past. I know there are members of my extended family I
| don't associate with due to their crazy beliefs, but I
| haven't talked about it.
| helen___keller wrote:
| My personal opinion is that the pandemic offered a unique
| opportunity for hidden 'crazy beliefs' to expose
| themselves.
|
| If Uncle Bob in 2017 believed that the federal reserve was
| run by a cabal hoarding 90% of our tax money to enrich
| themselves, nobody would really care unless he feels the
| need to bring it up in every conversation to the detriment
| of normal human interaction.
|
| If Uncle Bob in 2020 believes that, he probably also
| believes that the cabal is using masks to control the
| population, which causes an immediate conflict when he
| insists on going unmasked everywhere, including visits to
| elderly grandma. And then in 2021 that belief probably gets
| extended to vaccines.
|
| In other words, the pandemic offered a unique opportunity
| for conspiracy theories to conflict with day-to-day life in
| a way that wasn't true before the pandemic.
| rglover wrote:
| > he probably also believes
|
| The entire problem. You're not speaking to this person to
| figure out what they actually believe, you're forming a
| belief based on your own assumption.
| helen___keller wrote:
| This is a hypothetical person, so no, I am not speaking
| to the hypothetical person.
|
| My point is that IF uncle bob's belief system segued into
| beliefs about masks and vax, then it becomes more visible
| and causes conflict with family members who didn't give a
| shit about the previous belief system; not that all
| conspiracies will necessarily turn into beliefs about
| masks and vax.
| iammisc wrote:
| It seems to me that there's been an uptick in cutting off
| family members because it sends a social signal to those
| you're speaking with that you're the kind of person that
| only cavorts with rational people. Given how
| individualistic america is today, cutting off your family
| for 'rationality's sake is seen as a good thing, whereas
| to most cultures, this is seen as utterly horrific.
|
| Well that and the preponderance of cutting off
| hypothetical family members.
| motohagiography wrote:
| This is an interesting one because the pandemic policy
| response divide is right on the line where it created an
| unlikely coaltion of superstitious villagers, with 2+
| stddev intelligence people in the habit of checking their
| priors and rejecting perceived obvious untruths. To
| extend the metaphor, perhaps it's a coalition of people
| beyond a stddev in both directions, who together form a
| huge cohort, if not even potentially a small majority.
| They share the same sentiments and instincts about
| concreteness and untruth, but have radically different
| tools to express it.
|
| What broke pandemic policy is it was run by people who
| believe sincerely that they need to deceive people for
| their own good. It's the maternalism of noble lies. While
| there is a lot of uncertainty in policy circles about
| science and truth, there is very little uncertainty about
| power, and when you have that, truth is what you say it
| is.
|
| The policy response is absolutely using the crisis as
| leverage to ensconce measures that would not have been
| legally or politically possible without it. The only
| meaningful question (I think) is whether the people
| behind the policies and supporting them are protagonists
| or antagonists. Almost nobody is asking, "wait, are we
| the baddies?" The reason "the banality of evil," is such
| a controversial idea is it places more intellectual and
| moral responsibility on each of us than the long tail of
| people are willing or able to accept, and so it's easier
| to attack the person with the idea than clear the bar it
| implies.
|
| That's not conspiratorial, that's critical, and I'm
| sympathetic to people accused of conspiracy thinking
| because we've let the culture conflate those - to whose
| benefit is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)
| helen___keller wrote:
| Discussing pandemic policy here is off-topic, but going
| back to my previous post:
|
| > This increase in attention feeds news stories about
| conspiracy adherents (and anybody that can be lumped in
| with them, even if it's not warranted).
|
| Emphasis on the last bit: whether your contrarian
| position is "+2 sigma" (as you state) or -2 sigma, you
| will definitely be lumped in with the other group by some
| targeted news program.
|
| > to whose benefit is left as an exercise
|
| To everyone's detriment really. Every accuser is also
| accused. Mainstream news these days is as much a target
| of conspiracies as they are accusers of conspiracy
| theorists. So too are leftists, rightists, contrarians,
| and of course actual conspiracy theorists. Everyone is
| accusing everyone else of something, to a net negative on
| society.
|
| Every leftist is accused of marxism, every conservative
| accused of white supremacy, and so on. It's a miserable
| state of affairs with no nuance or productive discussion.
| Even the platforms (Facebook et al) that promulgate the
| inflammation of public discourse are themselves
| increasingly under fire by both sides of the aisle for
| various reasons to the point that both breaking up tech
| companies or heavily regulating their platforms are
| regularly discussed and promoted by lawmakers (ie
| Facebook and family face existential threats because they
| are so accused of poisoning the well, which well they
| have done to be fair but that's really just the nature of
| social media).
| motohagiography wrote:
| So we're not talking past each other, your example of
| conspiracy uncles was attitudes toward masks, which is
| pandemic policy, so it is precisely on topic as an
| example.
|
| Conspiracy theories are rooted in (if not defined as) the
| logic of uncharitable interpretations, and I'm saying the
| source of that is whether the subject of the theory is
| viewed as a protagonist or antagonist. Conflating the
| dumb and the smart in that stddev/sigma view is an
| artifact of that uncharitable thinking as well, where the
| average person has been trained to think the common are
| stupid and the exceptional are insane.
|
| Optimistically, we can dislodge that, and I'd emphasize
| this uncharitable cognitive bias as the source of the
| divide.
| version_five wrote:
| I've always felt like the belief in a large group of
| "conspiracy theorists" is probably one of the biggest
| "conspiracy theories".
|
| A friend of a relative is an apparent flat earther - my
| relative is always saying things like "oh you wouldn't believe
| what this guy thinks, he says the world is actually shaped like
| a UN map, what a goof". In this situation, which of the two is
| actually the more gullible? From the situations I hear
| described, it's pretty clear the guy just likes to tease, and
| enjoys the "intellectual exercise" - for some value of
| intellectual - of tearing down commonly held truths by
| providing alternatives, even if they are silly. I've seen the
| same thing with moon landing and 9/11. People like to use these
| as strawmen about look at all the nuts out there, we need to
| control what people can read, but this is just an excuse for
| shutting down opinions they don't like.
| flipflip wrote:
| > we need to control what people can read
|
| Why do we need that? I find this type of control suffocating
| and it is just a patch for deeper seated problems, mistrust
| of authority for example.
| flipflip wrote:
| I think the people falling for conspiracy theories are
| thoroughly demoralized. They are so far in the rabbit hole
| that they cannot even acknowledge reality any longer. That
| won't be fixed by stopping people to read things. I think
| it will only add to the underlying mistrust and make it
| worse.
|
| You need to find out why that happened and fix that.
| version_five wrote:
| I wrote "People like to use these as strawmen about look at
| all the nuts out there, we need to control what people can
| read"
|
| The grammar was very poor. I meant the "look at all the
| nuts out there, we need to control what people can read" as
| the false conclusion that might be drawn by someone who
| believes conspiracy theories are rampant.
| SamBam wrote:
| > From the situations I hear described, it's pretty clear the
| guy just likes to tease, and enjoys the "intellectual
| exercise"
|
| This was the default assumption for plenty of people when
| they first hear about real flat earthers, but unfortunately
| it appears to quickly devolve into actual, very firm beliefs
| for many people.
|
| This whole phenomenon of "LARPing" your way into a conspiracy
| ( _I 'm going to start posting about the Jewish cabal
| controlling the world because it's "edgy," it triggers people
| online, and it's a fun intellectual exercise to see if I can
| gather as many pieces of evidence as possible_) and then
| actually believing it seems to honestly explain how a lot of
| these conspiracy theories end up gaining so much momentum.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| It's hard to get into peoples' heads, but in my experience,
| I've known people who were into conspiracy X, but did not
| want to admit that they believe in conspiracy X at first,
| so they told their friends that they were just joking,
| being edgy or learning more about it, etc.
|
| After a while, they just grow tired of keeping up
| appearances, or maybe a famous person talks about
| conspiracy X, so they are no longer embarrassed by their
| belief, etc.
| umvi wrote:
| > but unfortunately it appears to quickly devolve into
| actual, very firm beliefs for many people.
|
| Is it possible to quantify "many people"? Like, what
| percentage of people that are ostensibly flat earthers are
| actually genuine flat earthers vs. trolls? I would guess
| trolls make up the majority of internet flat earthers.
| kibwen wrote:
| Trying to ascribe the intent of an action rather than
| focusing on the action itself is part of the problem in
| this circumstance. It's impossible to know how many are
| sincere, or how many are trolls pretending to be sincere,
| or how many are sincere but are pretending to be trolls
| so as to plausibly deny their sincere beliefs, etc. At
| the end of the day, the intent doesn't matter. If one is
| in a public forum (especially an anonymous/pseudonymous
| public forum) then the only thing to judge is one's
| actions, not their intentions, and if their actions are
| deliberately stupid, then we must assume they are simply
| stupid, and not merely pretending to be stupid. This
| approach obviously has problems, but there's no other
| tractable solution. The internet (especially Poe's Law)
| has killed satire.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Flat earther trolls that I saw didn't look sincere or
| stupid, they looked ironic.
| helen___keller wrote:
| Yeah, I dunno. My mother-in-law picked up bona fide crazy
| beliefs when she started using Youtube about 4 years ago. She
| started with "Proof the world is going to end in 2018/19"
| videos that she would email me, then moved into some kind of
| weird anti-CCP guo wengui / steve bannon phase, and currently
| watches a daily update from "restored republic" which is
| basically a monotone voice explaining all sorts of crazy shit
| (energy and internet will soon be free, mass arrests are
| happening, president trump is taking control of the military,
| we're going to have a quantum banking system and everyone
| will get free money back that the vatican stole from the US
| through the federal reserve, ...)
|
| This isn't a strawman intellectual exercise. If we're in the
| car and talking about charging it, she will excitedly bring
| up how electricity will be free soon and laugh when we
| suggest that's a load of bull. She chose to not get
| vaccinated because she believes the vaccine was engineered to
| make you more susceptible to the "next virus" that the CCP is
| planning to release.
|
| I don't really understand how she can possibly believe so
| much drivel, but she tunes in for her update every day, and
| this is the only "news" she cares about.
|
| edit: just to be clear, the "free energy" thing isn't about
| government subsidizing electricity, it's about a device that
| nikola tesla invented that creates electricity from nothing
| but was suppressed for generations by the rich and powerful
| vested interests of the fossil fuel industry.
| tinco wrote:
| Something like this happened on Reddit, with the
| /r/the_donald subreddit. At first it was jokes at expense of
| the man, then it transformed into jokingly supporting his
| presidency. Then it became some quasi-intellectual support of
| his presidency. Then it became actual non-ironic serious
| support of his presidency through memes. And then when it
| actually happened, it became a sort of cult worship site that
| was eventually banned for supporting the more extreme
| viewpoints that have been attributed to his supporters.
|
| I like the idea of intellectual exercise, and I enjoyed
| reading the sub when it was just fun and games. I stopped
| reading it when they started to seriously support his
| election. But people for sure lose themselves in the
| delusions, especially if some part of it connects to them.
| It's like some sort of cheat code into their minds. I have
| friends who fell to the QAnon situation. If you told them 5
| years ago that our government officials were satanic
| ritualistic baby eaters, they'd laugh you out of the room and
| tell you to have another beer. It doesn't really work that
| way. No way in any serious debate could you ever convince
| them of this. But now, after they've fell down the rabbit
| hole some of them seriously unironically believe these things
| could actually be true.
|
| It's like they saying goes: If you open up your mind too
| much, your brains will fall out.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| That's an interesting narrative framing. I'm reading
| Berger[1] at the moment and of course the social
| reproduction of knowledge is a component of the work. Pg.
| 76-77(in the linked copy) parallel your description of this
| process though on a longer timescale. In social media
| spaces, the playfulness and joking nature of the
| progenitors, becomes habituated, and eventually
| institutionalized over time.
|
| What's surprising is the speed at which this happens. In
| Berger's conceptualization is that this happens over the
| course of lifetimes, while in the social media space, this
| happens over the course of months.
|
| My final point is that this is the reason why "jokes"[2]
| are insidious. They will attract people who earnestly
| believe they aren't just jokes which normalizes harassment.
|
| [1] The Social Construction of Reality. Berger, Peter
| http://perflensburg.se/Berger%20social-construction-of-
| reali...
|
| [2] A specific kind of harassment designed to habituate
| abuse while also taking advantage of plausible deniability
| by ostensibly also being a "joke".
| jjkaczor wrote:
| I think that was a great example of; 'normalization of
| deviance' -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance
| kbelder wrote:
| I wonder to what degree anybody's mind changed in that
| subreddit, as opposed to the individuals being replaced
| with others of different beliefs. That's always a question
| when people attribute a collective with beliefs and other
| similar characteristics. The 'collective' is an ever-
| shifting amalgamation of different individuals.
| toss1 wrote:
| Maybe it's LARPing or "intellectual exercise" for some, but
| for many if not most, it's their reality. I've personally
| tried to reason with some - it is truly and deeply a waste of
| time.
|
| They literally cannot see beyond their own senses, e.g., want
| to see for themselves the curvature of the earth, yet they
| believe that it is the case that every one of the billions of
| photos of the earth from space or high altitude is faked, but
| won't believe that people can go to space.
|
| The psychological research that seems to best explain it is
| that these people prefer to believe that the world is full of
| and controlled by an evil secret cabal than live in the
| reality of a world that is deeply random and uncertain.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Not disagreeing, but I think this idea of theorists
| believing there are hidden patterns as an impotent attempt
| to impose control on a random and uncertain world falls
| into its own categorical/binary/blackandwhite trap that
| also overlooks complexity.
|
| Someone seeing periodicity or even symmetry, fractal self
| simlarity, or isomorphic structure in something noisy could
| just as easily be accused of apophenia until they produce
| proof. That there is structure in the noise matters to the
| theorist, but to the hegemon it's unimportant, if not
| subversive and dangerous.
|
| I prefer to look at it as having to do with how people
| relate to power and truth and how they perecieve it.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| Read the conspiracy subreddit and get back with us.
| iammisc wrote:
| The conspiracy subreddit gets discredited for the random
| stuff that gets posted on there, which ought to be expected
| since they do little moderation.
|
| On several key points, the conspiracy subreddit has been
| correct. For example, in March 2020, they accurately
| predicted the course of covid, namely that vaccines would
| be developed, that there would be large-scale hesitancy,
| and that this would be used to justify the keeping of covid
| lockdowns / masking requirements / eviction moratoria far
| beyond the stated 15 days. Regardless of your belief in
| whether this was justified or not, this happened.
|
| Similarly, the subreddit was correct about things later
| revealed by edward snowden.
|
| Of course the next post will be about lizard people, but
| frankly, that doesn't mean we ought to discount the well
| thought out, presented, and reasonable 'conspiracies' that
| get trotted out there. Some of them actually happen.
|
| It's just a bad place to trust, because they do no
| moderation. On the other hand, the places that do moderate
| are always behind on the things that end up being true.
| HelixEndeavor wrote:
| Go outside and get back to us.
| depaya wrote:
| You are being way too charitable. While there certainly are
| people that fall into the category you claim... there are
| many who are full blown Jewish space laser, government ice
| wall, lizard people shadow government, 5g microchip tracker
| crazies.
| rglover wrote:
| The entire "Jewish space laser" thing was never actually
| said. She mentioned names of people who are Jewish, but
| that terminology/connection was made by the media. Nothing
| she said illuminated this connection in any way.
|
| Was her point grounded in reality? Hell no. But the exact
| point being made above is highlighted by your comment.
|
| Her original post: https://politizoom.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/01/Greene-las....
| kergonath wrote:
| To me, "Jewish space lasers" is a slight hyperbole of the
| kind of rubbish we read from low-efforts trolls. I've
| obviously read about Marjorie Taylor-Green, but not being
| American I missed this gem.
|
| That one could write that she did not _quite_ say that,
| instead of the sane universe's version that she did not
| say anything remotely like it truly is shocking. And
| horrifying.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| The phenomenon of the exaggerations of "Jewish space
| lasers" and "horse paste" is an interesting topic.
|
| There's a perfectly reasonable point to be made in each
| case, but many of the people making it feel the need to
| overstate the case and make it even more absurd.
|
| I think it's because mockery spreads faster on the
| internet than a simple debunking. And so the thing being
| debunked is turned into its most extreme form. Perhaps
| even a step or two beyond a valid interpretation of
| what's being asserted by the subject.
|
| So with the Mockery Maximization Principle, you get a
| meme that can spread very quickly and discredit the
| target at the same time.
|
| The problem with this technique is that it can backfire
| if people start repeating it as what was actually being
| asserted. For example, the horse paste meme has backfired
| when it came to Rogan and the CNN doctor. When this
| happens, now the debunkers are on the defensive and they
| don't have a great way out of it since they're no longer
| on the side of accuracy and truth.
| rglover wrote:
| > Mockery Maximization Principle
|
| That's a great term.
| iammisc wrote:
| > The problem with this technique is that it can backfire
| if people start repeating it as what was actually being
| asserted. For example, the horse paste meme has backfired
| when it came to Rogan and the CNN doctor. When this
| happens, now the debunkers are on the defensive and they
| don't have a great way out of it since they're no longer
| on the side of accuracy and truth.
|
| This is the problem with tribal audiences. CNN can say to
| its audience (mainly older liberals) that ivermection is
| horse paste, and face no repercussions. Conformity is so
| valued by society as a whole, that no one is going to
| stand up for the truth on CNN itself. But then in those
| brief moments when the outside world comes in, their
| bluff is called.
|
| The right does it as well, and your mockery maximization
| principle (great name BTW) mandates that the meme is
| produced solely for their primary audience to sell
| clicks.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| "but that terminology/connection was made by the media"
|
| She put enough of her thoughts and 'research' into her
| post that it was a 'dog whistle' for like-minded-
| thinkers.
|
| You do not always have to explicitly say something, to
| actually say something...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)
| rglover wrote:
| No. This is a rationalization for a belief that is
| incorrect.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| It can be both. Typically one doesn't need to rationalize
| publically - by posting this thing to a large enough
| audience, this was past the point of rationalization -
| but was instead performative and seeking
| agreement/attention and acknowledgment.
|
| And rather than stating the incorrect belief explicitly,
| she was using dog-whistle rhetoric techniques.
| rglover wrote:
| Again, you're rationalizing. You're making assumptions
| about her intent without any evidence to the contrary.
| This sort of thinking is the exact problem. You're
| finding your own conclusion, accepting it as fact, and
| then (in the case of the media) promoting that as what
| took place. That's a lie, no matter how you twist it.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| The lie is pretending that people who post statements on
| a platform like Twitter and have a wide-spread audience
| or follower-base do not have any intent.
|
| The lie is pretending that someones' written words are
| not actually enough evidence to show their intent.
|
| The lie is pretending that statements exist completely
| isolated from any cultural or historical context.
| Marjorie Taylor Green has a well documented history of
| making very controversial statements.
|
| The lie is ignoring the fact that time and time again
| conspiracy theorists keep bringing up the same
| scapegoats. Perhaps you are simply unaware that
| historically, attempting to link things with "Rothschild"
| is a very long-standing anti-semetic conspiracy and a
| known dog whistle.
| rglover wrote:
| > The lie is pretending that people who post statements
| on a platform like Twitter and have a wide-spread
| audience or follower-base do not have any intent.
|
| Assumption.
|
| > The lie is pretending that someones' written words are
| not actually enough evidence to show their intent.
|
| Assumption.
|
| > The lie is pretending that statements exist completely
| isolated from any cultural or historical context.
| Marjorie Taylor Green has a well documented history of
| making very controversial statements.
|
| Assumption.
|
| > The lie is ignoring the fact that time and time again
| conspiracy theorists keep bringing up the same
| scapegoats.
|
| Generalization.
|
| ---
|
| You're desperate to align reality with your opinion and
| offering nothing but characters attacks and assumptions
| as argumentation.
| Cerium wrote:
| Looks like we got one of the conspiracy theorist conspiracy
| theorists. /s
| willvarfar wrote:
| The article opens with a couple of examples of people allegedly
| not doing research:
|
| 1. Most people make two trips or fewer to a dealership before
| buying a car
|
| 2. when picking a doctor, many individuals use recommendations
| from friends and family rather than consulting other health care
| professionals or "formal sources" such as employers, articles or
| Web sites
|
| And, of course, the last person I would look to for objective
| advice on buying a car is a car salesman! Surely people have a
| good idea what they are going to buy, what they are prepared to
| spend and how they are expecting to finance it etc before going
| to a dealership for the car?
|
| Ditto too the doctor; if you are searching for a doctor, do you
| go and cold call other doctors for an opinion? Or read the blurb
| on a website provided by or sponsored by the employer? Its much
| more straightforward to ask people you know which doctors they
| recommend.
|
| Is the subtext of the starting examples meant to be saying that
| people should defer to car salesman and should ask doctors rather
| than friends and family to recommend other doctors?
| deft wrote:
| It's not even subtext. The media has been screaming at everyone
| to trust the experts and defer thinking.
| tabtab wrote:
| No, the problem is rejecting experts _in place of_ loud-
| mouthed pundits, who either make crap up or cherry-pick
| outlier expert viewpoints without telling you they are
| outliers or bringing in non-outliers to counter.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I bought my latest car in March. I performed most research and
| all price negotiation online. Even at that, I still visited 4
| dealers. The first two to test a large SUV, which I thought I
| wanted, but ended up not liking. The third to test drive two
| smaller SUVs. And the fourth to pick-up the SUV I eventually
| purchased.
|
| I wouldn't think this was an unusual pattern for many buyers in
| the internet age.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Last time we bought a car we knew what we wanted and what it
| should cost, but had to visit multiple dealers because they
| kept lying about availability, prices, etc.
| cma wrote:
| People may spend 3-4x as much time trying out and choosing a
| car as buying an expensive TV, even though the car costs ~20X
| more and more research, haggling, etc. on the car could be
| worth 3 TVs, but more on the TV could only be like at most .2
| TVs.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Yes, but you very soon reach the point of diminishing returns
| when you try to research any purchase. After a maximum a few
| hours it is hard to find any more useful information about
| most consumer goods. You have read all the specifications,
| and the tests and the reviews and went to the stores to look
| at the products in person. So even if you might spend half a
| day researching an expensive TV, you won't make a better buy
| of a car even if you spend more than a day or two
| researching. And if you spend ten full days to buy a car, you
| are most certainly wasting your time (and will lose more
| income than you can optimise your car purchase).
| wongarsu wrote:
| People don't value money linearly. You wouldn't pay an
| additional $10 for a cup of filter coffee, but most people
| wouldn't think twice about paying an additional $10 for a
| car. But it's the same amount of money, so surely that's
| irrational in that situation.
|
| In other situations it makes complete sense. If you have $1M,
| losing $10 isn't nearly as big a deal as when those $10 were
| all you had.
|
| If you try to apply game theory to economics you apply a
| utility function to money to model this, and a logarithmic
| function maps quite well to how humans think about money.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Not disagreeing with your conclusion but there's a
| difference between spending $10 more for 3 years of utility
| vs $10 more for 3 minutes of utility.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| > But it's the same amount of money, so surely that's
| irrational in that situation.
|
| Not necessarily, since many people buy coffee way more
| often than they buy a car.
| mberning wrote:
| I agree. As a person that has bought many new cars I try to
| spend as little time at the dealer as possible. I would assume
| most savvy buyers do as well. Getting a hard sell or bad
| information from an aggressive associate is not high on my list
| of things to do.
|
| Same goes for doctors. I need a recommendation for somebody in
| my area that I can work with. If a close friend likes a doctor
| there is probably a decent chance I will like them as well. I
| can also google them and things like that before deciding to
| go. It also isn't a lifetime commitment. If I don't like them I
| can change doctors very easily.
| austincheney wrote:
| What the article hints at but does not discuss is _time to
| action_. For example, a bad decision can be revisited but the
| time lost to indecision is forever gone.
|
| Some people are comfortable making hasty decisions. Just
| because a person visited only one car dealer does not suggest a
| lack of prior research. A person may know exactly what they
| want and the price range they are willing to pay for it with
| features they want. The last time I bought a car I went to one
| dealer and told them I want these features. They called around
| to various other dealers on my behalf because they wanted my
| business and they knew what to look for.
|
| Time to action stresses arbitrary decisions which may not be
| hasty (no planning or research). The goal of a well considered
| time to action is to act quickly but in balance for risk
| analysis. This means either having a remediation already
| available or transferring the risk to someone else in order to
| make a decision now consequences be damned.
| IanSanders wrote:
| Perhaps the author jumped to a conclusion that number of
| dealership visits correlates with informedness.
| medstrom wrote:
| It seems reasonable to me; maybe I'm not modeling "most
| people" well, but it's hard to imagine someone going to
| dealerships multiple times for information; rather, they are
| shopping around for the dealerships to underbid each other so
| they can get a better price. That's a tip I read on the
| internet.
| Loughla wrote:
| That's a tip that was valid before internet pricing became
| a thing. Essentially, the price you see online is the price
| you pay now, because dealers have (mostly, and FINALLY)
| learned that if I don't see it at a good price, I'm not
| interested. Some still have the 'come in to see the price'
| and they don't move the volume of those with robust
| internet sales teams [source here that i don't have. Anyone
| have one?]
|
| Now the extra costs come in on accessories, service plans,
| and warranties, whereas they used to make more profit on
| the actual sales.
|
| We just bought a vehicle in March, and it was the best,
| least friction experience buying a car. I found the package
| I wanted, I found the color I wanted, I evaluated the price
| against online sources such as KBB, truecar, and those
| types of things, then I contacted the dealer who had it in
| stock online and set a date to come buy it. They didn't try
| any weird old-timey car sales tactics, because the price is
| the price. They offered extras, add-ons, the warranties,
| and service packages, with clear prices, and were
| respectful when I declined.
| civilized wrote:
| My wife and I have made one trip for every car that we bought.
|
| 1. We wanted a used Honda Civic. We found a used Honda Civic
| online, at a good price relative to Blue Book. We went to the
| dealership and bought the Honda Civic.
|
| 2. We wanted a used Honda CR-V. We found a used Honda CR-V
| online, at a good price relative to Blue Book. We went to the
| dealership and bought the Honda CR-V.
|
| Both cars have been great. No need to overcomplicate things.
|
| Stepping back, I've noticed a certain cognitive bias that's
| very common, but I don't know what its name might be.
| Basically, the bias is the idea that spending more time
| gathering information and analyzing is always good. To which I
| respond... maybe in some limited, abstract, ceteris paribus
| sense, but in real life? _Not really_.
|
| 1. You're not taking account of the opportunity cost, the
| things you could be doing that you're not because you're stuck
| on this one thing.
|
| 2. There is such a thing as overthinking / analysis paralysis,
| where your thinking actually gets worse the more you obsess
| about something. You may be better off unplugging, taking a
| walk, and coming back with a clear mind. You may be able to
| make a quick decision that's reasonably close to optimal and
| ends the sinking of your time into this one particular thing.
| ozim wrote:
| People think they have to be clever/smart when simply not
| being stupid and not doing stupid things is often more than
| enough.
|
| Then they will go onto gold digging exercise to prove that
| they are smart to be smarter than those pesky dealers.
|
| In the end when thing they bought turns out crappy (no gold
| in that mine:)) they will get defensive about it and will
| pull all kind of mental gymnastics to confirm what they did
| was worth investing time.
|
| So such person won't even feel the opportunity cost, because
| they will make themselves believe that effort was necessary
| to find that good and they 'gamed the system'.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| 1. I researched car reliability, resale value, makes and
| models and determined that a Honda Accord best met my
| requirements.
|
| 2. There was exactly one Honda dealership within driving
| distance in the state where I wanted to buy the vehicle
|
| 3. I acquired this vehicle.
|
| Later on, I was told that this was actually a Japanese Honda,
| and not an American Honda, and that the allegation was that
| although the same design, the Japanese Honda had superior
| reliability records and less variance around fittings,
| because the Japanese teams had a great deal of experience
| around assembly (at that time). More than 20 years later I am
| still driving the same vehicle, and I've had no major issues
| of any type.
|
| >1. You're not taking account of the opportunity cost, the
| things you could be doing that you're not because you're
| stuck on this one thing
|
| I do appreciate the point you made - there is an opportunity
| cost to your thinking, and overly focusing on one thing may
| be contrary. If I have learned anything from thinking about
| SV business models, it is that attention is a limited
| resource. Every moment we spend overanalyzing one thing, is
| time spent less on something more productive.
|
| > There is such a thing as overthinking / analysis paralysis,
| where your thinking actually gets worse the more you obsess
| about something. You may be better off unplugging, taking a
| walk, and coming back with a clear mind. You may be able to
| make a quick decision that's reasonably close to optimal and
| ends the sinking of your time into this one particular thing.
|
| "paralysis by analysis" is definitely a real thing. Although
| I believe it is important to go through the cognitive
| exercise of analysis, it can be counter-productive. Saw this
| at a workplace or two where budgets to execute projects were
| highly limited, so staff would analyze-to-death options for
| fairly low dollar activities. Spent more on analysis of paper
| projects by a factor, than actual project execution.
| version_five wrote:
| Yeah the car example did not resonate with me either.
|
| (a) I hate car shopping, in particular any interactions with
| the salespeople
|
| (b) I have the internet
|
| (c) I don't believe there is some special deal I can unlock, I
| think that is a mistaken belief that many dealers like people
| to hold so they can make them feel like their getting them a
| special deal, when in reality the "negotiations" are just a bit
| of theatre
|
| (d) I value my time and it's not worth a few $100 to drive all
| over looking for deals
| david422 wrote:
| c) - haha, that is probably true. I have a relative that just
| bought a new car. After a little negotiation, got a couple
| thousand (?) knocked off the price of like a $35k car. "Great
| deal" - but I'm pretty sure the dealer is prepared to offer a
| price that is only as low as a great deal for the dealer as
| well.
| johnnylambada wrote:
| This is price discovery in action. From the dealer's point
| of view it's worth jacking up the price that they are
| willing to take because some consumers will just pay it.
| Other consumers will try to bargain and they'll find a
| (slightly) lower price. When someone just pays the first
| price the dealer says, the dealer makes a few thousand more
| than they otherwise works have. This is the same reason
| there are food coupons. Very price sensitive people will go
| out of their way to use them but others will pay full
| price.
| smiley1437 wrote:
| Exactly - that dealer could be negotiating dozens of car
| deals a day, has a ton of experience, PLUS he knows much
| more about his side of the deal (actual costs and back end
| rebates, etc)
|
| A typical buyer negotiates for a car only a few times in
| their life.
|
| Who do you think is likely to come out on top?
| jeffbee wrote:
| The last three times I bought or leased a new car I visited
| dealers zero times. I decided what I wanted then I faxed (yes,
| faxed!) my requirements to the dealer who seemed to have
| inventory with instructions where and when to meet me with the
| vehicle and paperwork. This seems to work, except the one time
| the dealer thought I wanted to negotiate over the price and I
| showed them the door.
|
| Buying a car is all about understanding that dealers are
| usually pretty desperate.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Yeah, this is an evolutionary adaptation. Even long ago the
| world had too many stimulus and we develop patters of how to
| handle different _types_ of situations. This is talked about
| extensively in the book, "Thinking, fast and slow". In today's
| world, the world is infinitely complex. No one has time (or the
| desire, frankly) to do appropriate research on a single issue
| let alone all the issues that need considered. I'd bet that
| almost no one did 20+ hours of research reading about mRNA
| vaccines and FDA clinical trial data before decided to take or
| not take the vaccine. Everyone picked someone to trust whether
| that was the FDA or social media or news media and then got on
| with their life. And generally, once we find a "trusted"
| source, we tend to trust them for everything regardless of lack
| of evidence or contradiction. Humans have a deep survival
| instinct of having packs and trusting in the pack to protect
| them. Everyone just wants to get on with their busy life and
| not have to worry about all of this, whatever it is.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I judge my doctors by wait time. I found a doctor where I never
| have to wait in the lobby more than 10 mins past my appointment
| time. Unless you have a really unique health condition I don't
| understand the culture's behavior around patient doctor
| relationships. Who cares what other doctors think of him or
| what his Yelp review is. When I have a sinus infection does he
| write a prescription for z-pack. End of story.
| alistairSH wrote:
| True for 90% of medical issues. The problem is those other
| 10% - will the GP you chose be able to handle them? Or,
| perhaps more critically, bow-out, and refer you when they
| cannot?
|
| It's a tough problem to solve - wait time is certainly part
| of the solution, but so is bedside manner, the doctor's
| willingness to punt and refer you elsewhere for unique
| problems outside their area, price, location, and a hundred
| other things.
|
| And that doesn't even address picking a specialist. You break
| your hand, how do you pick a hand surgeon on short notice?
| The cost of picking the worst guy could be high, but you know
| what they call the guy who graduated last in his class?
| Doctor.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I'm a little spectrumy so I often forget how important
| emotional support/bedside manner is to many people. I see
| my doctor as an automaton who I feed problems to and he
| feeds me solutions.
|
| Even something like a broken bone falls under the category
| of "normal" health issue. It happens all the time. You will
| be fine with a perfectly mediocre doctor dealing with your
| broken bone.
| alistairSH wrote:
| My wife broke her hand a few years ago, it required
| surgery to repair. It was not a "normal" issue. I suppose
| it could be considered normal for a hand specialist, but
| when thumb mobility could be permanently compromised, you
| really don't want to pick the wrong surgeon.
|
| As for bedside manner, I'm mostly with you - it's largely
| irrelevant. For me, it's more of a minimum acceptable
| level - as long as they're above it, all is good.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| I don't understand this behavior. Did you think you added
| something valuable to the conversation by replying with a
| special case?
| alistairSH wrote:
| You claimed we'd be fine with a mediocre doctor, I was
| providing a counterpoint - the risk of a botched repair
| was permanent loss of hand function - why risk that with
| a mediocre doctor?
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Expecting every person to couch every statement with the
| exceptions is bad social behavior. Most fractures are set
| in the ER or even urgent care, maybe a cast, you are
| fine.
|
| Your "gotcha" response of a relatively rare case of a
| hand fracture requiring surgery with a specialist is not
| a meaningful response.
| [deleted]
| boringg wrote:
| I think the bias on this comment thread would lead most people
| here to be well researched and not do the two things you
| mentioned. I wouldn't buy a car without research. The example
| of a doctor is more fraught - in the US I met the doctor and
| would have changed if I didn't read them and believe them to be
| competent in my judgement (And the institution I went to had
| already a high bar for quality).
|
| I think what is missing from their comment is that people go to
| do those things without doing prior research. In the case which
| you go to the car salesman once, you have already done your
| research - same with the doctor.
|
| I know people who would exhibit the behavior without doing the
| prior research. I am not sure if they believe the car salesman
| or not, I can't read their mind.
| desktopninja wrote:
| Wonder if this outcome can be reproduced if asked in other spoken
| human languages and "AI"
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