I don't have a problem with this, basically because I'm right all the time, and the people who disagree with me tend to be ill-informed idiots. I know loads of stuff, and I already know how to think, thanks. I don't seem to have any friends, though.
I casually disagreed with some ‘friends’ recently who brought up Brexit and Trump in conversation (ffs) and I said I had a different view point to them. Their response was: we were shocked by what you said (don’t even remember what I said) and scared by the hatred in your eyes. I need to get new glasses because mine aren’t strong enough, perhaps I looked a bit myopic which they interpreted as hatred. Pair of fuckwits if I may say so!
I think this a very modern incarnation of a of old problem, fuelled by a social media psychosis which has turned certain character types increasingly insular. And angry. And intolerant. And loud.
I find I cannot have discussions with my eldest daughter (who claims she has “always been a socialist”) and her husband (who says he is communist). There is an impossibility of any topic being brought up without that massive glare and physical show of angst. Thankfully my youngest daughter and her hubby are open to pretty much any conversation and are willing to have a reasonable conversation if they disagree with my position.
Many of my friends also say they cannot have conversations with their adult kids. What the heck happened? (I do know about the university indoctrination that has happened but don’t really want to know about it.)
Andrew, while I agree with you 100% about the need for more civilised debate (although if you were to think the modern adaption of the Italian Job was better than the original, then feeding to wild pigs is letting you off lightly), I fear we are also up against 7 million years of primate and 300 thousand years of human evolution.
I believe Gad Saad has written and spoken about the evolutionary adaptions to human psychology which make changing our minds so challenging. I have included a summary below.
Humans' difficulty in changing their minds stems from cognitive biases that were likely evolutionarily adaptive for our ancestors. These biases served as mental shortcuts, or heuristics, that enabled quick, efficient decision-making in a dangerous and uncertain environment.
Rather than being flaws, these cognitive tendencies were crucial for survival and reproduction.
Confirmation Bias and Group Cohesion
One of the most powerful biases is confirmation bias, the tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms one's pre-existing beliefs. From an evolutionary standpoint, this bias may have been beneficial for a couple of reasons:
Social Cohesion: Holding similar beliefs within a group fostered trust and cooperation, which was essential for survival in the face of external threats. An individual who constantly questioned or changed their core beliefs could be seen as an unreliable ally, potentially leading to social ostracism.
Rapid Decision-Making: In an ancestral environment, survival often depended on quick, decisive action. If a belief, such as "that rustling in the bushes is a predator," was widely held by the group, confirmation bias would prevent individuals from wasting time and energy investigating contradictory evidence. It was better to flee and be wrong than to hesitate and be right about there being no predator.
The Cost of Error Management
Evolutionary psychology also points to Error Management Theory as an explanation for why we're biased toward certain beliefs. This theory suggests that our minds are wired to minimise the most costly type of error. In many ancestral situations, the cost of a "false negative" (failing to recognise a real threat) was far greater than the cost of a "false positive" (perceiving a threat that doesn't exist).
For example:
False Negative (High Cost): Assuming the rustling in the bushes is just the wind and being killed by a predator.
False Positive (Low Cost): Assuming the rustling is a predator and running away, only to discover it was the wind.
The latter scenario, while "wrong," results in a much lower cost. Our minds evolved to be hyper-vigilant and cautious, leading us to favour beliefs that err on the side of safety, even if they aren't perfectly accurate. This inherent bias makes it difficult to change our minds, as we are instinctively programmed to stick with the beliefs that have the lowest potential for a negative outcome.
Cognitive Dissonance and Self-Deception
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort we feel when holding conflicting beliefs or when our actions contradict our beliefs. The evolutionary drive to reduce this dissonance is another reason for our stubbornness.
It's been suggested that self-deception and the ability to rationalise our own actions were valuable for social manipulation and gaining status within a group. If you can truly convince yourself that your actions were justified, you are more likely to project confidence and deceive others effectively. This psychological mechanism reduces internal conflict and reinforces a consistent self-image, making it even harder to accept new information that would challenge that carefully constructed reality.
One off long contribution. I promise not to do this again:
The spectacular foolishness of logic obsessed idologues is doomed to fail because contradiction is essential to reason and consciousness. Ability to suspend the axiom of non-contradiction enables reason, consciousness and humanity
The Paradoxes of Reason:
1. Reason cannot exist without the motivation of emotion, the reason to reason. But reasoning forbids participation of emotion, without which it could not exist.
2. It is impossible to apply tests of logic to all sensory and information input going to memory. To do so would freeze and destroy thinking and consciousness. Most goes to memory as non-logic. To reason you must be unreasonable
3. The law of non-contradiction is self-destructive. In a purely logical world contradiction could not exist, the law says so. We temporarily suspend the key axiom of logic to break out of its closed system, understand and use it. To be 'logical' it is necessary to be illogical. This process is called being reasonable
The Age of Reason did not understand reason. Instead, humanity has been dogged by the tyranny of closed minded, closed system political theories fuelling waste, injustice and grotesque war. In one key respect, The Enlightenment was The Dark Age in another form. Meanwhile, analysis obsessed academia rejected democracy because it would not, could not understand how to respect contradiction.
A few years back I just happened to mention to someone that Britain was responsible for 54% of world inventions & received an accusation I had not anticipated as the person almost choked on their coffee - & - with a tone that I found quite unsettling - I bet you support Brexit -
I was ideologically radicalised at university (only half joking here) and came out with an unthinking identikit set of left wing views. Only the trans nonsense shattered it and now I look at things on a case by case basis and sometimes Im not sure of my opinions at all but what a relief it is to think for myself.
My mum and dad met in the communist party and my mum was an Irish republican Stalinist! I did eventually learn to think for myself and like you, sometimes I’m not actually sure what I think.
It seems to me that many of those on the left become angry and abusive when challenged because deep down they know their beliefs don't stand up to scrutiny. I have several experiences when getting into a discussion with people of the left, that once the facts and common sense disprove what they are trying to say, they just become angry and on many occasions just get up and leave.
On a personal note, I am a Remainer and was for a long time a rabid Remainer. I thought Brexiters mindless morons. However, I saw a documentary by Nick Clegg who couldn't understand why people who benefited from our membership of the EU had voted to leave.
He interviewed a woman in Wales. They had a beautiful community centre built by EU funds. "Yes it is beautiful isn't it, but where are the jobs?" My whole world crashed down but with thought and reason, I now accept the vote and am more critical of the EU but still a Remainer at heart. I grew up and now think
Think about the false information supplied by a Religion to its followers. The Churchs of Europe were at the root of the Holocaust because they essentially said " Don't kill the Jews even though they deserve it" The Pope still calls genocide against Israel and their adherents do listen.
It is not possible to have a discussion with someone who doesn’t care about your opinion. The idea of the discussion is to exchange ideas and to find some touching points. You can have that only with someone who respects other points of view.
I don't have a problem with this, basically because I'm right all the time, and the people who disagree with me tend to be ill-informed idiots. I know loads of stuff, and I already know how to think, thanks. I don't seem to have any friends, though.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
🤣
We need to teach critical thinking and debate in schools. This should be mandatory.
I casually disagreed with some ‘friends’ recently who brought up Brexit and Trump in conversation (ffs) and I said I had a different view point to them. Their response was: we were shocked by what you said (don’t even remember what I said) and scared by the hatred in your eyes. I need to get new glasses because mine aren’t strong enough, perhaps I looked a bit myopic which they interpreted as hatred. Pair of fuckwits if I may say so!
I think this a very modern incarnation of a of old problem, fuelled by a social media psychosis which has turned certain character types increasingly insular. And angry. And intolerant. And loud.
I find I cannot have discussions with my eldest daughter (who claims she has “always been a socialist”) and her husband (who says he is communist). There is an impossibility of any topic being brought up without that massive glare and physical show of angst. Thankfully my youngest daughter and her hubby are open to pretty much any conversation and are willing to have a reasonable conversation if they disagree with my position.
Many of my friends also say they cannot have conversations with their adult kids. What the heck happened? (I do know about the university indoctrination that has happened but don’t really want to know about it.)
Andrew, while I agree with you 100% about the need for more civilised debate (although if you were to think the modern adaption of the Italian Job was better than the original, then feeding to wild pigs is letting you off lightly), I fear we are also up against 7 million years of primate and 300 thousand years of human evolution.
I believe Gad Saad has written and spoken about the evolutionary adaptions to human psychology which make changing our minds so challenging. I have included a summary below.
Humans' difficulty in changing their minds stems from cognitive biases that were likely evolutionarily adaptive for our ancestors. These biases served as mental shortcuts, or heuristics, that enabled quick, efficient decision-making in a dangerous and uncertain environment.
Rather than being flaws, these cognitive tendencies were crucial for survival and reproduction.
Confirmation Bias and Group Cohesion
One of the most powerful biases is confirmation bias, the tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms one's pre-existing beliefs. From an evolutionary standpoint, this bias may have been beneficial for a couple of reasons:
Social Cohesion: Holding similar beliefs within a group fostered trust and cooperation, which was essential for survival in the face of external threats. An individual who constantly questioned or changed their core beliefs could be seen as an unreliable ally, potentially leading to social ostracism.
Rapid Decision-Making: In an ancestral environment, survival often depended on quick, decisive action. If a belief, such as "that rustling in the bushes is a predator," was widely held by the group, confirmation bias would prevent individuals from wasting time and energy investigating contradictory evidence. It was better to flee and be wrong than to hesitate and be right about there being no predator.
The Cost of Error Management
Evolutionary psychology also points to Error Management Theory as an explanation for why we're biased toward certain beliefs. This theory suggests that our minds are wired to minimise the most costly type of error. In many ancestral situations, the cost of a "false negative" (failing to recognise a real threat) was far greater than the cost of a "false positive" (perceiving a threat that doesn't exist).
For example:
False Negative (High Cost): Assuming the rustling in the bushes is just the wind and being killed by a predator.
False Positive (Low Cost): Assuming the rustling is a predator and running away, only to discover it was the wind.
The latter scenario, while "wrong," results in a much lower cost. Our minds evolved to be hyper-vigilant and cautious, leading us to favour beliefs that err on the side of safety, even if they aren't perfectly accurate. This inherent bias makes it difficult to change our minds, as we are instinctively programmed to stick with the beliefs that have the lowest potential for a negative outcome.
Cognitive Dissonance and Self-Deception
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort we feel when holding conflicting beliefs or when our actions contradict our beliefs. The evolutionary drive to reduce this dissonance is another reason for our stubbornness.
It's been suggested that self-deception and the ability to rationalise our own actions were valuable for social manipulation and gaining status within a group. If you can truly convince yourself that your actions were justified, you are more likely to project confidence and deceive others effectively. This psychological mechanism reduces internal conflict and reinforces a consistent self-image, making it even harder to accept new information that would challenge that carefully constructed reality.
One off long contribution. I promise not to do this again:
The spectacular foolishness of logic obsessed idologues is doomed to fail because contradiction is essential to reason and consciousness. Ability to suspend the axiom of non-contradiction enables reason, consciousness and humanity
The Paradoxes of Reason:
1. Reason cannot exist without the motivation of emotion, the reason to reason. But reasoning forbids participation of emotion, without which it could not exist.
2. It is impossible to apply tests of logic to all sensory and information input going to memory. To do so would freeze and destroy thinking and consciousness. Most goes to memory as non-logic. To reason you must be unreasonable
3. The law of non-contradiction is self-destructive. In a purely logical world contradiction could not exist, the law says so. We temporarily suspend the key axiom of logic to break out of its closed system, understand and use it. To be 'logical' it is necessary to be illogical. This process is called being reasonable
The Age of Reason did not understand reason. Instead, humanity has been dogged by the tyranny of closed minded, closed system political theories fuelling waste, injustice and grotesque war. In one key respect, The Enlightenment was The Dark Age in another form. Meanwhile, analysis obsessed academia rejected democracy because it would not, could not understand how to respect contradiction.
A few years back I just happened to mention to someone that Britain was responsible for 54% of world inventions & received an accusation I had not anticipated as the person almost choked on their coffee - & - with a tone that I found quite unsettling - I bet you support Brexit -
I was ideologically radicalised at university (only half joking here) and came out with an unthinking identikit set of left wing views. Only the trans nonsense shattered it and now I look at things on a case by case basis and sometimes Im not sure of my opinions at all but what a relief it is to think for myself.
My mum and dad met in the communist party and my mum was an Irish republican Stalinist! I did eventually learn to think for myself and like you, sometimes I’m not actually sure what I think.
It seems to me that many of those on the left become angry and abusive when challenged because deep down they know their beliefs don't stand up to scrutiny. I have several experiences when getting into a discussion with people of the left, that once the facts and common sense disprove what they are trying to say, they just become angry and on many occasions just get up and leave.
On a personal note, I am a Remainer and was for a long time a rabid Remainer. I thought Brexiters mindless morons. However, I saw a documentary by Nick Clegg who couldn't understand why people who benefited from our membership of the EU had voted to leave.
He interviewed a woman in Wales. They had a beautiful community centre built by EU funds. "Yes it is beautiful isn't it, but where are the jobs?" My whole world crashed down but with thought and reason, I now accept the vote and am more critical of the EU but still a Remainer at heart. I grew up and now think
Think about the false information supplied by a Religion to its followers. The Churchs of Europe were at the root of the Holocaust because they essentially said " Don't kill the Jews even though they deserve it" The Pope still calls genocide against Israel and their adherents do listen.
Jonathan Haidt writes about this subject extensively. I recommend reading him if you haven’t already.
It is not possible to have a discussion with someone who doesn’t care about your opinion. The idea of the discussion is to exchange ideas and to find some touching points. You can have that only with someone who respects other points of view.