Don’t confuse dumb for wilfully ignorant though. People are very, very, very good at believing the things they want to believe. It’s a necessary survival trait for many.
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In parts absolutely true. But as for most of the conspiracy theories that are popular among those people… I’m gonna stick with dumb
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People like to feel they have inside information or knowledge that others don’t. We all like to feel superior, especially in situations were we feel otherwise powerless (coronavirus for example) and “knowing” that this is a conspiracy provides that.
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Motivated search, confirmation bias, optimism bias, overconfidence, overweighting small probabilities (of gains)…
There’s nothing that makes me angrier than climate change denial and environmental destruction
@Koestrizer I think it’s quite telling that the most successful interventions to overcome cognitive shortcoming and poor decision making are ones that take advantage of other cognitive shortcomings
ie defaults in retirement saving
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What about stubbing your toe on a doorway?
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Meh, I reason that it’s my fault and I have a very high pain tolerance
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@aldebaran I love going out into nature, it does wonders for my psyche. Going hiking is the best, it doesn’t matter how much of a storm there is, I have a much easier time sleeping in a rackety tent than in my apartment. Perhaps because my brain is occupied by being a little attentive to sounds that I’d need to act on (wulvezz) rather than being able to think about… everything. And I guess the physical exhaustion helps too. Interestingly, I have a few acquaintances and friends that have also burned out (much like myself) and I’ve taken to asking them how they sleep outdoors. No one has a problem there, but many issues in their own home.
With regards to bouldering, there are a few sweet spots around but I live in a flatter portion of my country. I consider, at least once a month, moving back to Norway now that I’ve become a climber. There’s… a lot of good rock there. Either way, I really need to pony up the cash for a car next season >_<’
@Koestrizer I worry sometimes that my memories from before are too heavily influenced by “kid goggles” that distort those memories. As fortune would have it, I maintain friendships with a lot of people older than myself and through them I can gauge the accuracy of my own recollection somewhat. Because, as a kid we’d have enough snow to bury me. Obviously, I’ve grown a tad since then, but I’m confident the quality of the winters have been steadily declining.
Barring the elders, I retain some memory of objective measures of snowfall, like being able to walk up onto the roofs of garages by climbing up on the snow mound next to 'em.
I don’t have any healthcare professionals within my immediate social circle but I’ve had word get back to me about people a few circles removed that are employed in that space and that have expressed apprehension about being vaccinated. It’s frightening how bad the educational system has failed when we come to that, and just how potent misinformation is. And in this instance, not only did general education fail, but they went to higher-level education to get to where they are and still their apprehension — as these exchanges have been reiterated to me — not had a basis in the new vaccines being developed using novel technologies but rather just a general mistrust of vaccinces.
And as far as misinformation goes, and it’s potency, I recall from a few months back that a social scientist here did a few “studies” on social media misinformation in our political space. It’s conceivable the cases shared were cherry-picked, but even so the instances that were presented are cases I find to be illuminating.
I specifically remember one such case where a party member spread some nonsense on Twitter about how a member of an opposing party was spending their leave. The corrections came within 5 minutes of the original posts, and the corrections came from multiple sources. Despite this, the original piece of “information” had 5000x more reach than all the others combined (likes, retweets). On a meta-level that makes sense. Information that’d be “saucy” is far more likely to be shared and re-shared than the correction that “no, that’s just not true”.
I don’t like thinking that people are dumb, that’s defeatist, like it cannot be helped. I see it as a momentary failure of education and hope that with better policy and more spending and higher ambitions for how educated a person should be by the time they finish their mandatory schooling this could be ameliorated.
And teaching about cognitive shortcomings has some merit as well. Against The Rules (podcast) had an episode on judges and what has been shown to influence their verdicts, and there are some base human things that ideally we wouldn’t want to have impact a rendered verdict such as hunger, and numerical suggestion. It was found that cases settled before lunch had judges act in a comparatively punitive manner when compared to similar cases settled after lunch.
Similarily, they did some mock-trial kind of thing (if memory serves) about deciding on a fine for a club for a noise disturbance where the club was named “Club X” (i.e. Club 58, Club 110, …) and the judge was told that X was the street number on which the club was established. The higher the number, the higher the fine.
Judges are now educated on this, in an effort to reduce the impact human cognitive shortcomings have on “justice”.
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Nice that’s super interesting. But it also makes sense… When I’m tired for instance my behavior is really more aggressive and punitive (but tiredness also influences hormonal balance etc).
And really a big part of our behaviour is dictated physiologically.
Well… I wouldn’t go as far as loving nature this much ahahah! Or you have a terrible appartment lol. I just love a good bed
Ah I feel you, I dream of going to scandinavia one day and hike and such in the mountains…
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Could it be the lack of artificial light, more optimal temperatures and harder sleeping surface?
I find that I sleep the best when sleeping on the floor or at most a very very thin mattress
I second this 100% Nature has a phenomenal impact on mental health, it’s one of my big aims for the next stage of my life. I’ve been listening to the “wild tales with Jason Fox” podcast recently and it’s a common theme that seems to come out.
I try not to see these as a failure of intellect or education, my misanthropic tendencies don’t need more fuel. The language you used to describe it was emotional language (mistrust, apprehension), rather than a logical, educated decision.
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I believe there’s a “treatment” in Japan where ppl just walk in forests- apparently very effective
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For me the two feed into each other. Consider something like vegetarianism, veganism, or excluding carbs. Somewhere, somehow, a person convinces themself that a thing is wrong either through an emotional argument (eating X is wrong) or a rational one (eating X is bad for the environment, or bad for me, …) and that guides their choices as to what they feel good and bad about. And how they feel guides their actions.
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I can believe that.
One of my bucket list items is the 100 mile wilderness on the Appalachian Trail for precisely this reason. And that’s only because I can’t justify 9 months for the whole Trail.
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Most likely it’s that evolution can’t keep up with social changes/innovation
There’s actually quite a lot of value to the “irrational “ parts of human cognitive. Studies done with patients with severe damage to their emotional centers found that these participants made worse decisions
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@Voxel @anna_5588 I agree. I’m becoming a big fan of JM Blakelys model of the mind like a little boy riding an elephant. The elephant is the subconscious mind and the little boy riding it is the conscious mind.
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Digital Minimalism or Deep Work.
Maybe this isn’t what you meant, but from your post I got the impression that you were talking about sometimes getting hung up on dietary minutiae.
It’s certainly depressing and makes younger people feel helpless, at least from my view. Do/would you identify as an anti-natalist?
I’m not sure how well it would suit your preferences, but have you ever heard of IndieWeb or similar platforms?
Nah, I meant it can trigger my undereating/orthorexic tendencies.
Thank you, started listening to his podcast. I vibe well with his general ideas although I believe he’s more inconvenienced by the toll digital-everything has on people’s ability to think deeply, remain productive and act in accordance to their own idea of their purpose. I’ve long since abandoned putting accomplishment and productivity on a pedestal, and object to the unhappiness that has resulted from the world me and my peers have perpetuated.
There’s a lot of good tech could do, but it doesn’t. Because it wouldn’t be immediately profitable. Not enough people are concerned with secondary effects.
No, I’ll look into it! Any other platforms I should know of?
Would, maybe. Do, no. I wonder if my children would be the last generation before the consequences of our actions become unbearable or they’d be the first to experience a global perpetual shit storm. Either way, it’d be somewhat unfair of me to them because they’d presumably have to be anti-natalist if it’s the former rather than the latter case.
Incidentally, my first siblings were born during the Cold War and my parents had pause about bringing them into the world.
What about you?
Wednesday 2020-12-30
Gap workout to get back to the training day rhythm I want for when work resumes
Warm-up: Nick Tumminello SH10, 2 exercises interleaved with alternating sets of jump rope (50) and Prowler walks (low & high-handle - back and forth)
Log Press - 2x6 @ log + 5, 2x6 @ log + 7.5 alternating sets, 1x8 @ log + 5 (ss: Rack Chins - 50 total reps)
DB Incline Press - 4x12 (ss: Row Machine Thing - 5x15)
Parallette Push-ups- 3xMax (ss: Reverse Grip Curls, Band Pull Aparts/Face Pulls/Another Scapula Exercise thing - ~75 reps)
Oh, I figured that too. That’s why I said
No doubt Cal puts productivity on a pedestal. His podcast showcases that pretty well, especially since most listener questions relate to work habits. He isn’t anti-tech by any means but pretty much thinks all knowledge work is doing it wrong these days. Digital Minimalism is a bit less heavy on that theme, so maybe you’d like it better.
Not off the top of my head, but I think there are a few other similar resources like this that care about domain privacy and such. The “indie” web is definitely gaining popularity as people’s awareness increases. I’ve never attempted such a project, so I can’t make too many judgments.
Definitely can imagine that.
I do think life is mostly suffering, and it isn’t unlikely there will be more/different forms of it thanks to the current state of the world. But it’s a no from me, someone who probably never wants to have kids. Deciding long and hard about having children is a good idea, though I am very pro-choice. To be honest, as an adoptee I probably think about the possibility of having been aborted more than the average person. Ultimately, I don’t want to encourage political discussions here simply because of a pretty photo, haha. Your comment made me curious though 