= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
niceguyanon comments on Open Thread, November 8 - 14, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (141)
How can we spread rationality and good decision making to people who aren't inclined to it?
I recently chatted up a friendly doorman who I normally exchange brief pleasantries with. He told me that he was from a particularly rough part of town and that he works three jobs to support his family. He also told me not to worry because he has a new business that makes a lot of money, although had to borrow gas money to get to work that day. He said that he was part of a "travel club". I immediately felt bad because I had a gut feeling he was talking about some multi-level marketing scheme. I asked him if it was and he confirmed it was, but disagreed that it was a "scheme". He told me that he is trying to recruit his family, and that the business model encourages recruiting among family and friends. Skip 45 minutes of him selling it to me, I left him with a warning to be cautious because these things can be fly by night operations and that most people need to lose for a very few to win, and that he can win only if he is part of the very best promoters/sellers. I said that on purpose to gauge whether he is a true believer or a wolf in sheep's clothing but his response was a sort of genuine disbelief that his business was zero sum.
I walked away feeling sad. This guy is really trying to better his life for him and his family and what does life give him? A shitty MLM scheme that will likely harm him and he doesn't know any better. I have this special hatred for MLM schemes, right up there with religion. The deviousness lies in the difficulty to see MLM schemes for what they are prima facie when it is obfuscated with legitimate business practices, as is what most of these companies do.
I should talk to him again and maybe get him to change his mind. Back to my original question; the people who I want to help can not afford or want to attend things like a CFAR work shop, how do you help these people? And introducing people to LW is tricky. LW isn't really accessible, it doesn't find you, you find it.
The problem with these kinds of schemes is they make people think they've found a clever way to make money and happily signal it. It's not just the money (they're not usually getting) they're getting from it. Convincing them they're stupid instead of clever will be extremely difficult. You can say they're not stupid, but irrational, but most people won't know the difference so good luck explaining them that.
The weirdest brand of rampant irrationality is working your ass off to buy a lot of expensive stuff you really don't need and then wondering why you're poor. I haven't had success in convincing these people they don't need their stuff to be happy.
Even some of my med school friends who you'd expect to be intelligent enough to notice the problem buy diamond coated gold watches, BMWs and live in expensive houses and then complain how much they have to work. Perhaps the complaining is a facade though and they actually know what they're doing. Some people need to signal they're richer than they actually are.
Or to signal that they enjoy work less than they do.
It's weird how this didn't even cross my mind. I think being a workaholic in these circles is more often admired than not.
The following advice is anecdotal and is a very clear example of "other optimizing". So don't take it with a grain of salt, take it with at least a table spoon.
I've found that engaging people about their rationality habits is frequently something that needs to be done in a manner which is significantly more confrontational than what is considered polite conversation. Being told that how you think is flawed at a fundamental level is very difficult to deal with, and people will be inclined to not deal with it. So you need to talk to people about the real world consequences of their biases and very specifically describe how acting in a less biased manner will improve their life and the lives of those around them.
Anecdotally I've found this to be true in convincing people to donate money to the AMF. My friends will be happy to agree that they should do so, but unless prodded repeatedly and pointedly they will not actually take the next step of donating. I accept that my friends are not a good sample to generalize from (my social circle tends to include those who are already slightly more rational than the average bear to begin with). So if you want to convince someone to be more rational, bug them about it. Once a week for two months. Specificity is key here, talk about real life examples where their biases are causing problems. The more concrete the better since it allows them to have a clear picture of what improvement will look like.
Let me make just a small change...
I've found that engaging people about their belief in Jesus is frequently something that needs to be done in a manner which is significantly more confrontational than what is considered polite conversation. Being told that how you live is flawed at a fundamental level is very difficult to deal with, and people will be inclined to not deal with it. ... So if you want to convince someone to love Jesus, bug them about it.
Do you have any reason to believe that people will react to the first better than to the second?
While there are many people who are annoyed by Christian Evangelicals, I feel that it is difficult to argue against their effectiveness. They exist because they are willing to talk to people again and again about their beliefs until those people convert.
Do you have any reason to believe that Christian Evangelicals are ineffective at persuading people? Keep in mind that a 5% conversion rate is doing a pretty damn good job when it comes to changing people's minds.
Yes. Their mind share in the US is not increasing.
False, according to both the source you cited and http://www.gallup.com/poll/16519/us-evangelicals-how-many-walk-walk.aspx
False, really? So looking at the data in these two links you think you see a statistically significant trend?
Don't forget that your (second) link is concerned with proxies for being an Evangelical...
The margin of sampling error is +- 3% while the difference the 1980 percentage and the 2005 percentage is 5%. I do think that a trend which has a p value less than .05 is statistically significant.
I am not sure which data you are looking at.
My link shows the percentage of people who self-identify as Evangelicals. The data starts in 1991 and ends in 2005. The first values (1991-1993) are 41%, 42%, 46%, 44%, 43%, and the last values (2004-2005) are 42%, 39%, 42%, 47%, 40%.
I see no trend.
Your link shows the percentage of people who answer three proxy questions. The data starts in 1976 and ends in 2005. Over that time period one question goes up (47% to 52%), one goes down (38% to 32%) and the third goes up as well (35% to 48%). Do note that the survey says "When looking at the percentage of Americans who say yes to all three of these questions, slightly more than one in five (22%) American adults could be considered evangelical" and that's about *half* of the number of people who self-identify as such.
Given all this, I see no evidence that the mind share of the Evangelicals in the US is increasing.
The proxy I am specifically looking at for evangelical Christianity is people who claim to have spread the "good news" about Jesus to someone. In other words, asking people whether they themselves have evangelized (the data on this is the fairly clear 47% to 52% upward trend). To me, it makes a lot of sense to call someone an Evangelical Christian if they have in fact evangelized for Christianity. And if we disagree on that definition, then there is really nothing more I can say.
If it works regardless of what it is you're telling people to do, that makes it dark arts.
Oh, I'm well aware that this technique could be used to spread irrational and harmful memes. But if you're trying to persuade someone to rationality using techniques of argument which presume rationality, it's unlikely that you'll succeed. So you may have to get your rationalist hands dirty.
Your call on what's the better outcome: successfully convincing someone to be more rational (but having their agency violated through irrational persuasion) or leaving that person in the dark. It's a nontrivial moral dilemma which should only be considered once rational persuasion has failed.
It's not clear to me that donating to AMF is a reliable sign of their increased rationality. How do you know you're not simply guilt tripping them?
Apologies, I should have been clearer in using donations to the AMF as an analogy to persuading people to be more rational and not a direct way to persuade people to be more rational. I don't claim that these people are more rational simply because they donate to the AMF.
If we are really trying to persuade people, however, guilt tripping should be considered as an option. Logical arguments will only change the behavior of a very small segment of society while even self-professed rationalists can be persuaded with good emotional appeals.
No, you were using it as anecdotal evidence that your method works.
Well, you're argument does rely on that premise.