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army1987 comments on Open thread, Nov. 17 - Nov. 23, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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To the extent that you're making a general point -- which, if I've understood you correctly, is that human intuitions of truth are significantly influenced by emotional and cultural factors, including political (and more broadly tribal) affiliations -- I agree with your general point.
And if I've understood you correctly, despite the fact that most of your specific claims in this thread are about a specific ideology and a specific document, you don't actually want to discuss those things. So I won't.
I'm happy to discuss specifics, just not about the neo reactionary FAQ. I agree with VB that LW has an unhealthy tendency that every discussion becomes about neo reaction, and I don't like it.
Instead, how about this article. Jim Edwards is a bright guy, and he clearly intended to persuade with that post. And indeed he has plenty of commenters who think he was making a valuable point. Yet I am at a loss to say what it is. Here he is, claiming to have a graph showing that government spending affects economic growth, yet all that graph shows is changes in government spending. It doesn't show a correlation, it doesn't suggest causation, it doesn't do anything of the sort. Yet some poeople find this persuasive.
When someone says they like dance music (for example), I feel like I'm missing out; they get joy out of something I hate, which in some ways makes them better than me, but fundamentally de gusts us non set disputandum. The older I get, the more I feel like that's how all persuasion works.
Yup, those charts puzzle me, too (based on about five seconds of analysis, admittedly, but I have a strong preexisting belief that there are many examples of such silliness on the Internet, so I'm strongly inclined to agree that this particular chart is yet another example... which is of course yet another example of the kind of judgment-based-on-non-analytical factors we're discussing).
How confident are you that this is how all persuasion works?
I don't know how general this is, but I do think it's an important factor that I don't see discussed.
Another point is peer effects. I remember at school my physics teacher used to use proof by intimidation where he would attempt to browbeat and ridicule students into agreeing with him on some subtly incorrect argument. And he wouldn't just get agreement because he scared people, the force of his personality and the desire to not look foolish would genuinely convince them. And then he'd get cross for real, saying no, you need to stand up for yourself, think through the maths. But if you can't fully think through the soundness of the arguments, if you are groping around both on the correct and the incorrect answer, then you will be swayed by these social effects. I think a lot of persuasion works like that, but on a more subtle and long-term level.
Yes, I agree.