Comment author: Bound_up 28 July 2016 08:55:34PM 1 point [-]

The mainstream LW idea seems to be that the right to life is based on sentience.

At the same time, killing babies is the go-to example of something awful.

Does everyone think babies are sentient, or do they think that it's awful to kill babies even if they're not sentient for some reason, or what?

Does anyone have any reasoning on abortion besides, Not sentient being, killing it is okay QED (wouldn't that apply to newborns, too?)?

Street Epistemology - letting people name their thinking errors

4 Bound_up 24 July 2016 07:43PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exmjlc4PfEQ

 

Anthony Magnabosco does what he calls Street Epistemology, usually applying it to supernatural (usually religious) beliefs.

 

The great thing about his method (and his manner, guy's super personable) is that he avoids the social structure of a debate, of two people arguing, of a zero-sum one game where person wins at the other's loss.

 

I've struggled with trying to figure out how to let people save face in disputes (when they're making big, awful mistakes), even considering including minor errors (that don't affect the main point) in my arguments so that they could point them out and we could both admit we were wrong (in their case, about things which do affect the main point) and move on.

 

But this guy's technique manages to invite people to correct their own errors (people are SOOOO much more rational when they're not defensive) and they DO it. No awkwardness, no discomfort, and people pointing out the flaws in their own arguments, and then THANKING him for the talk afterwards and referring him to their friends to talk. Even though they just admitted that their cherished beliefs might not deserve the certainty they've been giving them.

 

This is applied to religion in this video, but this seems to me to be a generally useful method when you confront someone making an error in their thinking. Are you forcing people to swallow their pride a little (over and over) when they talk with you? Get that out, and watch how much more open people can be.

Comments (2)
Comment author: Bound_up 13 July 2016 07:38:23PM 0 points [-]

I've been thinking about belief as anticipation versus belief as association.

Some people associate with beliefs like they associate with sports teams. Asking them to provide evidence for their belief is like asking them to provide evidence for their sports team being "the best."

And beliefs as anticipation you know, I'm sure.

My question is: What are signs of a "belief" being an anticipation versus it being a mere association (or other non-anticipating belief)?

One is the attempt to defend against falsification: "If you REALLY believed you wouldn't be making excuses in advance, you would confidently accept a test that you knew would show how right you were."

Got any other useful ones?

Comment author: Bound_up 09 July 2016 08:42:43PM 0 points [-]

I used to live in Boise; I've got family there.

You know the Williams?

Meetup : Bay City Meetup

0 Bound_up 05 July 2016 05:25PM

Discussion article for the meetup : Bay City Meetup

WHEN: 19 August 2016 01:25:00PM (-0400)

WHERE: 2010 5th St, Bay City, MI

Potential Bay City Meetup

Comment below if you're interested

Discussion article for the meetup : Bay City Meetup

Comments (0)

Meetup : Bay City Meetup

0 Bound_up 21 June 2016 07:23PM

Discussion article for the meetup : Bay City Meetup

WHEN: 30 June 2016 03:23:15PM (-0400)

WHERE: 2010 5th St, Bay City, MI

Anybody around here?

Discussion article for the meetup : Bay City Meetup

Comments (1)
Comment author: Bound_up 19 June 2016 10:54:21PM 0 points [-]

A GIF of Bruce Lee saying:

"Your thoughts are WRONG!"

https://gifs.com/gif/the-way-of-the-intercepting-fist-longstreet-bruce-lee-lei-seil-loong-R6VojE

Comment author: SquirrelInHell 31 May 2016 01:58:25AM *  0 points [-]

Is there any research on the "first person" view that you mention? As I'm no scientist, I've only dealt with the already firmly established findings like loss aversion.

I do not know of any research on this directly. However, there is strong support for people's reported opinions being influenced by sitting in front of a mirror. So I just do educated guesses from the tangentially related research.

I've only dealt with the already firmly established findings like loss aversion.

Yup - you are playing it safe. However, this does not satisfy my curiosity.

You quote negativity/loss aversion bias as an explanation, but do you think it is the most accurate explanation?

Comment author: Bound_up 31 May 2016 03:06:21PM 0 points [-]

Hmm...I would be open to an alternative.

But what I've got in mind is: if someone were suddenly to acquire an extra 100 flaws, this would indeed be a loss; they would feel worse walking down the street as people glance at them, they would lose social status, people would judge them as less honest, kind, intelligent, etc.

So they are losing social status and they're losing other people thinking well of their appearance, and like any other loss will tend to fear it more than they would value gains of equal size.

And that's what people DO experience, in a less dramatic way. You could say, perhaps, that it's because we have the ability to alter our appearance that the problem exists, because sometimes we look better than at other times, and we'll tend to focus on the flaws that make the difference.

Comment author: SquirrelInHell 31 May 2016 01:38:22AM *  0 points [-]

OK, first a disclaimer.

My model of this is based only on the several people which I'm close enough to to get accurate reports about their private thoughts.

I have high confidence in their reports being as true to the internal experiences as they managed to communicate, but the sample is small and might not reflect the "average".

Based on this, I make the following bold claim (with moderate confidence):

The bias in question works by a sort of a doublethink: the subjects do in fact also have a roughly accurate estimate of their beauty somewhere in their heads, and when asked publicly, they will not report their inner experience of doubt.

If you ask a bunch of people who have issues with self-perception of beauty to fill a survey about it, they will tend to answer the questions by taking the "outsider view" (at least, unless the questions in the survey are very cleverly phrased).

Comment author: Bound_up 31 May 2016 02:56:23PM 0 points [-]

My experience might add a little support to that.

I know someone who self-perceives below how others perceive them, but who, when pressed, accurately predicts that they will be found attractive by most people.

Unfortunately, this doesn't keep the negative self-perception (whatever level they believe it on) from making them feel bad

Comment author: bentarm 30 May 2016 05:26:34PM *  7 points [-]

My first thought on reading this was that given that people tend to be overconfident in just about every other area of their lives, I would find it exceedingly surprising if it were in fact the case that people's estimates of their own attractiveness was systematically lower than the estimates of others. I notice that there isn't actually a citation for this claim anywhere in the article.

Indeed, having looked for some evidence, this was the first study I could find that attempted to investigate the claim directly: Mirror, mirror on the wall…: self-perception of facial beauty versus judgement by others.. To quote the abstract:

Our results show proof for a strikingly simple observation: that individuals perceive their own beauty to be greater than that expressed in the opinions of others (p < 0.001).

In other words, the phenomenon that you "explain" in this article is literally the opposite of the truth, at least for the people in that study.

Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality. Yes, surely some people under-estimate their own attractiveness, but if the explanation for this is cognitive biases which are present in everyone, how do we explain the people in this study who make exactly the opposite error? If you are equally good at explaining any outcome, you have zero knowledge, etc, etc.

Comment author: Bound_up 31 May 2016 02:52:55PM 1 point [-]

Additionally, it was suggested during editing (though I did leave it out) that I talk about the mere-exposure effect, where people like what's familiar.

A full understanding of all the factors going into self-perception would include things which contribute to AND detract from a positive self-perception, with mere-exposure and other effects biasing the answer up, and excessive attention to flaws and probably other phenomena biasing the answer down.

I might imagine we end up with a "net" self-perception, an amalgamation of all the effects. For some people, that net perception might be biased up. Indeed, while I'm very hesitant to draw too many conclusions from the study you provide from the 1800's, it is POSSIBLE that the majority of people have a net self-perception biased up.

Still leaving millions of people, several of whom I know, who could benefit from the ideas in this article, I think.

And if I had to guess, in 1878, people, on average, were probably more satisfied with their appearance than we are now.

View more: Prev | Next

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit