@Teri_Kanefield
The real problem is that many people will believe, without proof or fact checking, comments that support their own beliefs. Social media is just the vehicle. The problem is exacerbated because those people only follow those with whom they agree. Even when statements are shown to be lies, they continue to be accepted and spread.
@72mz @Teri_Kanefield
We can't easily fix the real problem you identify (ppl believing b.s. that confirms their biases) without a large (and for many interested parties, painful) cultural shift. And vehicles matter -- a moped is a less dangerous b.s. conveyance than, say, a 747.
@mmlvx @72mz @Teri_Kanefield It's not a cultural shift you'd need, but rather a shift in human nature, which is exceedingly unlikely.
@LouisIngenthron @72mz @Teri_Kanefield
So-called "human nature" is, I think, more adaptable than we usually credit. When I think of Finnish education in critical thinking (so future decision makers may have a chance against Russian PsyOps), I am... well, not optimistic; but not completely black-pilled either.
Churchill probably didn't say "Americans will do the right thing, when they have exhausted all other possibilities", but maybe we can eventually learn to think better.
@mmlvx @72mz @Teri_Kanefield I disagree. No matter how enlightened we think we are, fundamentally, we are animals with hard-wired instincts.
@LouisIngenthron @72mz @Teri_Kanefield
Yeah, we're animals, with instincts to find water, eat food, and mate. But we're also able to "choose our own destiny" to a degree not seen among other species. Some of our instincts are "hard-wired", like the mammalian startle response, or the way a person falling will try to run through the air. But a lot of what we assume is "hard-wired instinct" is actually social / environmental conditioning, and changes in a different context.
#NatureAndNurture
@mmlvx @72mz @Teri_Kanefield Sure, but a lot of it isn't too. Both confirmation bias and tribalism bias have strong roots in our survival instincts.
So does overeating to the point of obesity, if you want a more general indicator of how well we're able to overcome our more primitive instincts.
@LouisIngenthron @72mz @Teri_Kanefield
It's complex enough that we're not gonna solve it, here, today. (The overeating and obesity thing, for example, would need to control for modern industrially processed food, and food deserts, and Kellogg's belief that protein causes masturbation, and the subversion of the FDA, etc.; and "obesity" also has some cultural baggage. Still, I suspect there's some truth there, about over-eating even when we "know better".)
Thanks for interesting chat. 🙂