[bllguo]

Being able to distinguish fact from fiction is not a skill that is near universal, and it should be. Seems like a straw man to attack "thought policing" and "indoctrination." We're talking about critical thinking and logical reasoning.

[cookiecaper]

This argument is completely disingenuous. Your average person is capable of critical thinking and logical reasoning -- those who aren't are either wards under the care of another person. Normal people just think logically and critically in reference to local optima, and that's not something that we can or should try to program out of them.

That quality is also known as adaptability and it's crucial to successful survival and prosperity, for exactly the same reason that it's useful in mathematics: global optima are generally difficult to deduce, if they can be conclusively and authoritatively determined at all.

Saying Side X is "not being logical" or "can't think critically" is virtually always just a cop-out. It says you either a) don't understand or b) don't want to admit the validity of some of their concerns.

Most of the time when the other side's argument is understood, the disagreements are a matter of priority and/or credibility, not nonsensical thinking. And those priorities are usually determined intrinsically; values as such can't really be programmed or taught. They're the result of the years of experience each individual has endured in the real world.

A good example of this is that many engineers are known for a just-the-facts, no-frills approach. This is because engineers tend to prioritize facts and correctness over aesthetic and emotional value. Other people who don't do this aren't objectively wrong -- they just put different weights on the considerations, leading them to different conclusions.

Another example is outlet credibility. Your average Fox News viewer may believe that MSNBC is propaganda secretly dictated by the shadowy figures in the background, and vice versa. If you believe this, the logical conclusion is to dismiss or at least discount the perspective of the propagandist.

You cannot "prove" that one side is propaganda and the other side isn't, because it is impossible to definitely deduce the intentions and motives of other people. Reports that say reports from MSNBC were more frequently errant are of no value because you can just say "Oh yeah, says who? The same shadowy figures?" to that.

It is important to understand that humans hold a variety of totally non-falsifiable beliefs -- things that cannot be definitively proven one way or the other, even if you try, like the state of mind of the speakers we're around. These have to be approached from the subterranean to be understood, let alone addressed.

All we can do is understand that our own perspective is not the default or de-facto correct one, and that other people are entitled to their own assumptions and unfalsifiable opinions just as we are. They're entitled to their own credibility heuristics and decisions about who is worth trusting. People are free to make their own decisions and conclusions, whether we agree with them or not.

Understanding that is critical to learning that it's OK to disagree with people, without having to pretend that they're insane just to preserve your own ego and self-worth.

[alsetmusic]

> All we can do is understand that our own perspective is not the default or de-facto correct one, and that other people are entitled to their own assumptions and unfalsifiable opinions just as we are. They're entitled to their own credibility heuristics and decisions about who is worth trusting. People are free to make their own decisions and conclusions, whether we agree with them or not.

For opinions, perhaps. There are also people who reject facts. I don’t consider rejection of evolution or young-earth views as legitimate. Thus, those who cling to these views are empirically wrong.

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

>There are also people who reject facts.

Most people don't reject facts, they reject certain interpretations of facts.

For example, some people believed epilepsy came from evil spirits. They didn't deny that the person was shaking on the ground. They just had a different explanation for it than we do now.

[jessaustin]

Empirically? One suspects a different adverb would have been more correct in that sentence.

[tmuir]

Do you contend that human beings have not empirically measured the spherical, or roughly spherical shape of the Earth?

[zaarn]

When you build a small house, you don't account for the curvature for earth. Same for when you walk down the street.

When you build a runway for a plane or a long bridge, you do.

A model is not necessarily useful in all contexts. People still use the flat earth model in useful ways because it's simpler to assume the earth is flat in some situations. Of course, once you go beyond the capabilities of the flat earth model your numbers will wildly diverge into the realm of useless while the round or spherical models provide useful numbers for longer.

[jessaustin]

If parent had been talking about chemistry or physiology or any subject that can be explored via controlled experimentation, I wouldn't have complained. Instead the topics were geological and evolutionary history, which seem very much not "empirical". Not that I suspect that those sciences are wrong in any sense, but words have meanings.

[tmuir]

I misread gp as saying "flat Earth", and not "young Earth". My apologies. I would agree that even if we can point to things like nylonase or the speed of light coupled with known distances to stars, those are deduced facts. Whereas astronauts have empirically observed the spherical nature of earth.

[spiralx]

> A good example of this is that many engineers are known for a just-the-facts, no-frills approach. This is because engineers tend to prioritize facts and correctness over aesthetic and emotional value.

And yet engineers are over-represented (compared to people with other degrees) amongst Creationists and conspiracy theorists and, I would guess, terrorists. I think engineers value simplicity and direct causation more than facts or correctness.

[bllguo]

No, it's not disingenuous at all. It is not a cop-out to say that people who believe in conspiracy theories, people who don't understand facts, people who are highly opinionated about things they don't understand, etc. are not behaving logically. They can have valid concerns and still be behaving irrationally. You clearly think these are mutually exclusive but they aren't.

Appreciate the multiple snide attacks, though.

[cookiecaper]

> people who believe in conspiracy theories

Is there not such a thing as conspiracy fact? Aren't some conspiracies, in fact, real? It seems both sides of the political aisle have pet conspiracy theories these days, so it's really hard for this to hold water anymore.

> people who don't understand facts

As another commenter said, people will usually agree on the clear and present facts, e.g., Donald Trump won the presidency. Where you'll find more disagreement is on rationale: either he won because he gave a voice to the discontented American working class, or he won because he worked in cahoots with Vladimir Putin to subvert American democracy.

People don't refuse to acknowledge the obvious state of affairs. They have different interpretations, based on different values and credibility heuristics, of the likely impetus for that state of affairs.

>people who are highly opinionated about things they don't understand, etc.

aka virtually everyone. How many of us know enough to hold our own with the experts in something that we're "highly opinionated" on? If we can in anything, it's very narrow. Are all of our other opinions invalid now? Humans use credibility heuristics to try to determine who is right about something, and then they follow based on that.

> are not behaving logically

I dunno, it sounds logical to me, at least in the practical sense. If we pretend we live in a world of infinite resources and time, you might be right, but considering the constraints of reality, the logical approach seems to be to have and express opinions in the moment according to one's best judgment, since everyone else is going to be doing that too. Just gotta try not to be too haughty about it.

> They can have valid concerns and still be behaving irrationally. You clearly think these are mutually exclusive but they aren't.

I agree someone can have a valid concern and also behave irrationally. I don't agree this is what you started out saying, though.

>Appreciate the multiple snide attacks, though.

No offense intended. Edit deadline is passed, but I wasn't thinking I put any such things in. My apologies if you felt I was being condescending or passive-aggressive.

[tmuir]

I'd like your opinion about this particular subreddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CBTS_Stream/

These 20,000 odd people unequivocally lack the type of critical thinking skills GP is referring to. I find it hard to believe that they are all under professional care. These people are straight out of The DaVinci Code, or National Treasure. They truly believe that they have uncovered a massive conspiracy to over throw the current American government, and they are organizing to stop it. Many subreddits choose a sort of mascot that defines their subredditors. For instance, people who subscribe to the tongue in cheek /r/evilbuildings are "6509 villains plotting", where they post pictures of buildings that have a nefarious apperance, no conspiracy in the comments. /r/CBTS_Stream has "21,333 Operators". As in mercenaries/militiamen. These people are rabid Trump supporters, seem to have a strong fundamentalist Christian bent, and appear to be extremely gullible and susceptible to any sort of theory that involves revenge upon the previous administration. They even have their own prophet, "Q". Everything from occult references, to nazis, to big pharma killing off holistic doctors, to arranging Trumps tweets into an 11x11 grid, and then playing word search to reveal a secret message. These people swear that Donald Trump's televised rallies are chock full of encoded messages and symbolism, both in what Trump is saying, and the clothes/posters of supporters in the background. These people buy toothpaste from Alex Jones, because it doesn't contain flouride. These people believe that all mainstream American history since the American Civil War is a lie created by the perpetrators of this current hoax these people have uncovered. They also believe that Trump has already secretly met with Kim Jong Un, and will soon unveil a world saving peace treaty, and that will "make the libs heads explode".

The truly sad part of this is that a lot of these people are also members of other subreddits dedicated to people who have escaped Mormonism, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or similar groups. So these people have already thrown off the shackles of psychological warfare once. But they believe now that they are "woke", and seem completely beyond talking down.

Good luck explaining to these people that they are being radicalized by Russians, or whoever. Good luck getting any of these people to not believe that any censorship is obvious proof that the sleuths are hot on the case, and that the global elite are silencing them.

[mistermann]

> This argument is completely disingenuous. Your average person is capable of critical thinking and logical reasoning -- those who aren't are either wards under the care of another person.

Oh please, you think the average person has sufficient critical thinking skills to read the newspaper and pick out the parts that are "stretching the truth", use specious reasoning or various other logical fallacies, etc? You must roll with a different crew than I.

> Your average Fox News viewer may believe that MSNBC is propaganda secretly dictated by the shadowy figures in the background, and vice versa.

If they had critical thinking skills, wouldn't they be able to get a pretty decent handle on the degree to which they are propagandists?

It sounds to me like what you're saying is, most things within this realm are not knowable, except for the parts that are. The world is complex and confusing, but I don't think it's that confusing.