| > I really dislike this narrative that facts don't change our minds and we are all irrational. I don't think that is the real "narrative" here, although reading this article may make it seem like that. The "narrative", or rather the modern scientific understanding which this article tries to present to a lay audience, is that real rational thinking is not our default, even though it seems to us that way. But we can think more rationally. It just takes a lot more work. We can do all of the following... * Subject our thinking to a rigorous framework such as the scientific method, in which we have to declare what evidence would falsify our argument (hypothesis) as we make it. * Study cognitive biases to become more aware of their effects on our thinking and hopefully "immunize" our mind against some of their effects. * Train our capacity for meta-cognition with mindfulness practices to become more aware of why we think what we think as we think it. As for using the limitations of human rationality as an argument against democracy... I don't think that's a logical conclusion at all since leaders and lawmakers are subject to these limitations no matter how they come into power. But it is an argument that we still need to improve the processes by which policy is decided and that we need to watch out for and guard against those who would abuse the specific ways that humans can be tricked because of these factors (such as the Cambridge Analytica crowd). |
I’m not sure this works. In fact, Daniel Khaneman has said in the into to “Thinking: Fast and Slow” that all his study into cognitive biases has led him to believe he’s powerless to stop them in himself, and still only able to recognize them in others