[yathaid]

Painful to read. I have had similar conversations with my own father, though nothing quite extreme. There is no moving them from their warped reality.

I have theorized some root causes:

- They cannot differentiate between well-meaning friends and high quality information i.e. there is a fallacy of "this person is honest, hence this forward they just sent me is true".

- Starting from at least my generation (born in late 80s), there is an understanding of "echo chamber effects", personalizing newsfeeds for engagement etc. There is some inoculation against content meant to trigger/resonate with specific sub-groups. I have found this to be completely lacking in discussions with my parents/their generation.

All these make it hard to move them out of the dis-information locus they fall into.

[swatcoder]

> Painful to read. I have had similar conversations with my own father, though nothing quite extreme. There is no moving them from their warped reality.

Perhaps you just haven't registered them doing so, but every day, people of all ages who feel clear and confident in their own convictions say the same thing about others of all ages: their peers and coworkers, their children, their elders, the youth.

For most people, it's just the nature of conviction to believe that you believe what you believe for good reason and the people who disagree with you are misinformed, stubborn, or both.

While you might be able to find surveys and polls that show some nominal bias about purported "wrong thinking" when segmented by this demographic or that one, the differences are always relatively marginal, with whatever "wrong think" worht investigating almost always slicing throughly through all segments in a substantial way. Susceptibility to "wrong think" is not meaningfully generational, and nobody's especially immune -- it seems to be just part of life that different people get convinced of different things and can sometimes be quite stuck to their convictions.

It's tragic when entrenched disagreement divides families and communities, as in this story, but it's something we can identify throughout all of history and there's no particular evidence to suggest we're likely to escape it any time soon. It may not even be wise to aspire towards it, as deep and stubborn conviction almost certainly has great merit of its own.

[vacuity]

You're quite right. We all develop a bias about the world, and even as I say that I'm pretty good at "critical thinking", there's no telling whether I actually am. Anyone at any level of knowledge, experience, or culture can plausibly come to an implausible belief. It's easy to think ourselves correct and others, if they disagree, incorrect. Always keep that in mind. I am not the beginning. I am not the end. I have my views and my veracity will be perceived diversely by others with their own rich worldviews.

[skygazer]

Science is a thing for a reason. Reality isn't the blind toss up you imagine. We're not all equally wrong.

[vacuity]

> We're not all equally wrong.

For sure, but I think GP's point (certainly mine) is that the opposite end of the spectrum is also a commonly trod landmine. The world is not split into, say, people who believe global warming is completely bunk and people who are fully informed on the best forecasts of global warming. There are levels to the information people have, and then to how people perceive that information, and then to how people communicate that information, and so on. Science is generally the correct tool for most jobs, but it would be a mistake to say that our implementation and realization of science is necessarily correct. And that's without mentioning what people then do with their knowledge.

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

I hereby appeal to the guidelines. Comments like mine or GP, that may come off as controversial or offensive (which is a function of the reader), should be read and responded to with time to breathe. Considering the topic of this thread, even more so. Anyone's immediate interpretation relies on more primitive modes of cognition that are generally more emotionally saturated. I'm not bashing science or whatever. I know some people do (on here?). I want to say that intellectualism is a journey and a struggle. If the truth was easy to come by, only malicious people would be an obstacle. But people aren't generally malicious, just hurt and confused.

Here I'm saying your interpretation of my comment is wrong. You can be wrong. And as you're reading this, keep in mind that I can be wrong. I'm not just including myself to let you save face or something. I mean it. The core of intellectualism is not doing science or whatever, not in practice at least. A rational agent has no stubbornness. But as humans, having humility and self-awareness is necessary.

[ndsipa_pomu]

The scientific method is currently our best method to try to remove our biases and move towards the truth. It's certainly not perfect (funding can introduce systemic biases and can direct research away from certain topics), but it's so much better than the alternatives.

There's also the issue of people/scientists not being willing to adjust their beliefs when presented with new information. Science advances funeral by funeral

[arp242]

There are degrees of things. The father from this story wants all Democratic presidents of the last 35 years prosecuted for treason. For "murder" apparently as well. I mean, that's pretty far out by any standard. Never mind adjusting his entire lifestyle towards his political views (buying precious metals, survivalist gear, separating from his wife and becoming estranged from his daughter).

Everyone has "negative" impulses of all sorts. Most of us are an asshole sometimes. That's not great, but, you know, people are people. But some people are an asshole most (or all) of the time. That's not the same thing at all than being a flawed human being.

[15charlimitdumb]

I don't think it is far out that every U.S. president in the last 35 years has had serious abuses of power, many authors argue this point eg Whitney Webb

[arp242]

I don't know who Whitney Webb is, but I think we both know this is not about the general trend and problems in US politics and the office of the presidency, but bollocks like Vince Foster, Benghazi, "but her emails", Barack HUSSEIN Obama from KENYA etc. etc. etc.