Facts, bears and groupthink

[GuiltyCowboy]

Using facts to counter groupthink can and does do the exact opposite: it increases groupthink.

A factually accurate statement from someone you distrust emotionally will simply be overridden by that emotional distrust.

It's tempting to call this tribalism but that's not how tribes actually work. Tribes in reality thrive by being open-minded (to changes and opportunities), by bridge-building with other tribes (for trade and security), and by consensus-seeking (sifting out poor ideas in favor of better ones). To be 'tribal' is actually to be open-minded, to build bridges and to seek consensus.

So, what's up with the groupthink and the resistance to facts, especially if human success has always depended on the opposite?

It's because, above all else, humans want to be calm. Yeah, calm. And they achieve this calm by creating worlds where there's no tension.

Do you want tension in your life? 'Course not. Who wants that? And so it's perfectly normal that people actively want to be cut off. Alternatives provide conflicting messages and uncertainty. And if there's one thing that freaks us out more than anything else it's uncertainty.

(Curiously, artists who are generally considered geniuses - Shakespeare and the like - have a particular love of uncertainty).

Anyway, this world we create gives us the best way to satisfy our deepest cravings: it's where we connect with other humans, earn status, and find some kind of goal or meaning. Confront me with an alternative and you're threatening to take away my status, my meaning.

So why the hell do people come here everyday to be confronted by alternatives? After all, studies have shown that, when people are confronted with irrefutable facts that contradict their political beliefs, their brains light up in the same way as if they've just encountered a bear.

It's because we all get a little shot of neural pleasure in having resisted the alternative. The truth and what's correct is utterly irrelevant. All that is relevant is that our world remains intact. Hence the groupthink increasing, not reducing.

Anyway, why the fuck have I bothered to write this out? I'm bored and I had a spare 10 mins mainly. But also, I just wanted to congratulate everyone for fighting off the bears everyday.

But - and if you've got this far then well done, you must be as bored as me - here's a question to end on: what tricks can be used to overcome the emotional distrust?

Edit: Don't know how I could forget this, given this is an erotica website: the other main reason for bridge-building is of course...for sex.

 

[Lazaran]

Using facts to counter groupthink can and does do the exact opposite: it increases groupthink.

A factually accurate statement from someone you distrust emotionally will simply be overridden by that emotional distrust.

It's tempting to call this tribalism but that's not how tribes actually work. Tribes in reality thrive by being open-minded (to changes and opportunities), by bridge-building with other tribes (for trade and security), and by consensus-seeking (sifting out poor ideas in favor of better ones). To be 'tribal' is actually to be open-minded, to build bridges and to seek consensus.

So, what's up with the groupthink and the resistance to facts, especially if human success has always depended on the opposite?

It's because, above all else, humans want to be calm. Yeah, calm. And they achieve this calm by creating worlds where there's no tension.

Do you want tension in your life? 'Course not. Who wants that? And so it's perfectly normal that people actively want to be cut off. Alternatives provide conflicting messages and uncertainty. And if there's one thing that freaks us out more than anything else it's uncertainty.

(Curiously, artists who are generally considered geniuses - Shakespeare and the like - have a particular love of uncertainty).

Anyway, this world we create gives us the best way to satisfy our deepest cravings: it's where we connect with other humans, earn status, and find some kind of goal or meaning. Confront me with an alternative and you're threatening to take away my status, my meaning.

So why the hell do people come here everyday to be confronted by alternatives? After all, studies have shown that, when people are confronted with irrefutable facts that contradict their political beliefs, their brains light up in the same way as if they've just encountered a bear.

It's because we all get a little shot of neural pleasure in having resisted the alternative. The truth and what's correct is utterly irrelevant. All that is relevant is that our world remains intact. Hence the groupthink increasing, not reducing.

Anyway, why the fuck have I bothered to write this out? I'm bored and I had a spare 10 mins mainly. But also, I just wanted to congratulate everyone for fighting off the bears everyday.

But - and if you've got this far then well done, you must be as bored as me - here's a question to end on: what tricks can be used to overcome the emotional distrust?

Interesting take.

But you might also want to consider the possibility that some people (MAGAts) deny facts because they are complicit with / benefit from DonOld & the MAGAt republicans’ racist, fascistic, misogynistic, corrupt, traitorous agenda.

Just sayin’…



WE. TOLD. THEM. SO.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Interesting take.

But you might also want to consider the possibility that some people (MAGAts) deny facts because they are complicit with / benefit from DonOld & the MAGAt republicans’ racist, fascistic, misogynistic, corrupt, traitorous agenda.

Just sayin’…



WE. TOLD. THEM. SO.

I think it’s an open question whether people who voted for Trump are complicit in what he has done.

If they couldn’t judge that he was a mediocre weirdo, then it doesn’t surprise me that they’re cool that he’s appointed his golf partner and his son-in-law as America’s chief negotiators.

But, when they voted for him, did they actually want him to use the President’s office to enrich himself by $4bn?

Did they actually want him to cause 14m extra deaths (by 2030) by cutting USAID?

Did they hope he’d drop a bomb on a girl’s school in an entirely unprovoked attack?

Did they understand he’d be putting taxes up on them so he could cut taxes for his donors?

If this website is anything to go by, I don’t think they had a clue those things might happen. They don’t seem to really understand how the world actually works.

Is ignorance complicity?

 

[Lazaran]

I think it’s an open question whether people who voted for Trump are complicit in what he has done.

If they couldn’t judge that he was a mediocre weirdo, then it doesn’t surprise me that they’re cool that he’s appointed his golf partner and his son-in-law as America’s chief negotiators.

But, when they voted for him, did they actually want him to use the President’s office to enrich himself by $4bn?

Did they actually want him to cause 14m extra deaths (by 2030) by cutting USAID?

Did they hope he’d drop a bomb on a girl’s school in an entirely unprovoked attack?

Did they understand he’d be putting taxes up on them so he could cut taxes for his donors?

If this website is anything to go by, I don’t think they had a clue those things might happen. They don’t seem to really understand how the world actually works.

Is ignorance complicity?

Complicit in this respect:

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. - Lyndon B. Johnson

And when you factor in the reality that many of the complicit MAGAts (regardless of race) are old & miserable, and they just want everyone else to be as miserable as they are??? That they know they’re going to die soon, so they don’t really care about the future of the country or humanity??? See also: The old complicit MAGAts’ lack of caring when it comes to climate change. (And many of the younger complicit MAGAts are just born & raised sociopaths.)



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[Raazor]

…

Is ignorance complicity?

Yes.

Ignorance is not a defence under the law, nor is it a defence at the ballot box.

A grifter will always grift. A fool will always do foolish things. A serial liar will always lie and a racist will always be racist. Americans knew what they were voting for and they got it.

 

[Lazaran]

Americans knew what they were voting for and they got it.

The "Americans" WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP “knew what they were voting for and they got it”.





We. Told. Them. So.

 

[goldytheGoldfish]

Using facts to counter groupthink can and does do the exact opposite: it increases groupthink.

I know, right? See me after class. C+

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Ignorance is not a defence under the law, nor is it a defence at the ballot box.

Fair enough. And I agree in principle. In practice, though, I think there’s a big problem with it. Here's an example:

So pretty much everyone knows that every single media outlet of note in America is owned by a rich person, right, and we all know about Citizens United and CPACs and so on. Most people probably don't know that 97 out of the top 100 lobbying firms are financed by large corporations, but they know roughly that lobbyists exist and what they do. And they might not fully understand that politicians pass legislation that is literally written by industry pressure groups but they do know that politicians do what donors demand of them...

So, most people understand that the power and control that has been amassed by wealthy people in America is extraordinary: they control public discourse, they control the government and the laws it passes, and they control other things like the banks and real estate and healthcare. Their control is more or less total…

And so, on the face of it, does it make any sense at all that they amassed all that power in order to…provide welfare for poor people? It does not.

And yet the overwhelming majority of Americans equate government with socialism. They think government helps poor people.

It makes no fucking sense.

I mean, you're a smart person: did you know that those in the bottom 20% receive $25,733 from the govt on average, while those in the top 20% take $35,363?

Did you know that the top 1% are given benefits that amount to more than all middle-class families, and double that of the poorest 20%?

Were you aware that the USA spends twice as much subsidizing the 1% than it does on the military?

Who knows, maybe you did. Or maybe you just had feel for it. Chances are that you didn't know the scale or the specifics, though. And that's my point: most people don't how the world works. Even when they're looking right at it.

That's the world we have to operate in.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

Fair enough. And I agree in principle. In practice, though, I think there’s a big problem with it. Here's an example:

So pretty much everyone knows that every single media outlet of note in America is owned by a rich person, right, and we all know about Citizens United and CPACs and so on. Most people probably don't know that 97 out of the top 100 lobbying firms are financed by large corporations, but they know roughly that lobbyists exist and what they do. And they might not fully understand that politicians pass legislation that is literally written by industry pressure groups but they do know that politicians do what donors demand of them...

So, most people understand that the power and control that has been amassed by wealthy people in America is extraordinary: they control public discourse, they control the government and the laws it passes, and they control other things like the banks and real estate and healthcare. Their control is more or less total…

And so, on the face of it, does it make any sense at all that they amassed all that power in order to…provide welfare for poor people? It does not.

And yet the overwhelming majority of Americans equate government with socialism. They think government helps poor people.

It makes no fucking sense.

I mean, you're a smart person: did you know that those in the bottom 20% receive $25,733 from the govt on average, while those in the top 20% take $35,363?

Did you know that the top 1% are given benefits that amount to more than all middle-class families, and double that of the poorest 20%?

Were you aware that the USA spends twice as much subsidizing the 1% than it does on the military?

Who knows, maybe you did. Or maybe you just had feel for it. Chances are that you didn't know the scale or the specifics, though. And that's my point: most people don't how the world works. Even when they're looking right at it.

That's the world we have to operate in.

Black people have the same media that white people do, but they still managed to figure out that Trump was an incompetent crook and vote for Kamala Harris. Are white people just particularly ignorant?

 

[Iluv17]

Oh you poor, pathetic idiots, our tears flow for you! NOT

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Oh you poor, pathetic idiots, our tears flow for you! NOTView attachment 2607428View attachment 2607430

How sweet of your to share your pictures with us. Did you color them in yourself?

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Black people have the same media that white people do, but they still managed to figure out that Trump was an incompetent crook and vote for Kamala Harris. Are white people just particularly ignorant?

The consequence of this idea, though, is that the people who voted for Trump are actually bad people.

And I don't think they are really.

The point of my last post was to show that, even in the face of really obvious, glaring evidence, we still suffer from cognitive dissonance.

So, it’s not really an issue of whether people are bad or ignorant. Not as I see it.

And, either way, I don’t think it’s much of a plan to hope the right wing voters are not going to be influenced by their podcasts and YouTube channels.

I think what's far more compelling as an argument - though far more boring and unsatisfying - is that America's institutions have not prevented the rich and powerful from taking control.

Because here's the one-line history of democracy: it is never the people who decide to be done with democracy; it is the elite.

In no Western country has a right-wing populist authoritarian ever come to power without the collaboration of established conservative elites - and, crucially, the supporters of those elites do not think they are getting rid of democracy when they vote for those conservative or right-wing parties.

But it doesn't do justice to the issue to complain that the problem is always the corruption and crookedness of the rich and powerful: the powerful do what they do because they have the power to do it and that power was given to them by the institutions in our democracies. In other words, we can always expect powerful people and bad people to try always to use their power or do bad things - that is a constant - the key point is to make sure that our institutions prevent that. The focus on individuals like Trump and Musk is emotionally satisfying and usually justified but it's not really tackling the problem.

Making sure institutions are insulated from elite influence is the real solution.

Here’s another way of looking at it: someone benefits from the polarization, right - it’s to someone’s advantage that a middle class white person in Alabama votes differently from a middle class white person in Vermont. What would a party look like if it solved that riddle?

 

[Lazaran]

The consequence of this idea, though, is that the people who voted for Trump are actually bad people.

And I don't think they are really.

Um, yeah, they really are (bad people).

They have to be to WILLINGLY ignore all the available evidence of DonOld’s depravity, criminality, and inhumanity.



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Um, yeah, they really are (bad people).

They have to be to WILLINGLY ignore all the available evidence of DonOld’s depravity, criminality, and inhumanity.



We. Told. Them. So.

You could argue that the less ignorant ones are the most bigoted for sure - those that are actively racist, Christian nationalist etc. Frankly, though, you’re only a racist or a Christian nationalist if you’re completely unaware of how the world actually works.

But most voters are pretty simple. To a food delivery driver from Queens or a construction worker in Las Vegas, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to have a rich businessman with a model wife in charge. Far more exciting than that boring woman who he’s never heard of. Is the delivery driver bad? Is the construction worker bad? I don’t think so.

 

[MajorRewrite]

To a food delivery driver from Queens or a construction worker in Las Vegas, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to have a rich businessman with a model wife in charge. Far more exciting than that boring woman who he’s never heard of. Is the delivery driver bad? Is the construction worker bad? I don’t think so.

If there are such completely uninformed people, it is irresponsible (bad) for them to vote.

 

[Lazaran]

You could argue that the less ignorant ones are the most bigoted for sure - those that are actively racist, Christian nationalist etc. Frankly, though, you’re only a racist or a Christian nationalist if you’re completely unaware of how the world actually works.

But most voters are pretty simple. To a food delivery driver from Queens or a construction worker in Las Vegas, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to have a rich businessman with a model wife in charge. Far more exciting than that boring woman who he’s never heard of. Is the delivery driver bad? Is the construction worker bad? I don’t think so.

No amount of rationalization will exonerate those who voted for DonOld & the MAGAt republicans.

Voters would have to be living under a rock to not be aware of… “Toxic Trumpism” (and in that case they probably shouldn’t be voting at all).

No, those who voted for DonOld & the MAGAt republicans are complicit; full stop.



And those on "the left" who trashed & boycotted Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the decent Democrats aided and abetted the near-criminal election of DonOld & the MAGAt republicans.



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[BrightShinyGirl]

The consequence of this idea, though, is that the people who voted for Trump are actually bad people.

And I don't think they are really.

The point of my last post was to show that, even in the face of really obvious, glaring evidence, we still suffer from cognitive dissonance.

So, it’s not really an issue of whether people are bad or ignorant. Not as I see it.

And, either way, I don’t think it’s much of a plan to hope the right wing voters are not going to be influenced by their podcasts and YouTube channels.

I think what's far more compelling as an argument - though far more boring and unsatisfying - is that America's institutions have not prevented the rich and powerful from taking control.

Because here's the one-line history of democracy: it is never the people who decide to be done with democracy; it is the elite.

In no Western country has a right-wing populist authoritarian ever come to power without the collaboration of established conservative elites - and, crucially, the supporters of those elites do not think they are getting rid of democracy when they vote for those conservative or right-wing parties.

But it doesn't do justice to the issue to complain that the problem is always the corruption and crookedness of the rich and powerful: the powerful do what they do because they have the power to do it and that power was given to them by the institutions in our democracies. In other words, we can always expect powerful people and bad people to try always to use their power or do bad things - that is a constant - the key point is to make sure that our institutions prevent that. The focus on individuals like Trump and Musk is emotionally satisfying and usually justified but it's not really tackling the problem.

Making sure institutions are insulated from elite influence is the real solution.

Here’s another way of looking at it: someone benefits from the polarization, right - it’s to someone’s advantage that a middle class white person in Alabama votes differently from a middle class white person in Vermont. What would a party look like if it solved that riddle?

At lot of white people in America are racist. They voted for Trump because he told them it was okay to be racist. Now they’re realizing that in addition to being racist like them, he’s stupid and crooked.

 

[Lazaran]

At lot of white people in America are racist. They voted for Trump because he told them it was okay to be racist. Now they’re realizing that in addition to being racist like them, he’s stupid and crooked - like them…

Fyp

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

If there are such completely uninformed people, it is irresponsible (bad) for them to vote.

Now they’re realizing that in addition to being racist like them, he’s stupid and crooked.

Right - and yet that’s the world we’re all living in.

Complaining about the voters is emotionally satisfying but it doesn’t get you any nearer to a workable solution.

You need democratic institutions that are immune to the stupidity and ignorance of voters and immune to the corruption of the conservative elite. Because those things are constants.

I don’t think America’s institutions - especially its media and its political class - have been particularly good at that over the last 45 years or so. Hence the mess that America is in.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

On this subject - the subject of sleepwalking into fascism and then complaining about voters - here's just a few thoughts off the top of my head, observations really:

- We all just accept the death penalty. There’s literally no discussion about it in America. We all just go about our lives untroubled by this moral stain. It's an old-fashioned idea maybe but morality is important.

- I don't know a single media outlet that is unstintingly in favor of unions - and the good wages and protections that come with them. They wring their hands about globalization and the gutting of the industrial base and send out reporters to the heartland as if they're anthropologists...but giving loud, confident support to something that is proven to meaningfully improve those people's lives? Tumbleweed. I mean, we have a system where a company's share price falls if it raises wages for its workers! And yet we celebrate a rising a stock market.

- America helped win WW2, it built the interstate highway system, it put a man on the moon, and invented the personal computer...and yet most Americans think the private sector is far more capable than the public? Which is just a generalized way of asking: where the fuck was the moonshot to tackle climate change? Instead, we let a bunch of think tanks spend over half a billion dollars between 2003-2010 denying its existence.

Do you see what I mean about America's democratic institutions? Morality, unions, government competence...just three parts of the American structure that have been weakened by dry rot. You have to strengthen those things all the time. All the time.

And that's just easy, headline stuff. Big ticket ideas that could have given Americans a belief and pride in their own country. I'm sure you could think of others yourself.

It's not even getting into the weeds of policy and effective bureaucracy...

 

[Chernosoth]

The elites are going batshit as they lose their elite status. Instead of acknowledging their follies and greed, they wage war against Trump, who is only the tip of the sword cutting them down. Their media outlets of note are losing their notes. A new class of elites is starting to rise, as it always does in these periods of national crisis and transformation, happening slightly more than once a century.

We saw how the world worked, and now we see how it doesn't work. The global systems of control and interdependence are breaking down.

 

[BoredDirtyCommie]

The elites are going batshit as they lose their elite status. Instead of acknowledging their follies and greed, they wage war against Trump, who is only the tip of the sword cutting them down. Their media outlets of note are losing their notes. A new class of elites is starting to rise, as it always does in these periods of national crisis and transformation, happening slightly more than once a century.

We saw how the world worked, and now we see how it doesn't work. The global systems of control and interdependence are breaking down.

How is a billionaire landlord not part of "the elite"?

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

A new class of elites is starting to rise

I had no idea we have new fossil fuel companies. Do we have new asset management companies, new newspapers and television channels, new banks?

Do we have new political parties too?

 

[Lazaran]

On this subject - the subject of sleepwalking into fascism and then complaining about voters - here's just a few thoughts off the top of my head, observations really:

- We all just accept the death penalty. There’s literally no discussion about it in America. We all just go about our lives untroubled by this moral stain. It's an old-fashioned idea maybe but morality is important.

- I don't know a single media outlet that is unstintingly in favor of unions - and the good wages and protections that come with them. They wring their hands about globalization and the gutting of the industrial base and send out reporters to the heartland as if they're anthropologists...but giving loud, confident support to something that is proven to meaningfully improve those people's lives? Tumbleweed. I mean, we have a system where a company's share price falls if it raises wages for its workers! And yet we celebrate a rising a stock market.

- America helped win WW2, it built the interstate highway system, it put a man on the moon, and invented the personal computer...and yet most Americans think the private sector is far more capable than the public? Which is just a generalized way of asking: where the fuck was the moonshot to tackle climate change? Instead, we let a bunch of think tanks spend over half a billion dollars between 2003-2010 denying its existence.

Do you see what I mean about America's democratic institutions? Morality, unions, government competence...just three parts of the American structure that have been weakened by dry rot. You have to strengthen those things all the time. All the time.

And that's just easy, headline stuff. Big ticket ideas that could have given Americans a belief and pride in their own country. I'm sure you could think of others yourself.

It's not even getting into the weeds of policy and effective bureaucracy...

The concentration of manufacturing & petroleum products production back in "the good old days" when America was "great" also led to concentrated pollution in America that was unsustainable / unsurvivable (not to mention, a massive global economic …imbalance), so…



Globalization isn’t "great", but the alternative is less "great", imho.



We. Told. Them. So.

 

[Chernosoth]

How is a billionaire landlord not part of "the elite"?

Real estate crashes, corporations become bankrupt, government stops bailing them out.